Written by Leilane Marinho
Thursday, 07 July 2011 14:14
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Rearrange the indigenous people from a devastated cerrado (savannah) to the swampy lands of the Araguaia State Park (PEA). This was the “peaceful” solution presented at the Legislative Assembly of the state of Mato Grosso in Brazil, for the conflict between Xavante natives and farmers who have been quarreling now for more than 40 years for the right to occupy Indigenous Lands (or TI, for the Brazilian acronym) of Marãiwatsédé, located at 1,064 km from Cuiabá (MT), in the municipality of Alto da Boa Vista, close to São Felix do Araguaia.
Approved in 1998, Marãiwatsédé began to be an area of permanent possession and for the exclusive use of the Xavante people. However, far from solving the impasse, the creation of this TI drove the invasion of more than six thousand non-natives that today refuse to leave the area.
In 2010, the region was the most devastated of Mato Grosso. Of its 165 thousand hectares, 85% were devastated in the last few years for soy plantations and pasture. Local producers encouraged illegal occupation and environmental degradation as a means to make the reestablishing of indigenous people impracticable.
It was exactly this high rate of deforestation that congressmen of the Legislative Assembly used to justify the approval of Law number 9.564 – published in the country’s Official Journal on June 27 that states that it “authorizes the State Government to conduct an exchange with the Union, through the National Foundation for Indigenous Peoples (Funai), of the area corresponding to the Araguaia State Park (PEA) for the approved area of the Indigenous Reservation of Marãiwatsédé”.
“The Marãiwatsédé TI is completely degraded, what will these natives do in the midst of pasture lands? At PEA they will have a more natural environment which is preserved and where they will enjoy all the conditions in which to live according to their customs”, justifies state Congressman José Riva (PP-MT), who with Congressman Adalto de Freitas, wrote the Bill that requests “the insertion of the Marãiwatsédé Indigenous Nation into the Araguaia State Park as well as the legalization of land ownership for the reservation’s current occupants”.
For Riva, to remove families that built “houses, a school, rice benefitting installations and even dairy products” is a crime against Posto da Mata, a village established within the TI. “There were no indigenous people back then, there were always farming families and now these natives are arriving from all over”, reasons the Congressman.
FUNAI disagrees
Handling the Xavantes
Back in the 60ies, the first forced removal of the Xavantes was conducted by the Indigenous Peoples Protection Service (SPI) with the help of Brazil’s Armed Forces (FAB). The transference of almost 300 natives became known as the São Marcos Salesian Mission and produced a violent rupture that resulted in the deaths of 90 Xavantes and the disbanding of the survivors. The action was taken to free the land for installing the Suiá-Missú farm, purchased with fiscal incentives. The land complex, in excess of 1 million hectares, was the largest in Latin America at the time. |
Only in 1992, the Marãiwatsédé TI began to be marked off by Funai, but of the 200 thousand ha identified as a traditional territory of indigenous peoples, 168 thousand were appurtenant to the Suiá-Missu farm. In that same year, after international pressure, illegal settlers agreed to return the area to the Xavante people.
Congressmen claim that the major reason to remove the native peoples are the “damages to be suffered by the population of Mato Grosso’s Midwest”, since the aforementioned TI will interrupt the continuity of BR 158 and 224 highways, “important and the only outflow paths for the farming produce of the region’s producers”.
Funai disclosed an official note stating that the proposal of the state of Mato Grosso has no bearing in Law. “The Constitutional protection granted for the lands of indigenous peoples forbids any possibility of transactions for those areas acknowledged as being of traditional use, since these are regarded as essential to the physical and cultural survival of indigenous peoples, according to art. 231 of the Federal Constitution”, says the note.
According to Riva, the removal would only be conducted after an agreement between Funai, the State Government and the indigenous peoples themselves. “This is an idea from the political ruling class, but no one knows what’s going to happen. We do know that 90% of the natives wish to go to the PEA and any removal actions will only be given the go ahead if they accept that”, he explains.
The unknown factor which still hangs in the air is how the government will manage to exchange an area that does not have even 1% of its area regularized. “What exists are ongoing compensation processes for Legal Reserves. And that is yet another confusion ahead”, contends Fátima Sonoda, a biologist and technician for the State’s Environment Bureau.
A floodable and priority area
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Created in 2001, the Araguaia State Park was classified as Priority Area for Conservation by the Ministry of the Environment and is one of the last strongholds for the fauna and flora of the immense flooded plains of the Araguaia which is supplied by the river of the same name and Montes River. With its 223,169,54 hectares, the park is the largest conservation unit under Full Protection of the 45 Conservation Units (UCs) that are part of Mato Grossos’s Conservation Unit State System.
Most of the PEA suffers seasonal floods for six months every year. Its swampy profile makes the region one of difficult access, with many inaccessible and isolated regions. “I’m quite certain that the Xavantes will not be at all pleased with that situation. They will become isolated and will have to depend on governmental help to survive during those critical months [of flood]. Getting around in the park is quite impossible”, warns Beatriz Marimon who works at the PEA since 1998 and is a teacher at the UNEMAT of Nova Xavantina.
“The life strategies of these indigenous people were selected for non-floodable cerrado scenarios so that is certainly not their turf. Another point that would burden their adaptation is the fact that the park area has no ancestral bond with the Xavantes, a primordial condition to perpetuate their way of life”, says Alexandre Milaré Bastitella, coordinator of the Conservation Units of State Environment Bureau (Sema) who learned about the possibility of the Xavantes being transferred through the press.
Aside from the water, another point of conflict that would bar the Xavantes from moving over to PEA would be the environmental impact caused with the arrival of these indigenous people, affecting the fragile and complex lake system that, according to Bastitella, is extremely important for the maintenance of the wildlife of the Araguaia Swamp region.
The coordinator goes on to tell us that the UC serves as “breeding grounds” for many threatened species such as the pirarucu fish, the Amazonian turtle, the spotted leopard and the bush dog. “Approximately 40% of the species of birds recorded in Mato Grosso, occur in the park”, he completes.
Beatriz reminds us of the fame of Xavantes as distinguished hunters and says that this political move is complete “madness”. “In the dry season, these natives conduct their famous ‘hunts by fire’, where they use forest fires to pen their prey. If one considers that the region in PEA is one of the few areas with a well preserved fauna, one will see that in just a few years it would be completely ruined, since fishing is only a secondary activity for these indigenous people”, she ponders.
An unmet deadline
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In 2003, the indigenous people began their way back to the abode of their ancestors, occupying only 10% of the TI. In August 2010, a unanimous decision by the Federal Regional Court was made in favor of the Xavantes, acknowledging their rights to the Marãiwatsédé and considered the settling of non-natives on Union land as an act of bad faith, but only recently did the Federal Prosecutor’s Office (MPF) decide for the removal of the families of farmers and squatters.
On last May 16, the Federal Legal body afforded a 30-day deadline (already overdue) to carry out the sentence, with no room for recourse, requiring the removal of trespassers. The decision sped up the state’s political buzz in favor of the producers and even before the MPF presented its intruder evacuation plan for the area of indigenous peoples, the removal of the Xavantes was already being articulated through state legislation.
“The Governor and almost all of the Legislative Assembly are allies or direct representatives of the agribusiness. This positioning, this “pseudo solution”, is merely to make laws for one’s own cause, since it will benefit those who, for decades have been exploiting and devastating the region that cannot be sold or turned over to others”, explains Gilberto Vieira, from the Indigenist Missionary Council (CIMI).
Vieira visited Marãiwatsédé in 2004 in the company of the UN’s special relater for Rights to the Environment, Jean Pierre Leroy, who reinforced the removal of non-native trespassers and suggested the ecological recovery of the area, a suggestion accepted by the judges. In the report, Leroy said that “the feeling of impunity and manipulation on the part of local politicians aggravated the situation, since the invaders, while knowing quite well that the area was already a Land of Indigenous People, did not believe that the Law would actually someday decree the return of the natives to their rightful land."
The value of land is immaterial
An Ecological ICMS tax
The entire population of the municipality of Alto da Boa Vista would also be directly damaged if the Xavantes left their township. The Marãiwatséde TI is directly responsible for 62,61% of the amount forwarded annually to the city’s coffers through an Ecological ICMS tax.
In accumulated amounts, between the years of 2002 to 2009, of the R$ 19.850.351,33 forwarded to the municipality, R$ 12.347.563,44 came from this Ecological ICMS tax, as a form of compensation for the city sheltering the Marãiwatséde TI within its territory. |
The Araguaia State Park covers 225 thousand hectares, 70 thousand more than the TI and is considered rich in natural resources. However, it is not the size than attracts the Xavantes. Even degraded, what leads the natives to want to remain in the Marãiwatsédé TI is its immaterial significance, a condition which is part of places regarded as sacred.
There, the remains of countless ancient villages lie, as well as cemeteries and the memory of the recent history of the oriental Akwe-Xavante. “Here we have a history which is ours; this is sacred land that contains things that cannot simply be transferred elsewhere. Why doesn’t the government take those people to another place?”, questions Cosme Rite, son of chief Damião Paradzane, who has already stated the community’s wish to return to their land of origin.
“The Xavantes, as with all indigenous people, do not regard their territory as a plot of land that can be simply transferred elsewhere. Despite being devastated, it is still the Marãiwatsédé and can be recovered and reforested”, reasons Gilberto.
Through a note, Chief Agnelo Xavante declared that there is no possibility of negotiating the territory. “We shall not leave our traditional territory of Marãiwatsédé to give way to plantations of this dirty agribusiness that spreads like a disease in Mato Grosso and throughout the country [...] It is an affront to that which we regard as our rights supported by the Federal Constitution and by international organizations of Human Rights, such as the International Labor Organization’s Convention 169”, said Agnelo.
Surrounded by farmer threats, nearly a thousand natives resist isolated within a single village. As a means to ensure their food safety and reconnect to their traditional customs, they work to recover the deforested areas by planting native fruit, yams, corn and Xavante beans, among other foods that are a part of their culture. “We are structuring ourselves and this is where we’ll remain”, wraps up Cosme.
Read also:
Araguaia: threatened jewel
Araguaia torna-se terra indígena
Rizicultura drena lagos no Araguaia
