BRAZIL LOOKS INTO KILLINGS OF UNCONTACTED INDIANS

[Okwes]

SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL PRESS RELEASE

30 November 2005

BRAZIL INVESTIGATES KILLINGS OF UNCONTACTED INDIANS

In one of the biggest operations of its kind, over a hundred Brazilian
federal police arrested eighteen people for crimes against Indians and
the environment yesterday.

Operation Rio Pardo is investigating allegations of killings of members
of an uncontacted tribe, known as the Rio Pardo Indians. In the last
decade their land has been invaded by land grabbers and logging
companies. The police have issued seventy arrest warrants and ninety
search warrants in seven states.

In a race against time, FUNAI, the government's Indian affairs
department, has two teams in the Rio Pardo area trying to make contact
with the Indians. This week Brazilian TV showed the first images of one
of the Indians filmed by the team. The Indian man was cutting a tree
trunk in search of honey and was accompanied by two women. After a brief
moment they disappeared into the forest. Nothing is known about the
Indians - not even the language they speak or what tribe they belong to.

This is the first official 'sighting' of the tribe and proves that some
are still alive. In the last month FUNAI has also found a number of
abandoned temporary camps, with food and possessions - clear evidence
that the Indians are on the run. FUNAI believes that land grabbers and
loggers are intent on wiping out the Indians so they can take over their
land. The territory has had a protection order placed on it, but has not
been officially mapped out and recognised as indigenous. Logging
companies are ignoring the protection order and continue clearing the
land.

Survival's director Stephen Corry said today, 'The total destruction of
a tribe, however small, is genocide. The land of the Rio Pardo Indians
must be recognised and protected now, or their annihilation will be
complete.'

For more information call Miriam Ross on [phone] or email
[e-mail]

To read this press release online visit
survival-international.org/news.php?id=1192

[blackcrowheart]

BRAZIL: TOP OFFICIALS ACCUSED OF GENOCIDE OF INDIANS

A former state governor and a former top policeman are among the accused
in Brazil's first ever investigation into the genocide of an uncontacted
Indian tribe.

Twenty-nine people are being detained in Operation Rio Pardo, the
investigation into the genocide of the uncontacted Rio Pardo Indians. In
the last decade, the Indians' land has been invaded by land grabbers and
logging companies.

Brazilian TV showed in November the first known images of the Indians.
No-one outside the tribe knows who they are or what language they speak.

The government's Indian affairs department, FUNAI, has found camps
inside the territory with land measuring equipment, and bombs and
ammunition to intimidate the Indians. The invaders admit to finding
thirty hurriedly abandoned Indian shelters.

The former governor of Mato Grosso state, Wilmar Peres de Farias, and
former elite police commander Roberto de Almeida Gil are among the
public figures implicated in the affair.

Speaking from the city of Cuiabá, public prosecutor Mario Lucio Avelar
told Survival he believed there were sufficient grounds to prosecute for
genocide. According to the UN, the crime of genocide can mean,
'Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to
bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part'.

Survival's director Stephen Corry said today, 'It's shocking that in the
twenty-first century, with so many of Brazil's tribes gone forever,
those remaining are still in danger of genocide. Brazil must take
immediate action to recognise and protect the land of the Rio Pardo
Indians, before it is too late.'

For more information call Miriam Ross on [phone] or email
[e-mail]


To read this press release online visit
survival-international.org/news.php?id=1258