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Categoria: Indigenous

  • Prospectors maintain work in Roosevelt

    Prospectors maintain work in Roosevelt
    Prospectors maintain work in Roosevelt

    Espigão do Oeste/RO – In spite of the insistence of the authorities in affirming that the situation in the reservation Roosevelt is under control and that the number of prospectors doesn/*t pass of some dozens, the reality inside the reservation is completely different. New facts tells that an unusual situation have been beginning in great proportions inside the reservation. Everybody knows that hundreds of prospectors maintain the work in the dark valleys, turning the gravel deeper in the search of the brilliant stones.

    The men, in the majority rude people, work half-undressed and gathering in the dark valleys with shovels, pickax and jets of water, removing the land in the search of the diamond. That lunatic race behind the fortune saw the situation getting complicated in about three months there, with the straiten inspection of the Polices Federal, that are restraining the entrance of fuel, food and drunk inside the reservation Roosevelt.

    The interruption of the arrival of those items of vital importance for the maintenance, as much of machines as of men in the work inside of the dark valleys for the legal means, has been causing a great damage for the prospectors with the explosion of the prices now collected by the “varadores”. With that blockade of the authorities the prices are under control in the low lands, getting the point of products as the drum of 200 liters of diesel oil to be worth from R$ 1200 to R$1600 real, a Coca Cola of 2 liters is marketed to R$10 real, a box of “Garoto” chocolate R$15, the gasoline doesn/*t come out for less than R$10, the same price is collected by a kilo of chicken.

    With that unbalance in the prices of the products of first need and the lack of the “Good Stone” that disappeared from the selected point, the prospectors are paying to work in the black valleys. There are several comments of dim fact among team members caused by the current situation. With the high cost to maintain a pair of machines working, the proprietors are running into debts more and more. There are cases where theses adventurous ones are there for more than 6 months, been disable from coming back to the city due to their debts. Another problem that is causing apprehension, mainly in the indigenous leaderships is the fact of the discord among the white workers that most of the time work in the percentage regime with the owners of machines and as the “Fished” are not enough even to cover the expenses, they are without receiving their portions for the work.

    Gunpowder barrel

    There are occasions where they get some valuable stone and soon bet in investing everything to try to recover the damage, then it happens of falling through and the damage is increasing, as well as the dissatisfaction of the so-called “Rodados” that survive from their manpower. Several of those owners of machines opted to abandon the equipment until the things get better, leaving hundreds of unemployed excavators inside of the gossips. Many of those are surviving of eating of favor in some hut until it appears wanders of work.

    The prostitution is another records problem that took frightening proportions inside of the mine. Several huts have from 4 to 5 women that entered with the excuse of cooking for the group, but that actually move the profitable business of the prostitution. The indigenous leaderships try not to wrap up in those problems, but as affirmed the cacique Pamaré, it is very difficult to control everybody. Therefore it is not premature to affirm that the mine of “Low land” became a gunpowder barrel that can explode at any time. The drink, the drugs and the prostitution formed an alliance with the prospectors/* dissatisfaction with the owners of machines are the necessary components that will be able to deflagrate a new spill of blood in the Lage and don/*t doubt if one more time the Cinta Largas be made responsible by the deaths that certainly will happen.

  • Cacique uses mine of diamonds to develop village

    : João Bravo is the most responsible for the changes that has happened at the Village Cinta Larga.
    : João Bravo is the most responsible for the changes that has happened at the Village Cinta Larga.

    Aldeia Tenente Marques/Espigão do Oeste/RO – Imbedded on the South edge of the State of Rondonia, in the boundary with Mato Grosso, it is located the Reserve Roosevelt, “Sacred land of the Cinta Larga Indians”. The reservation is a large green territory divided in four areas: Indigenous area Aripuanã, Aripuanã Park, indigenous area Roosevelt and indigenous area Serra Morena.

    With the extension of 2, 7 million hectares of pure Amazon forest, this area has the size of countries like Belgium or 20 times the size of the city of São Paulo. That large green area in the Parallel call “11” is where it is located the last descendant/*s of Tupis nation. The tribe Cinta Larga had its lands demarcated in the beginning of the seventies, however Brazil only heard about them for the first time after its invasion for thousands of mining people. Invasion that resulted in the massacres of 29 diamond seekers happened in April of 2004, attracting for the area the attentions of the whole planet.

    Since the lands’ demarcation, the 1.394 Indians that form the nation Cinta Larga, until now haven’t been included in any helping program of the Federal Government. Abandoned for this long period of time for the absence of the public power, the Indians Cinta Larga were forced to make alliances with organizations that is many times doubtful, to obtain money and to bring the improvements for the tribe.

    In the decade of 80, were the lumbermen that invaded the reservation in the secret extraction of the mahogany and of the cherry tree. At the end of the decade of 90 they joined to the diamond seekers and smugglers that are interested in the area. Such area that hides what can be considered one of the largest beds of diamond of the world.

    Incalculable wealth

    The wealth that sleeps in Roosevelt/*s underground is incalculable. The Reserve Roosevelt/*s lands shelter several kimberlitic rocks, that when springing from the underground, they bring the diamonds from the profundities of the land to the surface. To understand the meaning of that discovered, enough to say that the largest beds of diamond of the world have, each one, an only kimberlitic.

    In the period from 2003 to 2004, thousands of diamond seekers, wakened up by the greed of that immense wealth transformed the area in land of anybody. The corruption in the area became endemic, involving diamond seekers, policemen and smugglers, that or associated in the illegal extraction of diamonds, or fought to each other.

    Today, the mine is deserted, but if there is a breach, in 24 hours it can be invaded by thousands of “seekers” and “Rodados “, that wait only for the right opportunity to participate in sweeping”. Once inside of the reservation invade the low areas and carven acting as in a programmed assault. They stay there for some weeks; remove millions in stones and leave, leaving behind them a destruction trace and environmental degradation with the ecological devastation of the flora and of the fauna around the mine, without mentioning the pollution and the silting up of the rivers.

    That wild race in the extraction of diamonds attracted for the area traffickers, smugglers and the prostitution, generating a tension situation and violence to which the Indians were not used to and that now don/*t want to submit any more. With that wealth to the reach of the hands and so many interests in game the facts are distorted. The indigenous leaderships, to the eyes of the society, became the thieves of the history, but, in fact, for their ingenuousness and the lack of knowledge of the double-dealing of the white, they are deceived by the receivers, for the corrupt public servers and owners of machines.

    They act in agreement with their culture, although they seem to be involved with the whites, but the reality is another thing. After the great revolts that happened in the mine during the last years, the Indians seem to have learned with the suffered reverse. The activities in the mine decreased, the Indians now are organized with the appearance of associations and cooperatives for best to administer of their lands and wealth.

    Construction of hydroelectric

    After years of contact with the so-call world of the whites, new leaderships begin to appear among the Cintas Largas. Among those leaderships the largest prominence is João Bravo, emergent leader of the community Tenente Marques. João Bravo is the responsible for the great changes happened at his village. In 2001 the tribal leader began the construction of a hydroelectric plant in the Rive Roosevelt/*s bifurcations, with capacity to generate 20 CV that supplies electric power for the whole village that is two kilometers from the place.

    The whole project of the construction of the plant and more the channel of 110 meters in concrete that takes the water until the house of machines, where it is the generating unit of energy. “That whole work was made by the community, there were no help from the government”, affirmed João Bravo, while pointing to the long concrete channel. When walking to the Village Tenente Marques in the margins of the river, the visitor can prove the countless innovations that were introduced by the indigenous leader.

    New houses

    The old wood cottages of snip of wood and beating clay covered with thatch that used to form the village, gave place to new wood houses covered with tiles and painted on the green and yellow colors. “Like the colors of the Brazilian flag “, affirms proud João Bravo. They are the innovations that are changing the rhythm of the residents/* life. In that true evolution the community won three landing tracks for small aircrafts and enjoys good highways, linking the village to the other communities. That whole work was executed with the use of tractors and the own indigenous community/*s trucks buckets.

    Recently the Cacique João Bravo implanted the fish farming project in the village, with the construction of tanks where 100 thousand larvae were placed. That pioneering project in the indigenous area has as principal objective to assist to the consumption of the population and also the commercialization of the spare production.

    The livestock has already entered strong in the lands of the village. Employees were contracted to raise thousands of meters of fence in the brachiaria pastures with the technology of the electrification. Modern corrals were built to facilitate the handling of the flocks that is not done by the Indians, but by herdsmen contracted for the village.

    Health and Education

    In the health, the leader of the tribe invested in the acquisition of traced ambulance and medicines for the health center. Agents of health contracted make the daily accompaniment of the local population, mainly of the children.

    According to risings done by the National Foundation of the Indian (FUNAI), the infant mortality rate in the reservation is zero. In the education, João Bravo fought even with the Government of the State to make possible the construction of a new school for the community. “The governor didn/*t want to build the school. I ordered to arrest a car of Seduc in the village, only after beginning the construction of the school that I liberated the car “, commented the leader of the village.

    After that supposed fight for the construction of the new school, a partnership was firmed with the Government of the State, that through the Section of Indigenous Education of Seduc compared the schools in the tribe. Indigenous teachers were graduated and today they are qualified to act in the teaching net, assisting in classroom the whole clientele of the village in school age. With that work driven by the community/*s own teachers, they can maintain their traditions in harmony with the modernity.

    Even being knowing of the immense wealth in form of diamonds that rests on his feet, the leader João Bravo, that is known by all as “A very systematic man”, uses that wealth and the leadership that exercises, not to benefit himself, but in projects of well being to the community, which generate the development and the comfort for his community. “Many people say that I am rich, but that is not truth everything here is not mine, it belongs to the community “, defends the old leader.

    Lessons to governors

    The liberation or not of Reserve Roosevelt/*s mine will be still theme for long discussions in the luxurious cabinets of Brasília, but while the situation is not defined, that emergent indigenous leader proceeds, giving lessons to many rulers of how to administers himself the community/*s resources.

    Today João Bravo/*s village has the structure of a true company, generating employment to dozens of employees non Indians that live and work in the community, executing works in different sections that maintain in perfect operation the whole structure of the village. “Here each one has his occupation. When it dawns each one already goes to the service, it is as in any company “, affirmed the herdsman Joaquim Calvacante, that has been there for almost two years in the village.

    In spite of that progress that some villages have been getting, the shade of the mine with its wealth and its dangers is a constant threat to that momentary peace that the tribe enjoys. Everybody in the village knows that to defend their lands, their wives and children against the adventurous ambitious people invasion that insist in rounding their borders. The Indians Cinta Larga today just count with the leaders/* courage as João Bravo, who along his 63 years still fights strongly for better days for his people.

  • Special attention to the Indigenous education

    Espigão do Oeste/RO – The town differs from the others in its proximity to indigenous reservations of the etnias Suruis, Cinta Larga and Aporinã. Such close presence of the indigenous population brought one more responsibility in the maintenance of the reservations. A good example is in the indigenous education, which is conducted by the Seduc, through the Representation of Teaching of Espigão do Oeste, that now only counts with a pedagogic technical team to develop the indigenous education.

    The team coordinated by the teacher Vera França Taurine accomplishes the whole pedagogic accompaniment of the indigenous schools of the reservation Cinta Larga. The actions of the team have as objective to render technical support during the planning, execution and evaluation of the classes supplied by the Indian teachers and non Indians that act inside the indigenous villages. The whole annual work is conducted with premature planning by the technical team that periodically visits the schools in the reservation in a field work, where follow all the progress of the students closely due to the activities proposed by the educators. The leaderships of the Cinta Larga native communities have been participating in that work developed by the teacher Vera França and her team, participating in the pedagogic meetings and discussing the priorities of the schools.

    Today the indigenous education developed in the villages is of quality. A proof of that is the great frequency of students during the classes.

  • The Roosevelt Indian village elects a new cacique

    The indians had a meeting in the village to elect their new leaders
    The indians had a meeting in the village to elect their new leaders

    Espigão do Oeste/RO – The community Cinta larga had a meeting in a general assembly on September 07 in the Roosevelt/*s central village to elect the new leaderships of the tribe. The meeting started in the morning and counted with the participation of all the tribes that went to the central village to participate in the plea.

    According to the traditions the ceremony was all accomplished in the maternal language (Tupi Mondé), starting with candidate under the responsibility of cacique, Azumba Cinta Larga making a prayer of gratefulness for God for that meeting. The several candidates were invited to compose the table and later each one could speak to say their proposals for the community and had a time to ask votes.

    The first election was accomplished to choose the new president/*s of the indigenous association. After the counting of the votes Marcelo Cinta Larga was elected, having as vice the leader Pious Cinta Larga.

    The second election of the day was accomplished for the new cacique of Roosevelt/*s Central village choice, the candidates were introduced: Mascote, João Pelado, Canario, Azumba and João Pamaré that competed for the reelection. After the votes counting, the new cacique of the central village was chosen the leader Azumba Cinta Larga and as vice Canario Cinta Larga.

    Problems of the villages

    In the following day a new meeting was organized by the new leader that met with the indigenous community to discuss the principal problems of the villages. Representatives of the Village Capitão Cardoso, Juarez, Lieutenant Márquez, April 14, Flor do Prado sent their representatives to participate in the discussions.

    The representative of the indigenous school education Anemã Irun Cinta Larga also participated of the meeting as representative of Seduc in the coordination of the indigenous schools of the villages Cinta Larga. Each leadership made the use of the word to expose their difficulties in the community. At the end the new president of the indigenous association Marcelo Cinta Larga intended to create a new identity for the indigenous association, with actions focusing on valuing and to rescuing the traditions and habits of the Cinta Largas.

    Choose democratic

    The technician in indigenous education Anemã Irun Cinta Larga talked about the importance of those transitions that happen in the indigenous communities. The elections for choice of new leaderships happen every time that the community is not satisfied with the leader. In the choice all can vote, except child. “The Leader/*s permanence doesn/*t have certain time, while he is assisting the community/*s requests well he stays, there is no time limit for him to be the cacique “, affirmed Anemã.

    The caciques/* choice is democratic and without restrictions of the members. Any one of the community can run for the position. After the meeting the representative of the indigenous school education Anemã Cinta Larga asked the leaderships about the support in the maintenance of the indigenous education inside of the villages. “This support from the new leads is very important for the parents to maintain the youths in the schools “, concluded the teacher Anemã.

  • Fertile land of the Amazonian is analyzed

    An international group of research institutions is studying a form to reproduce what the researchers call Indian Topsoil, which they are fertile lands, found in several points of the Amazon Forest, in an aleatoric way, usually close to the rivers. In these places, during thousands of years the indigenous tribes that lived there buried the whole garbage type used by them – organic and inorganic. A long time then, it was discovered that those places changed in the most fertile soils of the world.

    Researchers of the Embrapa Solos, that is part of the study group, explain that the objective is to reproduce these lands in a short interval of time and in way economically viable. They affirm that the Indian Topsoil contains three times more phosphorus and nitrogen – that are the nutrients for the plants – if compared to the common soil that has never received doses fertilizers. Besides that, it can remove the carbon of the atmosphere in a much more effective way than any other soil type (a hectare of Topsoil can store 250 tons of carbon or more, against 100 tons in the close soils).

    Green revolution

    The specialists believe that, when it becomes possible to reproduce the Indian Topsoil, there will be a second Green Revolution – but this time, in an ecological correct way. “A true vegetable black gold, which we hope to become a passport for the so wanted sustainability of the Tropical Agriculture “, they explain.

    Agricultural input

    In a parallel way, The Embrapa Solos is also studying other forms of use to the urban and rural waste and it proposes a more nobleman use of this great environmental and public health problem: to transform the Waste in biogas or agricultural inputs. “The Indian Topsoil are fruit of the decomposition of that whole Waste that our old Indians buried “, explains the researcher Etelvino Henrique Novotny, of Embrapa Solos. The name “Topsoil” is due to the high accumulation of coal – or bio-coal as well as it is called -, different from the common soils.

    Since the decade of 60, the science is studying use forms and reproducible of the Topsoil. One of the last discoveries of use of the vegetable coal – present in these lands and manufactured in the industry – is as fertilizer and coadjutant in the kidnapping of gases of the green house effect. With the objective of studying those other uses of the vegetable coal the International Biochar Initiative was formed (IBI), to which the researcher Etelvino, was recently-guest to take part, beside representatives of 13 country-members.

  • Puroborás fights for the recognition

    Vale do Guaporé/RO – Contacted by Candido Marshal Mariano Rondon, in 1919, the Puroborá people, who lived in an area among São Francisco do Guaporé and Seringueiras cities have already conquered important victories in the fight that comes undertaking since 2002 for the search of the recognition of their etnia.

    In 2007, a work group from Funai may give an anthropological award to give course to the process that includes the landmark of the land where Puroborá ancestor had lived. The resources for the work had been enclosed in the budget of the Funai of 2007.

    Nowadays, the area is occuped by farmers, but by law it must be returned to the indians, with the payment of indemnities for the improvements found in the region, according to the substitute administrator of Funai in Porto Velho, Osman Brasil.

    The recognition of the Puroborá people is supported by the Resolution 069, of the International Organization of the Work, ratified by the Brazilian Government, that gives the right of recognition of remainders of peoples as the indians and that in Brazil also include the quilombolas.

    Although the law is clearly about this subject, it is known that the retaken of lands of the Puroborás will not be easy. “We find too much resistance in the region. Beyond attempts of captation of the indians by the farmers, it has already been done death threats so that the indians give up to retake the land”, tell Antonio Evangelista Sansão Puruborá, one of the leaders and articulator of the process of recognition of the people.

    According to Osman Brazil, the Puroborás had been expelled from their lands in 1970, when the indian/*s land Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau was created. Three more people, Wajuru, Cujubim and Miqueleno, had also demanded the recognition in Rondônia.

  • Natives get special credit and liberate the highway 230

    Brasília/DF – The indigenous commission that were negotiating in Brasília the liberation of resources for payment of debts of Funai with rondonienses suppliers got a special credit request in the value of R$ 1,7 million by Ministry of the Justice that should be liberated through presidential ordinance in the November.

    Beyond that value, the Indians got immediately, special resource in the value of R$ 25 thousand to be used in the inspection of the indigenous patrimony. With the positive answer on the part of the Federal Government, the Indians liberate the highways of the Estanho and the highway 230 (Trans Amazonian) and the administrative activities of Funai are normally on this Monday, 16th.

    According to the director of attendance of Funai, Slowacki de Assis, R$ 400 thousand will be destined for accomplishment of productive activities, R$ 400 for operation of indigenous positions, R$ 400 for social attendance and R$ 500 for protection and inspections of the territory.

    In Brasília the indigenous commission that negotiated with the government – composed by seven caciques – made an appointment for a new audience, after the elections period, with representatives of the Civil House to negotiate the resource that should be destined for Funai in 2007.

    As for Adriano Karipuna, indigenous leader of the tribe Karipuna, the Funai in Rondônia will need at least R$ 1, 6 million for costing the next year expenses. The budget for Funai in the whole Country is of R$ 677 million and it is distributed in 64 areas, including Brasília.

    Initial request

    The Indians initial request was of R$ 1,6 million, but it was just for the administration of Funai in Porto Velho, responsible for an area where there are about 3 thousand Indians living. In the State – including the south part of the Amazonas, administered by Rondônia – there are nine thousand Indians living, from 45 different groups.

    Damages

    With the closing of the highway 230, that ties the Humaitá town to Apuí, in the south of Amazonas and has about 19 thousand inhabitants it has already run of fuel and the electric power has been rationed, which is moved by diesel oil.

    According to the lider of the nucleus of Special Operations of the Federal Police in Rondônia, Régis Ramos, the traffic of vehicles in that space of Trans-Amazonian is not intense, about 100 vehicles a day and in the rainiest period – between the months of February and May – it is still fewer, once the highway has not been asphalted yet.

  • Indians charge justice for the sertanista murder

    Porto Velho/RO – After two years of the murder of the sertanista Apoena Meireles, the feeling in the National Foundation of the Indian (Funai) in Porto Velho is of longing. On the Friday afternoon, 6th, the Indians that are housed in the headquarters of the entity they had a ritual and danced in honor to the sertanista. They also believe that the financial difficulties that they are facing would not be happening if Apoena was among them and they complain that the Brazilian justice in not punishing the responsible for the murder.

    The searches for the author of the crime were suspended more than one year ago and the case is stopped because the murderer, fugitive, reached the majority. In the Childhood and Youth court it cannot be obtained more details on the process.

    Apoena Meireles was employee of Funai and was killed with two shots in the thorax, after reacting to an assault, inside one of the agencies of the Brazil Bank in Porto Velho, on October 9th, 2004. Passed the shock, rumors and distrusts, now, the Indians say that the only thing that they want is that justice is done.

    The indigenous leader Orlando Karitiana believes that the death of Apoena was treated with negligence. “The Brazilian justice disappoints us a lot, it was not done justice by the death of Apoena, as well as for the murder of many other leaders “, he says.” In Brazil it doesn´t have justice. It only exists for the rich ones”, he uncover himself.

    Indian blood

    The sertanista Apoena Merireles was considered as an example and he had good relationship with Indians of all the etnias. For them he fought for better life conditions and motivated so that they never forgot his cultures and traditions. “Apoena lived in the middle of the Indians because he liked it, not because it was necessary. I think he had Indian blood”, believes Raimundo Nonato Karitiana.

    When the Federal Police began the investigations on the 29 prospectors´ slaughter, in the reservation Roosevelt, 500 kilometers from Porto Velho, in April of 2004, Meireles went to Juína in Mato Grosso, to talk to the cacique Cinta-larga Big Dad. The indigenous leader determined the other leaders of the etnia in Rondônia that they assisted the sertanista and helped him to lessen the crisis between Indians and no-Indians, generated by the exploration of diamonds. The case was just an example of the respect that Apoena enjoyed with the indigenous people.

    Ores

    On the day he was murdered, Apoena had arrived from Brasília and would have gone to the Roosevelt reservation, in Espigão do Oeste town, where he would talk to the Indians Cinta-larga to ask them to wait for the liberation of the mine. He was one of the responsible for the mine to be closed. In the place there is a great bed of diamonds where 29 prospectors had been executed in April of that year. For those reasons it was cogitated at that time of the murder, that Apoena have been execute by an interested group in the ores and non armed robbery, as the police unmasked soon after.

    Assault

    The adolescent that fired Apoena, 17 years old at that time, was still arrested. He explained that tried to assault the sertanista to get money to buy drugs. He was a middle class youth and everybody was frightened with the banality by which the sertanista had been died.

    The youth was retired to the House of Temporary Internment four days after the crime, but by judge´s Ênio Salvador Vaz order, from the court of the Childhood and Youth of the district of Porto Velho, he was transferred, on the 23rd of the same month, to the House Família Roseta, institution that assists chemical dependents and he ran away on December 27th , 2004. He would have left peacefully by the side door and ran to the bush in the bottom of the land.

    Popularization

    One of the largest difficulties that the police found at that time was the fact that they could not publish the youth´s picture for treating of a crime as he had not reached the majority. It had never been published his picture and the police doesn´t have idea of his whereabouts. The case continues without solution, a sad verification for the Indians. “Whites don´t imagine what represents the loss of Apoena for us. If he was here certainly we would be dancing for some good thing”, says Orlando Karitiana.

    Investigation

    The Counselor of the Association of Etno-environmental Defense Kanindé, Ivaneide Bandeira charge a “more deeply investigation” on the causes of the death of the sertanista Apoena Meireles. She considers that two years after the murder has already passed and the investigations were restricted to the armed robbery hypothesis. “The fact of Apoena be involved in the investigation on the illegal mine of diamonds in Roosevelt´s Indigenous land should have provoked a larger interest for the causes of the murder. He had important information and one day before dying he said, in a meeting with the Suruí people that intended to “dismount the frauds” that existed in the Roosevelt Reservation”, she affirmed.

    Ivaneide Bandeira also charges justice for the killer, who escaped from Rondônia, taking unknown direction. “She cannot discard the hypothesis that behind the murderer there was great people with interests in the exploration of diamonds “, she points out.

    Difficulties

    The Indians in Rondônia and in the South of Amazonas unchained a series of protests during last week to press the Federal Government to liberate resources for Funai of the Capital. The highway 230 was blocked and the headquarters of the organ in Porto Velho was occupied by Indians. The debts of Funai, that get to R$ 600 thousand, impede the agricultural production in the villages. This way, many people have been living with difficulties.

  • Indians retreat and decide to wait for the money liberation without blocking the highway 364

    Porto Velho/RO – The Indians that live in Rondônia decided to wait until the 16th, the Federal Government/*s decision in liberating resources so that Funai can pay debts with rondonienses suppliers.

    According to Aurélio Tenharin, who is in Brasília accompanying the negotiations, representatives of the Ministry of the Justice have already committed in repassing the money. Even so, a composed commission with seven indigenous of different etnias still probes an audience with the minister of the Justice, Márcio Thomaz Bastos, to try to sensitize him of the need of the liberation of the resource.

    They affirm that need at least R$ 1 million for the payment of debts of approximately R$ 600 thousand. The remaining of the money would be to conclude exercise of 2006.

    To press the liberation of the resource, which can be possible made by fund supplement, the Indians closed the highway 230 (Trans Amazonian), that ties the Humaitá and Apuí towns, in Amazonas state, part of the highway of the Tin (Machadinho/Apuí) and they threaten to block the highway 364, highway that links the State of Rondônia to the south of the Country and one of the principal roads of productive drainage of the north area.

    “We don/*t want to close the highway 364 to harm the population, so we will wait until Monday, but if they don/*t assist we won/*t have other option”, says Orlando Karintiana, indigenous leader in the village Karintiana.

    About a thousand Indians were positioned in the proximities of highway 230 and other 250 are piled in the headquarters of Porto Velho/RO and Ji-Paraná/RO/*s Funai. We are living with difficulties in the villages, so we decided to disperse “, explains Valmir Parintintin.

    Conflict

    The blockade of highway 230 generated, on Monday, an upset among Indians and the gathering of the Army that tried to come back to Humaitá town after supporting in the electoral process in Apuí town.

    The troop was impeded of passing and the Indians feeling threatened decided to saw a bridge in the proximities of the kilometer 150. The same soldiers made an improvised bridge, with logs of trees and got the Indians/* liberation so that they returned to the barracks.

    According to the indigenous leader Valmir Parintintin, the Indians only liberate the passage for ambulances. Some truck drivers are stopped in the place and bus line had to come back.

  • Indians intensify movement for the liberation of resources

    Porto Velho/RO – The movement that began last week, seeking the liberation of resources to assist the Indians´ need that live in Rondônia, should continue until the leaders get a positive answer from the Federal Government. They want the advancement of a found supplement to cover expenses with suppliers in the whole State. If they are not assisted, the Indians promise to close the highway 364 next Wednesday, 4th.

    The protest for the liberation of resources began on Thursday of last week, with the stoppage of the administrative activities in the headquarters of Funai in several municipal towns. It was intensified with the closing of the highway 230 (trans Amazonian) and in the beginning of next week representatives of eight etnias that live in Rondônia disembark in Brasília to try an audience with the minister of the Justice Marcos Thomaz Bastos.

    Now about 150 Indians fill the lodging of Funai in Porto Velho. Still on this Friday, 29th, more 60 natives should join the crowd round the headquarters of Funai and they count with the representatives´ of NGOs aid to feed themselves. We are receiving support so that the movement doesn´t weak ´, says Clóvis Kassupá, cacique of the tribe Kassupá, etnia that lives in the area of Guajará-Mirim, in Rondônia.

    According to Kassupá, the largest difficulty that the natives find now is the lack of transport. ´Many are coming to ´Porto Velho taking lifts, he points out. The difficulty has an explanation. Only to gas stations Funai owes about R$ 100 thousand. The discharges debts impede the suppliers of continuing giving up products and services.

    Reflexes

    The natives´ total debt in the rondoniense market gets to R$ 600 thousand. The reflexes have already been felt in the agriculture. Some etnias didn´t re-do the plantations during the summer, due to lack of agricultural equipments and seeds.

    The problem of the lack of resources is not reflected in the indigenous health, because recently they were correspondents R$ 1, 5 million for attendance in this area, through the National Foundation of Health (Funasa).

    According to Humberto Terena, coordinator of the Federation of the Indigenous Organization in Rondônia (Foir), the lack of resources for the native repeated in the whole Country. Rondônia didn´t count with budget for the indigenous area in 2006.

    The 400 Indians of four etnias of the area of Humaitá (AM), who were positioned in the kilometer 150 of the highway 230 (trans Amazonian), on this Tuesday, they continue obstructing the passage of transports in the place.