UA: 229/09 Index: AMR 19/016/2009 Brazil Date: 24 September 2009

Also send copies to diplomatic representatives accredited to your country. Please check with your section office if sending appeals after the above date. This is the first update of UA 229/09 (AMR 19/015/2009).

URGENT ACTION

DEMAND JUSTICE FOR GUARANI KAIOWA FAMILIES

ADditional Information

Mato Grosso do Sul state contains some of the smallest, poorest and most densely populated Indigenous areas in Brazil: rural pockets of poverty surrounded by large soya and sugar cane plantations and cattle ranches where life is plagued by ill-health and squalid living conditions. Some 60,000 Guarani Kaiowa Indigenous people live a precarious existence – social breakdown has led to high levels of violence, suicide and malnutrition. Frustrated at the slowness of the land demarcation process, the Guarani Kaiowa have begun reoccupying ancestral lands, but have been subjected to intimidation and violent evictions.

In November 2007 the Ministry of Justice, the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office, FUNAI and 23 Indigenous leaders, signed an agreement (Termo de Ajustamento de Conduta, TAC) which commits FUNAI to identify 36 different Guarani Kaiowa ancestral lands - including Laranjeira Ñanderu land - by April 2010, to be handed over. The agreement was vehemently opposed by state government and the farming lobby. After the signing of the TAC, the state governor André Puccinelli threatened not to honour the accord and the acting vice-governor, Jerson Domingos, inflamed the situation by warning the process would inevitably lead a “bloodbath”, with conflict between the police, the Indians and the land owners. Local farming interests have opposed the process, exaggerating the amount of land that could be identified as Indigenous in the media, and repeatedly trying to block the process judicially. There are currently over 80 appeals being heard in the Regional Federal Court (Tribunal Regional Federal) involving Indigenous land in Mato Grosso do Sul.

Since the reoccupation of their ancestral lands, the Ñanderu Laranjeira community have been surviving largely on food parcels provided by FUNAI. The land they are on, which is surrounded by cane and corn plantations, is constantly watched by private security guards hired by the landowners and they have been prohibited from planting their own food. Ilda Barbosa da Almeida, one of the Indigenous women in the village, informed CIMI, the Catholic organization which works for Indigenous peoples, that two children had died in the community as the private security guards barred access to federal government health workers. The community also suffered three suicides during this time.

The original eviction order against the Ñanderu Laranjeira community was suspended pending a FUNAI report on the legitimacy of their claims. However, opposition from the farm owner and the farming lobby has so far prevented FUNAI from carrying out the necessary work. In July 2009 the farming body, Farmasul, appealed to the regional federal court and succeeded in suspending all anthropological surveys of Indigenous lands, including the Ñanderu Laranjeira lands. Although this appeal was overturned in August, and the studies are about to recommence, the Ñanderu Laranjeira were still evicted.

Because of the ongoing failure to resolve outstanding land claims, several other Guarani Kaiowa communities have ended up living beside highways. They have been exposed to threats from security guards hired to prevent them from trying to reoccupy land, health problems related to living in inadequate temporary shelters and lack of medical assistance. In addition, a large number have been killed and injured in traffic accidents.

Both the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which Brazil signed in 2007 and the International Labour Organisation’s Convention 169 to which Brazil is a party enshrine Indigenous People’s rights to their ancestral lands and call on states to establish mechanisms whereby these rights can be adjudicated and recognized. The Brazilian constitution (1988) also affirms Brazilian Indigenous People’s rights to their lands and the Union’s responsibility to demarcate them.

Further information on UA: 229/09 Index: AMR 19/016/2009 Issue Date: 24 September 2009