The Guarani Say: Death Before Eviction

translated by Todd Prane

Two hundred and fifty Guarani-Kaiowá indigenous people in Jaguapiré, Brazil have threatened to kill themselves in a collective suicide if they are obligated to abandon their legally recognized territory. Ranchers from the area, who have invaded the Gua rani territories and have forced the inhabitants to abandon them, are waiting for a decision from the state court in an attempt to achieve the definitive expulsion of the indigenous people. During the month of May, Marta Silva Vito Guarani, president of t he Kaguateca Association for Displaced Indians, traveled to the United States for Amazon Week V to let the international community know about the dramatic situation that the Guarani people find themselves in.

"How much time will we have to wait before Brazilian justice recognizes our rights to our land?" was the question asked by Marta Vito Guarani during her press conference in San Francisco. More than 11,000 indigenous people, including the Guarani-Kaiowá , Ñandeva and M'bya, have abandoned their land in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul due to the invasion of their lands by ranchers supported by the local government. The indigenous territories in the state have been reduced to half their previous size durin g the last decade, and they are currently less than 25,000 hectares (62,500 acres) in total.

According to Marta Vito, "The cattle ranchers always win in the courts, while they violate the rights of Indians on the land. We are like the plants: We cannot live without our earth, without our land. More than 7,000 Indians are working in the coal mi nes, and in the sugar-cane processing plants. They are living in slavery. This is the integration that white society offers us. But we are Indians, the original owners of this land, and we cannot accept this humiliating and inhuman situation."

Expulsion and Suicide

"We are the poorest and the most abandoned people in Brazil. In their desperation, the Guarani, especially youths, have resorted to suicide." Indigenous organizations confirm that close to 300 indigenous people have killed themselves in the past decade . The Brazilian government has registered 111 cases between 1986 and 1993.

The community of Posto Indígena Durados, where Marta is from, has had the highest rate of suicides in the country.

In 1992, after years of struggle, the Brazilian Ministry of Justice declared 2,089 hectares (5,422 acres) as the indigenous area of Jaguapiré, in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, to be the permanent possession of the Guarani-Kaiowá. In spite of the leg al recognition of the land, and even though it is one of the areas most densely populated by indigenous people in Brazil, the Guarani-Kaiowá have had to subsist on small pieces of land, and submit themselves to the most brutal social and economic conditio ns. The large region of jungle and savanna that was once used by the Guarani for hunting, fishing, and agriculture, has been reduced to pastures for cattle, generally subsidized by the state.

Ownership of land in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul is the most concentrated in the country, with 1% of the population owning more than 70% of the land.

During the last few years, two cattle ranchers, who invaded most of the Guarani lands, have forced them, through threats and intimidation, to abandon their land. Moreover, they have deforested the majority of the land to convert it to pasture. At the e nd of last year, these same two cattle ranchers made a formal petition to judge Jean Marcos Ferreira to evict the Guarani. The petition was accepted by the judge. The Nucleus of Indigenous Rights (NDI), a non-governmental organization that promotes human rights for the indigenous people of Brazil, FUNAI (the Brazilian Indian Agency), and the federal district attorney's office all appealed the judge's decision against the Guarani people. The case was then transferred to the first section of the federal app eals court in São Paulo, and awaits the decision of Judge Pedro Rotta.

If the eviction is upheld, 250 Guarani people have threatened to commit collective suicide, a path that they have chosen to confront the continued invasions of their land.

Economic activities like cattle ranching have depleted the natural resources that the Guarani depend upon. The destruction of their way of life has led young and old alike to feel humiliated and discouraged to the point of deepest depression.

The Guarani are divided into three groups—the Ñandeva, Kaiowá and M'bya—and live in the south of Brazil, from the state of Espirito Santo to Rio Grande do Sul. The majority of them live in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul.

The pressure and colonization of Guarani lands has intensified due to the fact that they are located in the area of the Paraná-Paraguay government project to connect Bolivia and Paraguay to the Atlantic. This project would flood many indigenous territo ries and destroy the wetlands and savanna.

Although the case of Jaguapiré is one of the most serious, another 11 Guarani communities have also been threatened or evicted. According to the Indigenist Missionary Council (CIMi), another Guarani community, located in Takuaraty in Mato Grosso do Sul , has just recovered its land after being evicted six times. After that land was recovered, about 300 Guarani-Kaiowá burned a bridge that allowed access to the land. They were also accused by ranchers of having burned down a house and a school. According to CIMi, however, these acts were perpetrated by a non-indigenous settler in an attempt to provoke military action against the Guarani of Takuaraty. Even though the military police occupying the area have asserted that their position is neutral, they have acted against the indigenous population.

Resistance and Repression

The Kaguateca Association for Displaced Indians has united all of the indigenous groups of the state to reclaim land for the dispossessed and to prevent future evictions. Eleven thousand have been evicted in Mato Grosso do Sul, 9,000 of whom are Guaran i. Marta Vito Guarani founded the association after the assassination of her uncle, Marcal Tupã de Souza, a well-known indigenous leader and one of the hundreds of leaders assassinated for their resistance to the invasions. "In Brazil," Marta said, "the k illing of Native people doesn't surprise anyone: not politicians, not the government and not the civilian population." Even though many assassinations have been investigated, none have been resolved.

The Guarani were able to resist the invasions until the beginning of this century. Now new pressures make this resistance even more difficult. "For the Guarani, the basis of their resistance is their religion. But today, many Protestant churches come t o our communities with the same discourse that the Jesuits came with during the 'discovery' of Brazil. They are killing our culture. Without a cultural identity, our people wander the streets of the cities, drinking, panhandling, being mocked by white soc iety."

Twenty-one Guarani-Kaiowá communities that make up the Atyguassú, a federation of Guarani communities that brings together traditional elders (religious leaders) and younger community-based leaders, that the Kaguateca Association is a member of, were t o participate, at the end of June, in an assembly that would represent all of the indigenous peoples of the state of Mato Grosso. They hope that this large coalition will operate more effectively to lobby for territorial rights.

Positive Signs

In an unprecedented decision, the supreme court of São Paulo rejected the decision of the local court in favor of the ranch company, Sattin, S.A., which sought to relocate the Guarani of Sete Cerros. Moreover, the court accepted the petition by the Nuc leus for Indigenous Rights to prohibit a judge from Mato Grosso do Sul from participating in cases related to the Guarani in the future, since all of her decisions have been in favor of the ranchers' interests, and have resulted in thousands of displaced Indians.

In spite of the international pressure that Brazil faces, and the condemnation of the violation of human rights that is being committed there, nothing has been done to demarcate indigenous territories nor to prevent the suicides and violence from conti nuing. Indigenous territories were supposed to have been demarcated by Oct. 5, 1993. This never happened. According to official sources, four Guarani committed suicide at the end of 1993, and two more cases occurred in the beginning of 1994.

In a letter recently sent to FUNAI, the community of Jaguapiré confirmed that they have "decided to die before abandoning Jaguapiré," and it is possible that if urgent attention is not directed to the cases, what is now a threat could become a regretta ble fact.

This case has been in limbo since January. With media attention now turned toward the new Brazilian president, it is feared that Judge Pedro Rotta may order the eviction of the Guarani. It is crucial that pressure be kept on Rotta to rule in favor of t he Guarani.

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[Sources for the original Amor y Rabia article include information from the Rainforest Action Network and Marta Vito Guarani originally published in Abya Yala, the magazine of SAIIC. Thanks to Amanaka'a for additional information used in this articl e.]