[07/23/2007] The Independent Reports: Brazil's Deadly Land Wars put Indigenous Leaders in Firing Line
Brazil's deadly land wars put indigenous leaders in firing line
By Natalia Viana
Published: 23 July 2007
It was 6.30am when the Brazilian indigenous leader Ortiz Lopes was called to his front door in Coronel Sapucaia, in the frontier state of Mato Grosso do Sul. According to his wife, the head of the embattled Guarani-Kaiowa people heard an unfamiliar voice calling his name from the other side of the door. He only had time to ask who it was before he was shot dead and the gunman delivered his message: "The farmers sent me to make it even with you."
Mr Lopes was well known in the region for his efforts to reclaim lands that had belonged to the Guarani. His death earlier this month was the latest in what has become a bloody year in Brazil's frontier states of Mato Grosso and Para. While the murder last year of US-born nun Dorothy Stang stirred memories of the murder of union leader Chico Mendes and brought global attention to Brazil's deadly land disputes, the death toll of 20 so far this year in Mato Grosso alone, has gone largely unnoticed.
The Guarani were expelled from their land by cattle ranchers in the 1970s. Today, 35,000 of them survive on a small parcel of land in a neighbouring municipality. The men mostly work poorly paid jobs in sugarcane plants. The appalling conditions have led to some of the highest rates of suicide and alcoholism in the country, says the Indigenous Missionary Council (Cimi), an organisation linked to the Catholic Church.
Mr Lopes had already escaped one attempted murder and he had received repeated death threats. In January, he and a group of families occupied the Madama ranch, which was set up on land they claim was illegally taken. The protesters were violently evicted and charged with squatting. During the operation, Xurete Lopes, 70, their spiritual leader, was killed. Nobody has been charged with her death. In May, the Guarani had returned to the same plot and with a federal agent acting as witness staked official claim to the contested land. Now, Mr Lopes lies buried in a simple plot next to his spiritual leader.
His death is not an isolated event. According to Cimi, more killings have occurred in Mato Grosso so far this year than in the whole of 2006.
The Pastoral Land Commission, an organisation that monitors land conflicts, recorded 39 killings in Brazil in 2006 over land disputes, and another 72 attempted murders. Whether it is a member of the landless movement, a union leader, or an indigenous leader, the political murders in Brazil follow the same pattern. Generally, the victims are demanding a portion of the land that they claim has been unlawfully purchased or grabbed by a farmer. Often, they occupy the contested land before being violently evicted. Death threats then follow as the courts crawl towards a settlement .
In all, land conflicts have been linked to 1,464 murders in the past 10 years but only 71 gunmen and 19 contractors have been found guilty.
Analysts point the finger at the federal government for ignoring the problem and thereby encouraging a culture of impunity for the murderers.
According to Darci Frigo, the director of Terra de Direitos (Land of Rights), the background to the killings is the criminalisation of social movements in Brazil. "What happens is that these leaders are demoralised in the public arena, they are accused of crimes they did not commit."
This claim is endorsed by the UN special representative on human rights defenders, Hina Jilani, who in a recent report noted that "human rights advocates have been subject to unfair and malicious prosecution, repeated arrests and vilification as retaliatory action by state as well as by powerful and influential non-state entities". The report draws attention to "the responsibility of the state to ensure that human rights advocates not be left isolated in their struggle or support for social justice against powerful or influential social entities and economic interests."
Unfortunately, as the killing of Mr Lopes highlights, exactly the opposite is happening.
Natalia Viana is a Brazilian journalist and author of Planted in the Earth - political assassinations in Brazil
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Article originally available @ http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2793052.ece