Massacre in Brazil

Wed Nov 6 01:29:32 UTC 1996

Dear fellows,

I apologize if you have already gotten this message from some
other source, but it is an important report of the present
situation regarding a massacre of "non-contacted" Indians
occurred in the state of Rondonia, Brazil.

Letters of support are VERY welcome!

Thank you (all) very much for your attention,

Gabas, Jr.

---------------------------------
Nilson Gabas, Jr.
UC-Santa Barbara
Department of Linguistics
Santa Barbara, CA 93106 USA
(805) 893-3776  - voice
(805) 893-7769  - fax
---------------------------------

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 4 Nov 1996 15:08:51 -0500
From: Megan Crowhurst <mjcrowhu at gibbs.oit.unc.edu>
To: outil at lists.stanford.edu
Subject: Masacre de indios en Rondonia

might be interested and dismayed to read this notice of massacres of
previously uncontacted indigenous people in Brazil.  This is not entirely
new, but apparently the attacks described below have been stepped up
recently.  In addition to the human tragedy, the news is relevant to us
as linguists: the people currently being mowed down have had no previous
experience with whites and are monolingual speakers of indigenous languages.
(I've left on all the headings so you can trace the message's path.)

Megan Crowhurst

> Recibi este mensaje por la Red Latina.  Ya le mande
> un mensaje al Sr. Jobim.
>
>
> >Return-path: <redlat-sp-owner at rcp.net.pe>
> >Date: Wed, 30 Oct 1996 11:32:55 -0200
> >From: Julio Alberto Wong Un <wongunja at omega.lncc.br>
> >Subject: redlat-sp: Masacre de indios en Rondonia
> >Sender: redlat-sp-owner at rcp.net.pe
> >Sender: wongunja at omega.lncc.br
> >To: Red Latinoamericana de Salud Publica <redlat-sp at rcp.net.pe>,
> > Beryl Jacobs <beryl at cbcbibl.edu.pe>
> >Organization: Escola Nacional de Saude Publica
> >
>>> Original Sender: kenneth_walsh at edf.org
>>> Mailing List:    NATIVE-L
>>>
>>> From: Kenneth Walsh <Kenneth_Walsh at edf.org>
>>> Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 07:23:31 -0400
>>>
>>> URGENT ACTION
>>>
>>> Stephan Schwartzman                  Vincent Carelli
>>> Environmental Defense Fund           Indigenous Work Center (CTI)
>>> Tel. 202-387-3500                    (55 11) 813 3450
>>> Fax  202-234-6049                    (55 11) 813 0747
>>> steves at edf.org
>>>
>>> Amazon Rancher Carries Out "Ethnic Cleansing" of Indians to Get
>>> Land in Rondonia:
>>>
>>> Genocide in the Amazon
>>>
>>> 10/10/95
>>> Filmaker Vincent Carelli, of the Indigenist Work Center (CTI) in Sao Paulo
>>> and Marcelo Santos of the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) documented
>>> today that a rancher in Xupinaguaia county in Rondonia state in the
>>> Brazilian Amazon bulldozed the remains of a village of uncontacted
>>> Indians, to erase evidence of the Indians'presence. Before and after areal
>>> photographs of the village site reveal the destruction. The cattle rancher
>>> had already clearcut the forest in the area. This is the most recent peice
>>> of evidence in a pattern of killings, terrorism, forced removal and
>>> destruction of the traces of uncontacted Indians over the last decade in
>>> Rondonia that the NGO and Santos, a government Indian agent, have brought
>>> to light. Indians in Brazil in theory are guaranteed rights to the land
>>> they traditionally occupy by the Constitution, and the government is
>>> obligated to protect them.  This pattern of genocide of uncontacted
>>> Indians in Rondonia has yet to be investigated by the police and has gone
>>> entirely unpunished by the courts.
>>>
>>> In mid-September, FUNAI agents in Rondonia delivered a report to Federal
>>> Prosecutor Francisco Marinho, in Porto Velho, Rondonia documenting the
>>> expulsion by gunfire of uncontacted Indians from their village. Witnesses
>>> attest that the rancher Hercules Golviea Dalafini, of the Modelo ranch in
>>> Xupinaguaia county ordered his men to open fire on the surviving members
>>> of an uncontacted Indian group to drive them off of land that he claims.
>>>
>>> On September 13, a National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) team discovered a
>>> clearcut in the forest on the site of an indigenous garden, where a
>>> bulldozer had attempted to extinguish the traces of a wrecked Indian
>>> house, and holes dug by the Indians around it.  The remains of a garden of
>>> corn and papaya were still clear at the site, as were 14 holes and signs
>>> of an older house.
>>>
>>> Various reports confirm that in January of 1996 the rancher hired a
>>> contractor to clearcut the area in month of January. The contractor
>>> entered the village shooting, pulled down and burned the longhouse, and
>>> destroyed the garden of corn and squash. On this occasion, three Indians,
>>> with long hair and without clothing, fled and were pursued through the
>>> forests on the ranch. Later, a bulldozer opened an acess road for the
>>> deforestation and attempted to cover up the vestiges of the village. That
>>> the deforestation was done in January, the height of the rainy season,
>>> indicates that the rancher's intent was to destroy evidence of the
>>> Indians' presence, since deforestation for cattle pasture or agriculture
>>> is done in the dry season.
>>>
>>> This type of action by cattle ranchers against isolated Indians in
>>> Corumbiara and Xupinaguaia counties has been repeated over the last ten
>>> years. In 1984, loggers' trucks were shot with arrows by Indians in
>>> vicinity of the Igarape Umere (Umere Creek).  In 1985, Marcelo Santos
>>> reported evidence of a possible massacre of Indians on Mr. Junqueira
>>> Vilela's Yvupita ranch. He found the same scenario as last September:
>>> houses and gardens destroyed, a bulldozer to finish the job, and bullet
>>> shells.
>>>
>>> No judicial inquiry was ever opened to establish what had happened.  In
>>> April 1986, FUNAI interdicted a 60 thousand hectare area for nine months,
>>> during which time the cattle ranchers continued clearcutting freely,
>>> interfering with FUNAI's attemtps to contact the Indians. On confirming
>>> that the Indians were not at the moment on the Yvupita ranch, FUNAI
>>> suspended the interdiction of the area, turning it over to the ranches.
>>>
>>> Indigenist Marcelo Santos, meanwhile, continued his investigations,
>>> visiting the region repeatedly, and collecting references to the Indians
>>> from local workers. Starting in 1994, as head of the FUNAI department for
>>> Isolated Indians in Rondonia, Santos put the search on a more systematic
>>> basis.
>>>
>>> On September 3, 1995, FUNAI finally located the first two Canoe Indians on
>>> the Umere Creek, on the boundaries of Antenor Duarte's Sao Sebastiao
>>> ranch, and Alceu Feldman's Olga ranch.
>>>
>>> The Federal Court in Porto Velho, at the request of the attorney general's
>>> office, had already guaranteed a safe conduct on the ranches for the FUNAI
>>> team, to allow the search to go forward, and then issued several court
>>> orders interdicting a 50 thousand hectare area in order to protect these
>>> Indians.  By the end of October, contact was consolidated with the Canoe,
>>> and another 7 Indians of the Tupari language family. The judicial
>>> interdiction was subsequently ratified by FUNAI.
>>>
>>> In May 1996, filmaker Vincent Carelli, who has documented case since 1986,
>>> collected from the Tupari a statement that confirms the ocurrence of an
>>> armed attack against these Indians ten years ago, in which about ten were
>>> killed.  The members of  both groups show visibile signs of psychological
>>> disturbance from the violence they have suffered. Anthropological reports
>>> attest that the Canoe have been driven away at least twice  from the left
>>> bank of the Umere Creek (on Mr. Almir Lando's ranch).
>>>
>>> The vestiges discovered last week on the Modelo and Bagatolli ranches
>>> suggest that the group in question is a third group, with different
>>> characteristics from the others: they dig deep holes in the middle of
>>> their longhouses and mark the trees around their villages.
>>>
>>> The discovery of the first two groups in 1995, and the interdiction of
>>> parts of some the ranches in the area appear to have moved rancher Dalfini
>>> to a desperate attempt to wipe out the vestiges of indigenous presence on
>>> his ranch. The three Indians who lived in the area have fled into forest.
>>> The FUNAI team sighted one man last month, while he was collecting wild
>>> honey.
>>>
>>> The World Bank has financed development projects in the region over the
>>> last decade that inlcude indigneous protection components. The most rec
> President of perpetrators indter instrucontact:
>>>
>>> Stephan Schwartzman                  Vincent Carelli
>>> Environmental Defense Fund           Indigenous Work Center (CTI)
>>> Tel. 202-387-3500                    (55 11) 813 3450
>>> Fax  202-234-6049                    (55 11) 813 0747
>>> steves at edf.org
>>