DO NOT TAKE OUR LAND FOR YOUR DAM

About 2,000 Kaingang and Guarani Indians were blocking roads in Rio Grande do Sul state to protest the government’s decision to halt the handover of ancestral l ands to indigenous communities, a concession to Brazil’s powerful farm lobby.

Protests have now erupted across Brazil as tensions rise over farmland and the sites of hydroelectric dams in the Amazon.

Justice minister Jose Cardozo told reporters: ‘We must avoid radicalising a situation that goes back a long way in Brazilian history.

Brazil’s indigenous land policy, established in the country’s constitution, is considered one of the most progressive in the world, with about 13 per cent of the huge South American nation’s territory already set aside for Indians.

Cardozo stressed that Funai would continue to play a central role as the main institution that defends Indian rights, though others will be brought in to improve the process of deciding ancestral lands.

Farmers say Funai is trying to create reservations on land that has belonged to European-descended settlers for 150 years.

In another move to ease tensions with Brazil’s indigenous population, minister Gilberto Carvalho met Munduruku Indians flown to Brasilia on air force planes from the Tapajos, the only major river in the Amazon basin with no dams.

‘We went to see for ourselves what a hydroelectric dam was and we saw that it has nothing good in store for us,’ a Munduruku leader told Carvalho, adding that promised development had not benefited the Indians of the Xingu.

‘We saw Indians being humiliated and we do not want that for our region.’

They want the government to shelve plans to build a dozen dams there, while the government hopes to finish work on the controversial Belo Monte dam on the Xingu River, which is slated to become the world’s third-largest dam, capable of producing 11,233 megawatts of electricity - equivalent to about 10 per cent of Brazil’s total current generating capacity.

Last week Indians paralyzed work at one of three building sites at Belo Monte, It has also become a stage for Indians from other parts of the Amazon.

The Munduruku tribe is one of many with grievances over ancestral lands in Brazil

Ritual dances were performed during the Brasilia trip as indigenous leaders and government officials met. The Munduruku want plans for a dozen dams to be shelved

Carvalho, standing right, addressed the tribe at the Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia