Adenilson da Silva Nascimento, a 54-year-old indigenous man better known as Pinduca Tumpinambá, grew up and lived his entire life in his village in the region known as Serra desTempes, Olivença, in the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia. This year, on the first of May, he was returning from a day’s work fishing with his wife and two of his six children – a one-year-old baby and a girl of 15 — when they were ambushed by three armed, hooded men who instantly killed Pinduca. His wife Zenaildes shielded the baby with her body and received serious gunshot wounds to her leg and back. Their daughter fled through the forest, maintaining cell phone contact with members of the village, who called the authorities.

The indigenous leader María Valdelice, better known as Jamapoti Tumpinambá, says that this is not the first time something like this has happened. She says it all has to do with their indigenous lands and the people interested in them. “There have been more than 29 indigenous killed in just three regions of Tumpinambá lands in the state of Bahía, between 2013 and 2015. The government bears responsibility because they have not delineated our lands and there are people claiming these lands for themselves,” Jamapoti told the Americas Program.

Two days later, in another village named Pambú, which belongs to the Tumabalalá people in the municipality of Arabé, a 40-year-old indigenous man named Gilmar Alves da Silva, was hit by a car while he was returning home on his motorcycle. Then, while he was on the ground, he was shot several times. Gilmar was able to tell part of the story himself; he had strength to return to his village by motorcycle, but died soon after.

This made three murders in a two-week time period from late April to early May, all with the same modus operandi. Eusébio Ka’apor, from the Alto Turiaçu indigenous territory, in the state of Maranhão, was assassinated April 26; he was shot in the back.

The Consejo Indigenista Misionario [Indigenous Missionary Council of the Brazilian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, or CIMI] issued an immediate response, declaring that “Based on our evaluation, the cowardly attacks that led to the deaths of Eusebius Ka’apor on April 26 in the state of Maranhão; Adenilson da Silva Nascimento, on Tupinambá territory on May 1; and Gilmar Alves da Silva, on Tumbalalá lands on May 3, in the state of Bahía, are not isolated incidents. This is a case of selected serial killings of indigenous leaders and the indigenous peoples of Brazil.”

CIMI also maintains that these assassinations are linked to the racist discourse of members of the National Congress, specifically the congressional faction known as “ruralists,” who have paralyzed the process of demarcation of indigenous lands and openly favor transnational corporations.

In Brazil — the largest country in Latin America, Agrarian Reform comes down to one law, No. 4.504, passed during the military dictatorship (1964-1985). Among other provisions, it states: “Agrarian reform is the set of measures designed to promote the best distribution of land, through modifications to the law governing its possession and use, to comply with the principles of social justice and increase productivity.”

According to CIMI’s records, the assassinations of indigenous people in Brazil have occurred over several governments. In the administration of  Fernando Enrique Cardoso (1995 – 1998 and 1999 – 2002) 167 assassinations of indigenous persons were registered. During the administration of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003 – 2006 and 2007 – 2010) the number of assassinations rose to 452. In 2011, President Dilma Rousseff’s first year in office, 51 killings were recorded, and in 2012 there were 57 more.

Distribution for whom?

In reality, land distribution in this country seems to be only for the agro-industrial and real-estate sectors. According to the National Institute on Agrarian Reform (INCRA), in 2007 and 2008 the concentration of land owned by foreign capital, most of it from the United States and Europe, increased by 12 kilometers a day. In 2010, this represented an accumulation of more than 4.5 million hectares, concentrated in the states of São Paulo, Bahía, Minas Gerais and Mato Grosso. Added to this are the vast extensions of territory that the federal government grants to mining, petroleum, clean energy, and other interests – all in the name of economic growth.

More than 60 percent of the nation’s lands are public, but they not officially delineated and registered as public patrimony. Instead they are often informally occupied by private owners, even as the government says there is no land for Agrarian Reform. But there is land for sugar cane, eucalyptus, soy,” says Nadia Akauã of the indigenous Tucú village. “Agro-toxins are driving out indigenous communities, because they are being poisoned. Not a single government project takes indigenous people into consideration.”

“We no longer believe in the government because it is all set to have Congress approve congressional amendment PEC-215, which denies our right, our ancestry, and our spirituality. The government is already dominated by the multinational soy, eucalyptus, and corn industries. The ruralist caucus in Congress has no interest in meeting the needs of Brazilian society; on the contrary, they want more growth and they either order us to be killed or they send in the police and the military,” Ytajibá Souza, one of the indigenous leaders of Tucum village, told the Americas Program.

In reference to the distribution of lands for agroindustry, the ecological economist Joan Martínez Alier, in his article Sudamérica: el triunfo del post extractivismo en el 2015, refers to neoliberal and progressive countries that persist in promoting primary exports to the point of saying that in order to have less extraction of raw materials, there has to be more. Martínez said that a ton of raw materials that is imported has always been more expensive than a ton that is exported, even at the height of the boom in the price of prime materials “… Peru, Brazil and Colombia export, in tons, much more than they import, and they can’t even pay for their imports,” says Martínez Alier.

In 2012 the organization GRAIN reported on an investigation of the intermediaries for multinational corporations in the countries where the most land grabbing is taking place. To cite just one example, in Brazil José Minaya, general manager of the Teachers Insurance & Annuity Association – College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA-CREF) in the United States, has seen to it that the retirement savings and investments of U.S. professors are channeled into the expansion of sugar cane, among other projects in Brazil. Sugar cane, along with other types of plantations, is characterized by the use of slave labor, destruction of ecosystems, and theft of indigenous lands. According to GRAIN’s report, 3 percent of the population of Brazil own nearly two-thirds of arable land.

Thus, the assassination of Adenilson is not an isolated situation, Carlos José F. Santos an indigenous professor at the State University of Santa Cruz (UESC), insists.

“It is important to point out that Pinduca was an indigenous leader respected for his clarity about our rights, about our indigenous way of thinking that is contrary to the interests of the ruralists —owners of vast expanses of land— about capitalists and predatory development. This made many people uncomfortable",

SANTOS TOLD THE AMÉRICAS PROGRAM.

“People from NGOs and the government have come to talk about REDD [Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation program, the platform for a market for the exchange of carbon credits, or pollution permits, by the world’s corporations that produce carbon dioxide emissions] and protected areas, but we are careful, because there is always something else going on behind the scenes. Without these programs, we are taking care of our Mother Earth. Moreover, we know how to take care of her and do our own monitoring; the government has no reason to get involved,” Ytajibá said.

Another form of concentration of land ownership in Brazil has taken place through ecological colonialism, where land is granted by means of national and transnational agreements to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to be administered by them. These organizations include the Canadian International Development Organization (CIDA); Ford Foundation, Club 1001; Both Ends; Survival International; Conservation International (CI); Inter-American Foundation; MacArthur Foundation; Rockefeller Foundation; W. Alton Jones Foundation; World Wildlife Foundation; Summer Linguistics Institute (SIL); National Wildlife Federation (NWF) ; The Nature Conservancy; European Working Group on Amazonia (EWIC); and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). These organizations, among others, have interfered in regional and federal planning for the conservation of areas denominated as Protected Areas, where speculation takes place with so-called carbon credits – designed to allow countries or industries from wealthy countries to continue to pollute while other countries, such as Brazil, conserve their ecosystems – that directly affect indigenous communities.

The Tumpinambá no longer expect anything from the state

The National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), in an anthropological report about the ancestral lands of the Tupinambá, acknowledged the presence of at least 4,700 members of the Tupinambá indigenous group, concentrated in at least 23 communities between the mountains and the coast in the state of Bahia. In the same study, the FUNAI acknowledged that more than 47,000 hectares are Tupinambá lands.

Nevertheless, the Brazilian government has failed to officially recognize these lands as belonging to the Tupinambá. Since 2004 , several Tupinambá villages have reclaimed for themselves at least 80 percent of the territory officially recognized by the FUNAI report. The Tupinambá are one of the few indigenous peoples of Brazil who have dared to demarcate their borders on their own and occupy those lands. They have expelled ranchers, landowners and others who had power over enormous amounts of land, some of which were destined to become tourist complexes with luxury hotels and restaurants.

According to Itajubá, one of the oldest leaders of the indigenous village Tukum and a teacher of the Tupinambá language, “We already waited too long and don’t intend to wait any longer; this is the territory of our ancestors and if the minister does not demarcate our lands, we’ll do it ourselves; we’re not afraid.”

Arson

Meanwhile, on May 7 in the village of Patiburi, in Belmonte, when everyone was harvesting their cacao, two houses were set on fire, along with part of their plantings. According to a CIMI report, these actions against the village of Patiburi have intensified since the end of 2013, when the delimitation of territorial borders and the reports of the FUNAI studies were published in the Diario Oficial del Estado [Federal Gazette].

“The government had an opportunity to directly negotiate with us, and I think that opportunity is over. Because we can already see that we don’t have a space for dialogue, and because decisions are made without consulting anyone. And our young people have to prepare for a new moment of struggle. Because we have the time of our rituals, of planting and harvest, but we also have the time of war. If we don’t die, we cannot be born anew, and if they do not want to establish those borders, we will occupy and we will fight to the point of offering our lives to the spirits — our ancestors — if it’s necessary,” insisted Nadia Akauã.

Indigenous leaders from the five regions of Brazil traveled for days to an encampment convoked by the Coordinating Body of Brazil's indigenous people (APIB), which took place from April 13 to 16 in the federal district in Brasilia. The district is both a geographical center and a center of power in Brazil, as it is where the three branches of government are headquartered.

For four days and three nights, more than 1,500 indigenous individuals filled one of the gardens in front of the National Congress with colors, music and rituals. Their principal objective was to put pressure on the three branches of government so that the proposed constitutional amendment No. 215 - better known as the PEC 215/2000 - is not passed. This amendment, among other things, would transfer the decision-making power of demarcation of indigenous territories to Brazil's legislative branch. Currently, this type of legal-political decision is in the hands of the executive branch.

Within Brazil's Congress, there is a faction known as the "Rural Legislators," a group of legislators who have transferred jurisdiction over private multinational companies to the legislative branch. Of the 50 members of Congress that make up the special commission that will review the proposed constitutional amendment, PEC 215/2000, at least 20 financed their electoral campaigns with support from big farming, mining and energy firms, as well as from the forestry sector and banks. Among the members of the Rural Legislators group is Agriculture Minister Katia Abreu, a business owner and fierce defender of big agriculture businesses. Another is Luis Carlos Heinze, one of the leaders of the group, who is also the president of the Parliamentary Farming Front (FPA). In 2014, a lawsuit was brought against him by indigenous organizations because he encouraged industrial farmers to use armed guards in order to forcibly remove indigenous people from their land.

Those who attended the protest dressed in their traditional attire as leaders and sages of the community and painted their faces with vibrant vegetable-based paints of red, yellow and black. Some smoked tobacco; others prepared their bows and arrows. It was a moment to take to the streets and deliver a letter signed by all of the groups present at the encampment, addressed to President Dilma Rousseff, urging her to approve and sign a bill that is still within her power regarding 20 indigenous territories. They also reminded her of her commitment, expressed to indigenous groups during her presidential campaign in an open letter in 2014, where she pledged not to change the constitution and to move ahead with demarcating indigenous lands.

"During her presidential campaign, she [Dilma Rousseff] committed to demarcating indigenous territory in Brazil. Today, we see that indigenous people are moving toward complete disappearance," said Francisco da Silva, an indigenous Kapinawá leader from the state of Pernambuco. "If she herself does not honor her own words and the constitution, the only thing left for us to do is for us to demarcate our own territories and to defend our ancestral lands ourselves, because if we do nothing, this law will leave us in the hands of the multinational corporations."

While the encampment was underway in Brasilia, Rousseff was asked by various media outlets in an April 15 press conference about those who were protesting. Her response attempted to discredit the presence of the indigenous groups. She affirmed that the discussion regarding indigenous rights in her administration is "systematic," and stated that "there is no unified indigenous movement; the question regarding indigenous movements is not singular; it is diverse."

"Having declared that, [Rousseff] committed a grave error in her discourse, because we are here with representatives of the five regions of the country, with more than 200 different indigenous groups represented," said Sonia Guajajara, an indigenous woman from the state of Maranhao in northeast Brazil.

The military police were constantly present, protecting the headquarters of Brazil's three branches of government from the indigenous protesters. (Photo: Santiago Navarro F.)

Dried Up Dialogue

The indigenous leader Babau Tupinamba, leader of one of the best-organized groups in Brazil, who live with a high degree of self-sufficiency, readily affirmed that indigenous people need to prepare themselves for a more radical, even violent struggle. "I said in the Congress that we have returned to colonial times. And we, as the Tupinamba, the first people to confront the colonizers in the year 1500, today we call on all indigenous people to prepare themselves for a confrontation. And if it is necessary, we will even form a guerrilla force if this law is not rejected," he told Truthout.

Babau knows that his words carry a heavy weight and extreme responsibility, but argues that what is at risk are the lives of the indigenous people who are being assassinated by the owners of industrial farms. "We as indigenous people are pacifists; we have no desire to have a confrontation; we just want our lands. But with these types of decisions, they are pushing us to a point of rebellion. If we don't have another option and they continue like this - there are 102 proposals in Congress against indigenous people - we will have to form a guerrilla, because we are not going to let them force us off our ancestral lands; we refuse to leave. Because an indigenous person without land is no longer indigenous."

The PEC 215 bill is just one of the many violations of the human rights of indigenous people in Brazil. "There is no community right now that is not suffering the impacts of a capitalist project. Behind the impetus for this law are the interests of Monsanto, Nestlé, Syngenta, Cargill and other corporations that want to take our lands. They are the same ones that promote the killing of indigenous people," Rootsi Tsitna, an indigenous person from the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, told Truthout.

All indigenous groups have suffered violations of their human rights. "There are hundreds of projects in indigenous communities and none of them consulted the people. They are violating the 1988 constitution, which came at the cost of a lot of blood, and the United Nation's International Labor Convention 169, which establishes the requirement of previous consultation of indigenous people. We should not have to negotiate anything, because they are our lands and it is our right [to be here]," said da Silva, the indigenous man from Pernambuco.

Allies?

Not only indigenous groups worry about the PEC 215 bill. Organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) have also expressed concern, since the amendment would also affect protected natural areas in the country. However, theirs contrasts with the position of several indigenous groups that have been affected by their politics. As an example, in 2011, the Maggi Group sold for the first time 85,000 tons of its "responsible soy," with the "green label" given by the WWF, through a program of "environmental certification" in collaboration with Bunge, Cargill, Monsanto, Nestlé, Syngenta, Unilever and other corporations that have been connected to the forcible removal of indigenous people from their lands in Brazil and various countries around the world.

Some political figures came to visit the indigenous encampment as supposed allies, such as ex-presidential candidate Marina Silva. She is an honorary member of the International Union for Nature Conservation (UICN) and a defender of the conservation policies promoted by the WWF and other nongovernmental organizations that promote national parks, natural protected areas, peace parks, cross-border parks, sanctuaries and green market policies such as carbon credits.

"There are many politicians who have come to talk with us, above all during election season, but all that we want is the demarcation of our territories," an indigenous Cayapo individual from the town of Xingu in Mato Grosso do Sul told Truthout. He argues that carbon credits are another way to remove them from their land. "We have seen the experiences of the Suruí people, who accepted the REDD and its carbon credits and conservation projects. They can no longer hunt, grow crops or use materials they need for celebrations and rituals," he said. "We know how to take care of nature because she is our mother and we don't want another carbon credit agreement, because it is just another way of removing us from our sacred lands."

At the encampment, indigenous Mundurukus denounce plans to build the biggest hydroelectric dam in Brazil on the Tapajós River, which would lead to the disappearance of the Munduruku people. The presence of armed forces has been the only signal of dialogue thus far. (Photo: Santiago Navarro F.)

Indian Day?

During the encampment, the indigenous leaders appeared in the House of Representatives and the Senate several times, not just to deliver their signed letter, but to express their discontent and their rage. The response was that PEC 215 will not be voted on, but neither will it be archived, which left the indigenous representatives unconvinced.

On the encampment's last day, April 16, Congress' doors were opened in a tribute to the indigenous representatives in honor of "Indian Day." Due to security issues, only 500 out of 700 in attendance were allowed entrance. The mayor did not attend the event.

Indigenous leader Marcos Xucuru expressed his anger and said that little should be expected of the government and political parties; what remains is the necessity of taking their land and assuming the consequences. "Our fight will continue and we are going to demarcate our lands ourselves. And if necessary, we will fight like the Tupinamba, who have confronted the federal police and the military and we will force them to leave our territory. As indigenous leaders, we are willing to give our lives for our Enchanted Ones - our ancestors - and for nature," Xucuru told Truthout.

Babau says that it is the government that will be held responsible if the genocide continues in his country. "We call upon all indigenous people all over the world, who are the only ones who understand us, to pay attention to what will happen. Because the government had the opportunity to negotiate with us, but the dialogue is drying up," he said. "We will offer our lives if necessary, but we will not let them take away our lands."

Published in ⇒ Truthout