New obstacle for recognition of territory Guarani-Kaiowá
Earlier this year FIAN launched an urgent letter action directed to the Brazilian government with the request to solve the issues of hunger and violence faced by the indigenous Guarani-Kaiowá in the southern state Mato Grosso do Sul. After three years characterised by malnutrition deaths of children, increasing violence and suicides in the overpopulated communities, it is time that the Brazilian government takes appropriate measures to guarantee the right to food according to its international obligations under international law. Sporadic food assistance does not provide a solution to adequately feed the families and creates more dependency on this food provision. The communities can only live in dignity if they have sufficient access to land.
Already in 1988 it was decided by constitutional law to demarcate and give back 39 traditional lands to the communities. Twenty years later they still have only less than 10% of their original territory for their own food provision. Politics and judiciary are strongly influenced by land lords that want to expand their sugar plantations. Due to a lack of clarity in land property rights, more and more deaths occur during violent land conflicts.
For this reason in April FIAN organised a media visit to increase international pressure. During the visit, attorney Charles Pessoa of the Public Ministry stated that he has established a coercive fine procedure (TAC) to force FUNAI (Service for Indigenous Issues) to commit itself to demarcate the 39 original territories within the legal terms and to send the results in time to the Ministry of Justice for validation. For every period of delay, FUNAI will have to pay a fine. This is an important judicial argument to put pressure on the responsible governmental institutions to speed up their work.
One month after the media visit the governor of the state Matto Grosso do Sul, André Puccineli, appears to attempt to undermine the TAC procedure. FIAN immediately reacted by writing a letter in which the governor is asked to:
-
cooperate in the implementation of the TAC procedure in order to demarcate the indigenous lands of Mato Grosso do Sul as fast as possible
-
guarantee food aid programmes with respect to the culture of these communities until the territories have been recognised
