Indians make 100 hostages in Brazil

[luiz]

From the Brazilian newspaper O Globo (translation by me):

Cuiabá - Indians of 11 ethnicities lead by the Cinta Largas and Araras have invaded this morning the hydroelectric dam of Dardanelos, in the town of Aripuanã, 976 km from Cuiabá [state capital]. They arrived armed, painted for war and made hostages of the 100 workers who were at the contruction site.

The workers, who did not resist the invasion, were taken to a shelter and remain isolated.

- They won't be free until FUNAI [National Indian Foundation], the Federal Public Ministery, Ibama [National Environmental Agency] and Sema [no idea] come here to negotiate - said Aldeci Arara, one of the leaders of the movement.

The indians demand bigger financial compensation for the losses caused to the tribe by the building of 8 dams in the Jururena river basin.

All dams are outside of the indian reservation, but the indians claim the place where it is being built was used by their forefathers and has historical value. Besides that, they fear for potential financial losses such as a fall in the amount of fish available and loss of water quality.

They also want a permanent indemnity for the building of the 8 dams, 6 of which are already built.

- We have a compensation program going on for the building of the 8 dams on the amount of R$ 6 millions [~3.5 million USD]. Now they want a new negotiation - said Frederico Muller, director of Environmental Management of the Juruena Group, responsible for building the dams.

In face of the situation, FUNAI has proposed the realization of a new study to re-evaluate the financial compensation.

- The study can only be initiated and finished in the second semester - said Funai representative Jaime Siqueira.

Unlike Funai, the indians prefer an increase in financial compensation before even a new study is carried out. According to the indians, the river became dirty and with less fish after the works begun.

- The situation is bad for us - said the indian leader Xiwiro Enawene Nawe.

http://oglobo.globo.com/cidades/mat...-de-hidreletrica-em-mato-grosso-917235656.asp

The most outrageous fact of modern of Brazil is that the Law is no longer equally applicable to all citizens. Kidnapping is considered a heinous crime by Brazilian Constitution, meaning that you can't even answer in freedom for it. If any regular citizen kidnaps someone, he will go to jail. But those bums, those spoiled lazy parasites that pay no taxes and feel that they are entitled to huge extensions of land and multi-million dollars compensations just for being born to a certain ethnic group, can commit this act of incredible violence against 100 workers and walk free, and in all likelihood they'll get even more millions of dollars thrown at them!

100 hostages! And the Brazilian media treats this so lightly, as a perfectly normal and reasonable thing! In any civilized country this would be treated as a national emergency, they would send in the SWAT or whatever equivalent and jail or shoot everyone involved. Here we negotiate and give them more money.

Indians represent 0.3% of the Brazilian population but they own about 13% of all land. And it's not bad land either; in Roraima for instance (a state where over 50% of the land was given to indians), all the good agricultural land belongs to them. In fact, recently in Roraima they kicked out small farmers whose families had been living in the land for 200 years to make room for yet another indian reservation. Tens of thousands of small farmers kicked out to make room for 400 indians.

I wonder what is the logic behind this. They all speak portuguese, they are all either catholic or evangelical, they watch TV and listen to the radio. They only wear those ridiculous clothes when there is a TV crew filming them. They are regular Brazilians and should be treated as such. How come their ethnicity gives them the right to pay no taxes and yet receive all sorts of government benefits? How come their ethinicty entitles them to gigantic extensions of land entirely for free? How come families who had settled in areas for two freakin' centuries are being kicked out to make room for bums and parasites? How come their ethnicity makes them above the Law; free to kill, rape and kidnap without fear of punishment? Not too many people remember the case of Paulinho Paiakã, the indian chief who was civilized enough to own a private jet and travel through Europe and the USA, but when he raped an underage girl he claimed he did not understand the "white man's law" - and was allowed to walk free!

Is there any country in the world that has comparable problems with such a tiny minority?

Edit: Update The newspapers are now talking of 300 hostages. And still treating this bloody mess lightly.

Moderator Action: Racism is uncalled for here. This is an issue that can be discussed in a much less charged way.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Ayn Rand]

I completely sympathise. This is the modern form of racial apartheid - racial supremacists from ethnic minorities who claim victim status and legislate for their own racial superiority, at the expense of the majority.

To answer your question, every Western democracy suffers this problem in some way or other, although your country seems to have a particularly unpleasant version of it.

I am against racism in all its forms and this kind of unproductive double-standard does a great deal of harm to true respect between all people.

 

[emzie]

I don't know a thing about the situation, but if Brazil treated native populations anything like we did in North America, they probably have some valid complaints. They still don't deserve any special treatment in the face of the law, of course.

 

[Communisto]

I don't know a thing about the situation, but if Brazil treated native populations anything like we did in North America, they probably have some valid complaints. They still don't deserve any special treatment in the face of the law, of course.

This.

Reconciliation requires two things

1. The victims need to get over it
2. Perpetrators need to admit they did something wrong


Nothing can happen until these two requirements are met, but they never are. It's always one or the other, and the second faction wont submit to compromise and negotiation.

 

[Winner]

Indians represent 0.3% of the Brazilian population but they own about 13% of all land.

500 years ago, they represented 100% of the population and owned 100% of the land

I am not going to take sides in this, I just felt like pointing that out...

 

[Frank Drebin]

i suspect that land is economically worthless rain forest?

 

[Communisto]

500 years ago, they represented 100% of the population and owned 100% of the land

And honestly, realistically, this is relevant how?

 

[Imrahil91]

Why is the Brazilian government so nice to them? Is it because they get so much money from other nations to protect the rain forest?

 

[Winner]

I didn't say it was relevant, just interesting - puts things in perspective.

I know next to nothing about the Indian situation in Brazil, so it would be foolish to take sides.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Here's what is apparently some of the other side of the story:

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wi...es/brazilian-tribes-protest-controversial-dam

Tensions are so high over a proposed dam in the Brazilian Amazon that violence broke out at a May meeting in the city of Altamira to discuss the project. A thousand indigenous people from 26 ethnic tribes crowded into a high school gymnasium. Members of the the Kayapó, Juruna, Arara, Xipaia, Kuruaia, and other tribes that live along the mighty river’s second longest tributary, the Xingu, don’t get together in Altamira very often. But the $6.6 billion dam, called the Belo Monte, that Brazil’s electric utility, Electronorte, plans to build along the 1,200-mile Xingu River will affect them all. It would be the world’s third largest dam, with a potential installed capacity of 11,181 MW—and its reservoir would flood 100,000 acres, putting many tribal lands underwater.

Given this projection, what happened during the gathering may not have been all that surprising. Paulo Fernando Rezende, an Electronorte representative, gave a PowerPoint presentation touting the benefits of the dam, and telling the tribes that "the National Indian Foundation will fully participate in the studies affecting the indigenous lands,” according to a report by National Public Radio. But coming from a notoriously corrupt agency, the offer was interpreted as little more than a paper dove. A leader of the Movement of Dam Affected People of Brazil, Roquivan Alves Silva, took Rezende’s microphone, saying he would go to war if necessary. The tribes proceeded to rush the stage and physically attack Rezende.

“The indigenous people decided to send a clear message to the government. They were incensed, especially at Rezende´s smugness and arrogance in portraying the dams as not being a problem to the indigenous peoples,” says Glenn Switkes, of International Rivers Network, a California-based water policy nonprofit. “Brazilian tribes are guaranteed, under the Brazilian constitution, exclusive rights to the natural resources on their lands. When hydroelectric dams are proposed that affect indigenous lands, the constitution guarantees them the right ‘to be heard’ which courts have interpreted in many cases as ‘prior consent’.”

The Belo Monte Dam is just one of hundreds of dams planned on multiple tributaries of the Amazon like the Madeira, Tapajós, and the Tocantins. While building these structures will help Brazil meet its rapidly expanding energy needs, critics say the country should instead invest in alternative energy sources like biomass and wind that won’t endanger the riparian ecosystems and fisheries that native peoples rely on.

“We, peoples of the Xingu River, do not want to hear any more about this story of dams on the Xingu River,” the tribes wrote in a document presented to a federal judge in Altamira. “We do not want our fish and our animals dead, and our children going hungry.”

Brazil’s focus on developing new sources of power began with the Blackout Crisis, which stretched from June 2001 to February 2002, when Brazil experienced its worst drought in 70 years. Reservoir levels dropped so low electricity could not be consistently produced by hydropower, forcing the so-called “Blackout Ministry” to ration power use, slashing it to one-fifth. Politicians concluded they should increase the hydropower infrastructure, and by 2006 it was the source of more than 75 percent of the nation’s power.

Some of these recent regional dam projects have culturally scarred Amazon communities. The Paranatinga II, one of the Amazon’s fast-tracked “small dams,” on the Upper Xingu, damaged fish spawning grounds, which led to the total destruction of the fishery relied on by indigenous people of the Xingu Park. The Tucuruí Dam on the Tocantins River displaced 3,700 people.

The Belo Monte Dam is predicted to impact 48 villages, cause an 87-mile stretch of the Xingu River to run dry, and displace 16,000 people. Moreover, its diversion of water will drown the Big Bend, or Volta Grande, a fluvial monument that is both a unique ecosystem and cultural site.

“These projects only bring misery, destruction, and death. If you do not succeed in stopping this project, we, the indigenous peoples of the Xingu Basin will be willing to enter the work sites and halt them,” the tribal declaration continued.

This willingness to take extreme measures is driven by more than the threat of one dam. Because of the small storage capacity of Belo Monte, it’s unclear that the dam will add much to the national grid without the construction of other dams upstream. Hydrologists from UNICAMP, the Campinas State University in São Paulo, predict that under the current model, power production would be so low the project might be economically unfeasible. “During low-water periods, 3-5 months out of the year there will be barely enough water to drive the turbines,” says Switkes. Officials from Electronorte portray the project as an individual dam, but they haven’t discarded existing plans for additional dams upstream either.

“The real story behind the dam is something else,” says John Reid, executive director of the Conservation Strategy Fund, a US-based NGO. “Building that dam will create enormous pressure to create storage dams upstream – to hold back more water which will flood a lot of areas including indigenous areas – and that’s why you see people who live in the Xingu River opposing it so strongly.”

http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/6166

Enawene Nawe Indians in Brazil are demonstrating against a series of hydroelectric dams which are killing the fish they rely on.

Three hundred Indians have gathered in the town of Sapezal in the Amazon state of Mato Grosso, armed with bows and arrows to protest against the dam project.

Survival International is calling for the Enawene Nawe’s rights to their land to be upheld.

Unlike most tribes in the Amazon, the Enawene Nawe do not eat meat, so fish are essential to their diet.

A total of 77 small hydroelectric dams are planned for the Juruena River, upstream of the tribe’s land. Five are already under construction.

The Enawene Nawe were not consulted about the project, and they say that since work started the Juruena and its tributaries have become polluted.

During the protests the Enawene Nawe have met with the Brazilian authorities to reiterate their opposition to the dams. They are also demanding a full, independent environmental impact study.

Every year the Enawene Nawe perform yãkwa, an important ritual in which they build intricate dams across the smaller rivers and trap fish in large baskets.

The fish are smoked and transported back to the village, where some are offered to the yakairiti spirits of the underworld in elaborate ceremonies.

This year and last year the Indians caught almost no fish, a disaster for the tribe, who rely on fish as their main source of protein.

In 2008 the Enawene Nawe occupied one of the dam construction sites and destroyed much of the equipment on the site.

 

[warpus]

Those dam fools

 

[luiz]

500 years ago, they represented 100% of the population and owned 100% of the land

I am not going to take sides in this, I just felt like pointing that out...

500 years ago some of my ancestors owned land Europe, am I entitled to compensation?

This sort of argument is ridiculous. The fact that their ancestors were here first mean nothing. Their ancestors also killed other people in order to occupy the land they lived in.

Anyone who is born in Brazil is a Brazilian citizen with all rights and obligations that come with that. It doesn't matter if your ancestors have been living here for 10,000 years or 10 years; if you're born here you're a citizen.

And either we're all equal under the law or we're not.

 

[luiz]

Here's what is apparently some of the other side of the story:

http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/6166

Please. They only want more money. They already won 3.5 million dollars and they want another 6 million. A few hundred bums and millions and millions of dollars for nothing.

And the main point is: they don't even have the right be there in the first place! Indian reservations = apartheid. If they want land they have to buy it or at the very least pay property taxes just like the rest of us.

 

[luiz]

i suspect that land is economically worthless rain forest?

You suspect wrong. There are indian reservations in all states, from the Amazonian rainforests to the pampas of the deep south. And Mato Grosso, where those damsn are being built, is the new agricultural frontier of the county. It is the fastest growing region in Brazil.

 

[Winner]

500 years ago some of my ancestors owned land Europe, am I entitled to compensation?

This sort of argument is ridiculous. The fact that their ancestors were here first mean nothing. Their ancestors also killed other people in order to occupy the land they lived in.

Anyone who is born in Brazil is a Brazilian citizen with all rights and obligations that come with that. It doesn't matter if your ancestors have been living here for 10,000 years or 10 years; if you're born here you're a citizen.

And either we're all equal under the law or we're not.

Yup. On the other hand, I can imagine a situation under which such an action would be justified. Depends on many things and I certainly don't know the background, so meh.

BTW, someone has already asked - what exactly is in those places where the reservoirs are being built?

 

[Formaldehyde]

Please. They only want more money.

The people building the dams on land where the Indians happen to live?

 

[Winner]

And Mato Grosso, where those damsn are being built, is the new agricultural frontier of the county. It is the fastest growing region in Brazil.

*Takes a look at Google Maps*

As I expected, it's in the middle of the bloody rainforest. So I suspect that "the new agricultural frontier of the county" translates as "region where rapid deforestation is taking place".

I could never support that. I don't support the Indians either, if they're willing to accept that in exchange for money.

 

[Mr. Dictator]

The Other strikes again.

 

[Godwynn]

Brazil should have followed the American model, by killing their natives. The only problem we have with them now is the payout ratio on their slot machines.

usa #1

 

[Grisu]

This.

Reconciliation requires two things

1. The victims need to get over it
2. Perpetrators need to admit they did something wrong


Nothing can happen until these two requirements are met, but they never are. It's always one or the other, and the second faction wont submit to compromise and negotiation.

pretty much this.