More than 500 members of the Guarani and Kaiowá tribes remain camped out in makeshift tents along the MS-384 highway in the interior Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul after being "violently evicted" from their traditional lands in the Nhande Ru Marangatu reservation, according to a news release by Amnesty International.
Federal police used tear gas, rubber bullets, and a helicopter to force the Guarani and Kaiowá from their homes on December 16 for failure to comply with a court order to evacuate the land.
The Guarani and Kaiowá tribes were officially given the territory by President Lula on March 29, 2005 under the country’s land demarcation program. However, the Regional Federal Tribunal suspended and later reversed the redistribution, ordering the tribes off the land.
According to an Associated Press story on The Daily Journal Web site, the order of reversal was issued due to hearings from a pending lawsuit brought by ranchers who also have claims to the land—many having legally purchased it from the federal government in the 1930s.
The ranchers’ case is not scheduled to be re-examined until February, after the court’s summer recess. Until that time, the tribes have been ordered to move to another, non-disputed part of the reservation.
Tribe members say that the new proposed area is an uninhabitable swamp.
According to Agencia Brasil, the community was driven off the reservation by the police and abandoned alongside MS-384, a highway that connects the towns of Antônio João and Bela Vista, with no means of transportation.
Conditions in the camp are dismal, as food supplies, sanitation, and shelters are extremely limited. While no deaths occurred during the forced evacuation, Amnesty International reports that poor living conditions are causing dangerous levels of dehydration and malnutrition, especially among the young.
The Guarani and Kaiowá tribes are surviving on basic food baskets from the Ministry of Social Development (MDS) and are receiving water from a nearby village. Local store owners are reportedly reluctant to sell tarps and other building materials to the community for fear of antagonizing the local landowners who are bringing the lawsuit against the Guarani-Kaiowá.
A government mission, comprised of the minister of the Special Secretariat of Human Rights, Paulo Vannuchi, president of Fundão Nacional do Indio (FUNAI), Mércio Pereira Gomes, and two federal police commissioners, visited the encampment on December 27 to assess the situation, according to Agencia Brasil.
The government has promised to support the indigenous community and has also met with local farmers to try and ease tensions between the two groups.
In an interview with the Inter Press Service, Rubem Almeida, an anthropologist for FUNAI, said the tribes are legally entitled to their ancestral lands.
According to Almeida, testimony and documents from 1927 confirm the Guaranis’ original claim to the land. Almeida also told Inter Press that the federal government illegally sold the property in 1928 to a large scale farmer.
If Almeida’s claim holds up, the Brazilian constitution would give the indigenous community the right to the land, thereby canceling out the ranchers’ land titles. The state would have to pay the ranchers compensation, however.
The recent conflict between the tribes and the ranchers is not the first of its kind. In December 2003, the BBC reported that a group of 3,000 Guarani and Kaiowá Indians invaded 14 ranches in the area wearing traditional warrior dress and using traditional weaponry.
Over the next month a tense standoff occurred between the Guarani-Kaiowá and the displaced farmers, with federal police often needed to keep the peace. On January 22, 2004 a judge ordered the Guarani-Kaiowá to vacate the land.
However, two weeks later, on February 3, an agreement was reached allowing the Indians to continue occupying some of the ranches while the whole area was turned into a reservation. This appeared to secure their land future, but delays from the court system have escalated the already tense situation into crisis and violence.
The mayor of Antônio João, Junei Marques, has proposed a plan to relocate the community to nearby army land that is normally used for training. However, the most recent plan under consideration involves resettling the Indians to a nearby town called Rural Village, according to Agencia Brasil.
The Lula administration has received widespread criticism from indigenous rights groups on the pace of land redistribution efforts. Originally scheduled to be completed by 1993, just over 12 percent, or 1 million square acres, of the country has been set aside for reservations.
