Dispute turns deadly as indigenous Brazilians try to 'retake' ancestral land
Source: Guardian
Dispute turns deadly as indigenous Brazilians try to 'retake' ancestral land
Farmers in Mato Grosso do Sul are responding with violence as Brazil’s Guarani-Kaiowá community attempt to occupy land they regard as theirs by right
Bruce Douglas in Caarapó
Thursday 14 July 2016 10.02 EDT
Jesus de Souza still struggles for breath, despite the assistance of an oxygen tube. He has had two operations after a bullet pierced his intestine. Lying in hospital, the 29-year-old teacher from the Guarani-Kaiowá indigenous community in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul tries to control his emotions as he recalls the day he was shot by local landowners, in an attack that left his brother, Clodiodi, dead, and five others seriously wounded. “Since this happened, I have not shed a single tear,” he says. “I won’t until I am back in my village.”
Tension over land rights between the early inhabitants of the southern part of the state and the European-origin farmers who settled there in the 19th and 20th centuries is boiling over. In a feud that dates back decades, indigenous people seize private property they claim as their ancestral lands and farmers respond with deadly violence.
On 12 May, in the final hours of the government of President Dilma Rousseff, whose presidency has now been suspended, the indigenous affairs agency, Funai, finally approved a long-delayed report that would massively expand the Guarani-Kaiowá territory, from 3,600 hectares (8,900 acres) to 56,000.
In the weeks that followed, local farmers protested vigorously, warning that the move would turn valuable agricultural land into unproductive rural ghettos. They vowed to challenge the report.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/jul/14/dispute-turns-deadly-indigenous-brazilians-ancestral-farmland-guarani-kaiowa
