Situation of Indigenous Peoples in Mato Grosso do Sul
INDIGENIST MISSIONARY COUNCIL - CIMI
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peoples and Kaingang face low temperatures and the danger of
being run over..
The Brazilian State no longer wields the flag of the "final
solution" through practices of "ethnic cleansing", as in the early
20th century, or by means of an integrationist project, like the one
that was explicit until the promulgation of the Federal Constitution
of 1988. What you see today is a broad and unconditional support
of the agro-industrial capitalism, for which there is an urgent need
to incorporate the ancestral territories of indigenous peoples,
gradually, in monoculture, the large ranches, agribusiness and
mining. The voracity of these sectors is quenched at the expense
of the welfare of workers in the field of small farmers, indigenous
peoples and other traditional communities of descendents of negro
slaves.
Social rights and citizenship are replaced by a basic policy,
expressed in small financings that target specific demands that
minimize the immediate impacts of inequality, but do not enable
the effective redistribution of goods or greater equity in access to
resources available. In the case of indigenous peoples, the default
option is the federal Government's policy and such an attitude
officially endorses the continuation of the death decree.
In times of vaunted tolerance and respect for diversity what
specifically we have observed is the dramatic reality of indigenous
peoples, whose mortality rates are comparable to those of countries
that live in conflict and civil war. More than that, the natives have
been killed with cruelty, as in the case of Guarani Kaiowá youth
murders, disguised in the form of suicide, not to mention the cases
of effective suicide, which denounce the unbearable conditions
of life, the daily torture and dismay the lack of option to which
they are subjected. In different Brazilian States and municipalities
the escalation of prejudice, discrimination and racism has been
noted, objectively manifested in pronouncements of farmers
who incite violence, in attacks by militia to indigenous camps in
fragile slowness with which the cases of assaults are investigated
and almost no penalties for the aggressors. It is these explicit
manifestations of racism, combined with a growing concentration
of land and total alignment with the developmental perspective
into vogue that place Mato Grosso do Sul in first place in the
ranking of the violence practiced against the Indians and recorded
in the reports of violence of Cimi for years.
The development projects of the last decades are based on
the large enterprises and their maximum expression, in actuality,
are that of the growth acceleration program (PAC). Stimulated
and financed by the Brazilian Government, this program attacks
so violently the environment and indigenous lands across the
country (including the lands of isolated peoples), honoring and
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