• Brazil: Tupinikim and Guarani peoples restart their struggle against Aracruz
• Chile: Another Mapuche martyr dies as victim of an attack by a forestry company
• Colombia: Expansion of the oil palm in a framework of Human Rights violation
• Paraguay: Congress failed to support the land rights of the Ayoreo
• Uruguay-Argentina: A huge demonstration against pulp mills

- Brazil: Tupinikim and Guarani peoples restart their struggle against Aracruz

In 1979, when occupying one of the last remaining forest areas of the Mata Atlântica (Atlantic Rainforest), not yet cut by the former Aracruz Florestal --currently Aracruz Celulose-- the Tupinikim and Guarani indigenous peoples in the State of Espírito Santo started a long struggle to get their lands back. This struggle was interrupted in 1998, when Tupinikim and Guarani indigenous communities, isolated and under great pressure, had to sign an agreement with Aracruz Celulose.

The agreement derived from an unconstitutional decision of the former Minister of Justice, Íris Rezende, who, in March 6, 1998 demarcated only 2.571 hectares out of 13.579 hectares that were recognized as Tupinikim and Guarani indigenous lands by an official technical team of the National Indigenous Foundation (Fundação Nacional do Índio–FUNAI), an agency of the federal government in charge of the demarcation of indigenous lands. Challenging such decision, the indigenous peoples carried out, on their own, the demarcation of the 13.579 hectares. However, eight days after the start of the self-demarcation, the process was abruptly interrupted due to the joint action of the federal police, the FUNAI and the Company, against the indigenous people. Afterwards, they were pressed to sign the agreement and they had to waive their right to the 11.008 hectares of lands recognized as indigenous lands.

After seven years of coexistence with the Agreement, the Tupinikim and Guarani reached the conclusion that it is not solving their problems, but on the contrary, they have become more economically dependent on Aracruz. It has also contributed to the division of communities and has substantially weakened their culture. Apart from that, communities were waiving their right to the 11.008 hectares of indigenous lands identified and recognized as such.

But for Aracruz, the Agreement has been very beneficial, because of the fact that under such Agreement, apart from exploiting intensively the indigenous lands, the Company has been able to show to the public that it coexists in good terms with the Tupinikim and Guarani and that there is nothing that places at a stake its image of “company that complies with its social and environmental responsibilities”. As a faithful adherent to the capitalist logic, the Company has always believed that money can buy anything, including rights guaranteed by the Federal Constitution of Brazil. However, it has forgotten that the land is a condition for the physical and cultural survival of indigenous peoples and that they are doomed to disappear if they lack lands, as has happened with hundreds of other peoples decimated by the colonization process of the Brazilian territory over the past 500 years.

That is why the Tupinikim and Guarani of the seven indigenous villages, gathered in a general meeting held on February 19, 2005, decided to restart the struggle for the 11.008 hectares of indigenous lands not demarcated yet. After the general meeting, the Tupinikim and Guarani sought the support of the lawful agency primarily in charge of the defence of their interests: the Federal Department of Public Prosecution. As a result of the meetings with chiefs and leaders, this department filed on March 31, a public civil investigation in order to determine irregularities in the process of demarcation of Tupinikim and Guarani lands in 1998, with the aim of guaranteeing that all the lands recognized as indigenous lands are effectively demarcated as soon as possible in accordance with the Constitution.

Indigenous peoples also sought the support of entities, movements, churches and parliamentarians, within Brazil and abroad. They know that they need much support from civil society in order to join forces in their struggle against a company that is supported by the federal government and several parties, including left-wing parties. It’s worth remembering that Aracruz Celulose is among the three major financiers of political-electoral campaigns in the country. In the case of the federal government, the support is received through loans from the Brazilian Development Bank (Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social–BNDES) and incentives through the National “Forest” Plan. The latter aims at increasing the plantation of tree monocultures in the country in 2 million hectares before 2007.

In addition to regaining possession of 11.008 hectares, the Tupinikim and Guarani shall face another great challenge in the near future which is the reconversion, that is to say, what to do with a land covered with eucalyptus. In that sense, the communities organized on April 28 and 29, in the Tupinikim village of Irajá, the meeting “Replant our hope” (Encontro Replantar a Nossa Esperança). At that meeting, several communities impacted by the eucalyptus monoculture –indigenous people, representative of “quilombolas” (communities of slave descendants) and farmers- exchanged experiences of resistance to the “green desert”. In the meeting itself, the Tupinikim and Guarani started to prepare a plan of reconversion of the areas planted with eucalyptus by Aracruz into other uses, such as reforestation with native species and production of food.

We must add that the much publicised integration of local communities to the agribusiness project –which is the proposal of companies such as Aracruz, and of the Brazilian State- in practice leads to the disappearance of cultures and diversity. In Brazil, two opposing projects are becoming more and more apparent: one of them represented by hegemonic sectors that deal with the land as a means to obtain profits easily; and the other represented by movements such as MST (Landless Workers’ Movement), MPA (Small Farmers Movement) and indigenous peoples and “quilombolas”, that see lands as their livelihoods. In the case of the Guarani and Tupinikim, the relationship with the land is even deeper, because they consider land as Mother Earth, that must be kept and protected. In such sense, one of the participants in the “Replant our hope” meeting made such contradiction clear by saying that: “To plant eucalyptus is not to replant our hope!”

Finally, the Tupinikim and Guarani are teaching an important lesson to the societies of Espírito Santo and Brazil, because they dare to dream and challenge the existing power structures. They propose a way to guarantee their autonomy in the future, on the basis of their rights and strengthening of their culture.

By Gilsa Helena Barcellos, Rede Alerta contra o Deserto Verde (Alert Against the Green Desert Network), e-mail: woverbeek@terra.com.br

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- Chile: Another Mapuche martyr dies as victim of an attack by a forestry company

On 10 May, Zenen Diaz Necul, a 17 year-old Mapuche boy was run down by a truck when participating in a demonstration in repudiation of an attack carried out by the Mininco company’s forest guards against Mapuche symbolism and cultural, spiritual and religious elements. The protest took place in the area of the Malleco Viaduct (a historical railway bridge in southern Chile’s 9th Region).

This event has led the Arauco Malleco Mapuche Coordinating Committee to declare:

In view of the brutal murder of Diaz Necul, a young Mapuche boy:

1. This murder comes within the framework of the Mapuche conflict waged by the communities that are struggling for their territorial rights against the State and the capitalist system, mainly apparent in the investments of transnational (forestry and energy) companies in our ancestral territory.

2.. The political responsibility for this death falls on the State and the forestry companies that are implementing a permanent policy of repression, expressed in political, legal and police terms, whereby a true hunt is carried out through persecution, militarization of the zones in conflict and selective and indiscriminate repression against any signs of mobilization and struggle by our People.

3. The State is held responsible because it is the supporter and administrator of a system protecting investments by transnational companies through political intervention condemning our communities to poverty, curbing policies for the devolution of land, obliging communities to mobilize, and applying strong repressive measures.

4. The direct responsibility for this murder falls directly on the forces of repression, mainly the carabineros, who through their Special Forces and tactical groups have generated real battlefields against the mobilized Mapuches. In this case we place in doubt the official version that it was in fact a truck-driver who fled, in the knowledge of the repressive methods used by the forces of repression, and also aware that it was the carabineros of the tactical group and forestry guards that searched and destroyed the rehue (*1) and the works done in the framework of restoration carried out by the communities in the area.

5. For the above reasons, we claim the young Mapuche boy, Zenon Diaz Necul as a new martyr to the Mapuche cause, and we raise him to the status of Weichafe (warrior in the Mapuche language) because he died struggling for his community and for his People.

6. We declare that we share the pain and express solidarity towards his family and the communities of the area and make it clear that our best homage to his bravery will be to continue struggling for the reconstruction of our People, the Mapuche Nation.

7. We call on the communities and the areas in conflict to be watchful in view of these events and to advance in their processes of territorial and political reclamation and not let themselves be intimidated by the repressive attacks. At the same time, we call on our Weichafes to pay homage to this new martyr.

In memory of Jorge Suarez Marihuan, Alex Lemun and Zenon Diaz Necul.

(1) Translator’s note: a rehue is a ladder representing the seven powers governing the life of the Mapuche. It is 3 or 4 metres high, made of laurel or cinnamon and is placed in the ground in a semi-vertical position, pointing to the East.

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- Colombia: Expansion of the oil palm in a framework of Human Rights violation

The Colombia Plan has proved to be functional for oil palm economic groups (see WRM Bulletins Nos. 47 and 70). Military and para-military operations for the protection or promotion of the agro-industrial project have raided collective territories, built highways, felled forests and dug artificial canals. All this has been done in a setting of impunity and violation of Human Rights.

Since 2001, the Human Rights organization Justice and Peace has denounced the illegal planting of palm trees by the Urapalma S.A. company in at least 1,500 hectares in the Collective Territory of the Curvarado and its projection over the Jiguamiando. In spite of years of dialogue, legal action and verification commissions, nothing has been able to halt the destruction of the forest, nor the threats to the lives of its legitimate owners. In the report by the Inter-Ecclesiastic Justice and Peace Commission, the Community Council of the Jiguamiando and Families of Curvarado claim that during the last 15 days of April, the preparation of land to plant oil palm was intensified, with deforestation of native forests in the settlements of Caño Claro and La Cristalina in the Collective Territory of the Curvarado and by the Urada sector in the surroundings of the Jiguamiano in the lower Atrato and in the territories held by members of the communities with individual land deeds.

Although at the Audience of the Inter-American Human Rights Tribunal on 14 March the National Government engaged itself to take measures to halt the action of the palm-growing companies and to define mechanisms to solve the basic problem, what has been observed is accelerated progress in the preparation of new grounds, environmental destruction, the impossibility of Afro-descendent families returning to Curvarado and Jiguamiando and an increase in threats to the lives of the true owners who, faced with the lack of Government action, the negligence of the investigating body and the monitoring organizations, have attempted to recover their farms for survival.

The seventeenth Brigade and the Police from the region have been responsible by their action or omission for such violations of Human Rights. On the one hand, personnel linked to the palm-growing companies have intimidated the inhabitants – the legitimate owners – with the warning that they will kill 5 of them and set fire to the arbours of their dwellings if they continue to work on the properties that have already been assigned to the plantation of the oil palm.

The Inter-Ecclesiastic Justice and Peace Commission also stated that, in view of the impunity of what is happening in the Curvarado and Jiguamiando, it is no longer possible to believe in official policies regarding the environment or in respect for the Rights Consecrated in Law 70 for Black communities, or to expect that the circuit of impunity will cease: “once again it is observed that Rights for the impoverished only exist as a formality, in hundreds of papers or in electronic files. It is observed that extermination, persecution, the destruction of a human group develops the most diverse techniques, ranging from corporal torture to psychological torture, from forced disappearance to the destruction of settlements, from selective murder and genocide to the devastation of all types of life, from forced displacement to total and absolute uprooting. A State of Fact has been imposed, Law Does Not Exist. The truth is no longer possible. Ambition has been imposed over solidarity. The hatred of power prevails over love for the impoverished. The State has been eroded.”

In an urgent request for solidarity, the Community Councils of Jiguamiano and nine Curvarado communities are asking inter alia, for the following:

“- The urgent presence of international volunteers in the 3 Humanitarian Zones and support to the permanent presence of Justice and Peace in our Humanitarian Zones of "Pueblo Nuevo," "Bella Flor Remacho" and "Nueva Esperanza;"

- The participation of environmental and Human Rights organizations during the week of world presence in the territories of the Jiguamiando and Curvarado communities from 1 to 10 August 2005;

- To confirm the activities of the palm-growing companies during that week, to demand the suspension of work in the community territories and to hold a ceremony to show indignation;

- To show up the expropriation of land that the communities have been victim to, by means of the national and international mass media that will be convened to attend a field day.”

As a demand to the State and the Government, the communities request:

“- To address letters to the President of the Republic, Alvaro Uribe Velez, the Vice-President, Francisco Santos, the Minister of the Interior, Sabas Pretel De La Vega, the Minister of Agriculture Andrés Felipe Arias; the Minister of the Environment, Sandra Suárez Pérez; and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carolina Barco, demanding:

- That they honour their word pledged before the Inter-American Tribunal on 14 March in San Jose, Costa Rica, that they will immediately curb and suspend plantation of oil-palms in the Collective Territories of Jiguamiando and Curvarado.

- That they fully adhere to the Resolution of the Inter-American Human Rights Tribunal of 15 March regarding humanitarian assistance, the conditions for the return of the communities, respect for the Humanitarian Zones, provision of communication systems, and permanent presence of the Ombudsman in the Humanitarian Zones.

- That they create a Commission to Verify the Measure of Ecological Damages to the Collective Territory of the Jiguamiando and Curvado due to the effect of the plantation of oil palms and the possibilities for Afro-descendant communities to return to the area.

Article based on information from: “Jiguamiandó, amenazas de muerte por la siembra de palma”, Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz, April 2005, sent by Justicia y Paz, e-mail: justiciaypaz@andinet.com

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- Paraguay: Congress failed to support the land rights of the Ayoreo

Paraguay's Congress debated in April a bill meant to protect the territory that is home to an unknown number of Ayoreo-Totobiegosode indigenous people living in voluntary isolation.

The Totobiegosode are members of the Ayoreo tribe, some of whom still lead a nomadic life in the dense scrub forest of western Paraguay, living off the abundant game, such as wild pigs, anteaters and armadillos. They also gather wild honey, and cultivate crops, rejecting contact with outsiders. Dramatic evidence of their existence came one year ago, when a group of seventeen emerged from the forest and issued a plea to the outside world to stop destroying their homeland. Most of the tribe have already been brought out of the forest, but an unknown number remain, including the Ayoreo-Totobiegosode, resisting contact with outsiders. Their land is protected by injunctions, which are supposed to stop all deforestation. Under Paraguayan law, the indigenous people have the right to own their land.

However, most of the Ayoreo's territory is now in private hands. The core of their territory is owned by three private companies, two Brazilian and one Paraguayan who have bought up the land illegally and have already started to clear it. Much of the Ayoreo’s forest has already been destroyed for logging and cattle ranching. The land-owners have repeatedly defied injunctions meant to protect the indigenous people, sending in bulldozers to open tracks into the forest.

Last year Paraguay’s lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, put forward a bill to expropriate the area from the logging companies and to return it to the Ayoreo-Totobiegosode. It would have implied the restitution of 114,000 has of the original 2.8 million has. However, after fierce lobbying by a powerful landowners' association, the bill was rejected by the upper house (the Senate). It returned to the Chamber of Deputies where on last April 7 the leverage of loggers and cattle ranchers influenced the Congress which ended rejecting the bill.

Article based on information from: “Congress rejects bill to protect isolated Indians”, 2005, Cultural Survival, E-mail: mr@survival-international.org, http://survival-international.org/news.php?id=351; “Paraguay - Congreso rechaza ley que protegería indígenas”, Adital, http://www.biodiversidadla.org/content/view/full/15459

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- Uruguay-Argentina: A huge demonstration against pulp mills

Uruguay, a territory blessed by a profuse hydrological network, with soils extending over part of the Guaraní aquifer – one of the largest aquifers in the world – bears the “natural country” logo. This could well be so, with its vast prairies and rich productive soils, with an abundance of water, scant industrial development and low population density.

However, this landscape that many might consider as a sort of paradise is being threatened. In fact, before handing over power in March 2005, the outgoing government authorized the installation of two enormous pulp mills on the banks of the Uruguay River, a river that runs along the whole western frontier of the country, separating it from its neighbour, Argentina, which shares the river with Uruguay.

This authorization is being questioned as a result of the opposition of Uruguayans and Argentinians from the Province of Entre Rios, neighbouring the zone where the Spanish company ENCE and the Swedish-Finnish company Botnia /UPM/Kymmene are to be established. Both peoples have joined forces to prevent their common river, the “River of the Painted Birds” (the meaning of “Uruguay” in the Guaraní language), from becoming the “River of the Dead Fish.” The fact is that the activity of the two pulp mills is expected to reach gigantic dimensions and therefore, the risk of contamination is enormous.

The expression of regional integration is best found in the Socio-environmental Network that brings together social and environmental organizations and the population at large both in Uruguay and Argentina. The network has brought together those who are willing to resist the imposition of contaminating mega-projects in these regions weighed down by indebtedness, unemployment and despair.

In the year 2003, the members of the Network attempted to express their opposition to the pulp mills by holding a demonstration half way across the international bridge that unites the Uruguayan and Argentine coasts, near the city of Fray Bentos. The Uruguayan authorities did not allow this action to take place and on the Argentine side, only a small delegation was authorized to cross the bridge. In spite of that, this until then practically invisible issue began to take on public status and became a matter for the Ministries of Foreign Affairs (see WRM Bulletin Nº 75).

Since then, more and more people have become involved in the struggle and the strength of two peoples convinced about the justice of their cause has increased. Voices have multiplied by thousands and thousands, becoming an unstoppable human river to make the projected encounter on the bridge possible.

April 30, 2005 marked a peak in this struggle. Hundreds became thousands and thousands, the international bridge turned into an enormous human column, extending on the Argentine side beyond sight, under the shade of Uruguayan and Argentine flags (see photos in http://www.guayubira.org.uy/celulosa/abrazofotos.html). Songs and national anthems were sung, palms beat on the drums and hands carried banners telling the world that these peoples say YES TO LIFE and for this reason do not want the pulp mills.

Under the bridge, launches and small boats bearing flags covered the tranquil waters of the Uruguay River. As a framework for this historic day, the landscape seemed to mark the way: a blue and limpid sky, with no toxic and bad smelling gases; golden sands along the coast where the green woods sweep down to the river, with no effluents and black sludge, and no dead fish.

Emotion, decision. Now the struggle has been placed on official agendas and on the headlines of the mass media: radio stations, television channels and the press.

The installation of pulp mills was one of the items on the agenda of the Uruguayan President Vazquez and the Argentine President Kirchner at the presidential meeting held in Buenos Aires on 5 May. On that occasion, the Argentine President asked for the installation of the works to be halted and for university technicians to study the possible effects that this installation would have on the Argentine coast. Vazquez stated that he had received this situation as a fait accompli from the past government and that the construction of the pulp mills could not be halted, but apparently agreed on an investigation to be carried out by academic circles.

Hundreds of demonstrators and buses flying Argentine and Uruguayan flags congregated outside the hotel hosting the two leaders. President Kirchner received a petition against the installation of the mills bearing 35,000 signatures.

The struggle continues and the resistance of social and environmental organizations and the population at large is increasing. They say that the last word has not been said. It is also true that Uruguay is going through a special situation of political change that has, to a great measure, implied a recovery of hope. This situation may lead to other changes. An organized and decided people is present and intends to mark the path its future will take. The environment, although perhaps not in the sight of the politicians, is increasingly becoming part of the peoples’ concern. Because they know that it is at the base of life and of their future.

By Raquel Núñez, World Rainforest Movement, e-mail: raquelnu@wrm.org.uy