Paraguay:
Report on the Ayoreo People by IWGIA
The International
Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) has issued a report on
the indigenous Ayoreo people in Paraguay and the injustices they
have been experiencing due to the expansion of ranching, illegal
sale of land and extractive industries (1).
More than a report,
it is an urgent wakeup call that Director of Iniciativa Amotocodie
Benno Glauser introduces as follows:
Non-indigenous
society began to invade the vast territory of the Ayoreo only 50
years ago, with the goal of taking possession of the land.
From that time
forward, group by group, the Ayoreo were deported to mission stations
and sedentarized by force. Today, there are still Ayoreo living
in the forest, in six or seven group territories that have always
belonged to them. During the Paraguayan dictatorship, most of the
northern Chaco region was divided into lots, and what was once Ayoreo
territory was turned into a commodity for the benefit and profit
of a few hundred private landowners. Until today, they are
permitted to deforest or otherwise transform their landholdings
as they wish, to pursue productive activities that –under
close scrutiny– serve exclusively their own interests.
The future of the
Chaco forest, of those Ayoreo who continue to live there as isolated
groups, and of a territory that is still the territory of the Ayoreo
people, now depends on these landowners: Paraguayan citizens, Mennonites,
foreigners, agro-industrial and cattle ranching companies, and oil
prospecting firms. They are responsible for determining the future
of the only significant continuous forested area left standing in
Paraguay.
The state, until
now, has not intervened in this matter in any meaningful way, and
has failed to assume its responsibility: to protect the public good
and public interest, to enforce the country’s laws, and to
protect human rights and the rights of indigenous peoples.
Non-indigenous
society is not even aware of what is happening in and with the northern
Chaco. “Public opinion” has no opinion on the matter.
The international community is only very slowly beginning to recognize
the Chaco, the Gran Chaco, as a vital ecosystem not only for the
Ayoreo and other indigenous peoples, but also for the future of
non-indigenous peoples and for humanity as a whole.
Today, the Ayoreo
people are watching what is happening to their territory, which
is their home and the foundation for both their way of life and
their livelihood.
They do so in a
state of poverty, uprooted from their land, precariously clinging
to the margins of the society of their invaders and a culture that
is not theirs and never will be. Today, through this publication,
the Ayoreo people are speaking out to those who are in charge of
the state, and to all non-indigenous people in Paraguay and the
rest of the world.
They are speaking
out because they need to be seen, and because they need the injustices
and human rights violations of which they have been and continue
to be victims to be seen, recognized and reparated. They need non-indigenous
people to assume their role and to accept their responsibility in
this very recent colonial history, open to everyone’s view.
They are speaking out to voice a call for the justice that has yet
to be extended to peoples and cases like theirs.
Today the Ayoreo
people are standing up and reaching out. They are not reaching out
to beg or ask for favours. They are taking a stand and demanding
to be heard and respected, reaffirming their dignity and their right
to their own distinct way of life.
(1) “Paraguay:
The Case of the Ayoreo,” May 2010, Unión de Nativos
Ayoreo de Paraguay (UNAP), Iniciativa Amotocodie (IA), International
Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), http://www.iwgia.org/sw42257.asp
