Column: Indigenous ‘Guardians’ Launch Operation to Expel Loggers in Pará State

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Tired of waiting for a federal government action to reverse the invasion of their lands, the tembé tribe of the Upper Guamá River Indigenous Territory in Pará created a group of “Forest Guardians” and started to surround the invaders and demand their departure.

On September 9th, with their faces painted, riding motorcycles and in uniform, about 40 armed tembé “guardians” headed to a logging camp in the town known as Igarapé Ubin, about 30 km from the Tenetehara village. A group of nine people were surrounded, advised to leave the region and then released.

Chief Sérgio Mutí Tembé told photojournalist from Belém (PA) Raimundo Paccó, who accompanied the inspection, that the action was an ultimatum. The indians promise that from now on they will burn equipment and destroy the invaders’ camps.

“We will advise them to leave the indigenous land, to go away. Not to cut down the wood, not to exploit our riches, our forests,” said Chief Tembé just before the inspection began.

“The struggle is not new, against the invasion of land by loggers, prospectors, invaders, various situations that we are suffering. We created the ‘Guardians’ for these boys to do an inspection, where invasion, logging, illegal harvesting of wood occur,” said the chief.

The group began to be formed two years ago and, according to the chief, there will be a number of actions to expel the illegal occupants. A first inspection was made a year ago. With resources from the WWF non-governmental organization, the indians acquired pants, shirts, coats and boots.

Groups similar to “Forest Guardians” are also working to protect the Guajajara lands of Maranhão.

Chief records message to Bolsonaro

In the September 9th operation, after a five-hour journey, the indians first met the non-indigenous Altemir Freitas Mota, 52 years old. He was near a large piquiarana tree, considered valuable in the region, already cut down by chainsaws. Questioned by the indians, Mota denied that he was working with loggers. Urged to take the indians to their camp, he first pointed to a wrong path and then corrected it. The tembés then found six adult men, a woman who worked as a cook for the group, and a child.

Chief Sérgio told the group that their presence on indigenous land would be denounced to the Prosecutor’s Office, IBAMA and FUNAI and asked them to leave the region immediately. On a video recorded by Paccó, the chief appealed to President Jair Bolsonaro.

“Bolsonaro, President, you must have respect for our indigenous population. You were elected, some indigenous people, we voted for you. You must respect our culture, our tradition. When you came to Brazil, we were already here, you came to invade. So, President, you must have respect, together with your deputies, senators, legislators. Because we are human beings, we are people and we are Brazilians. I urge you to show respect for us. Don’t massacre us, don’t say things about us.”

Land reserved in 1945 and certified since 1993

The Upper Guamá River, with about 2,000 indigenous people, is considered one of the oldest indigenous lands recognized in Brazil and the State of Pará, and was reserved in 1945 by the now extinct SPI (Indian Protection Service). It was cordoned off in 1990 and certified in 1993. In addition to the tembés, there are Awa’s-Guajás and Ka’apor indians living there.

However, several parts of the land are still invaded by non-indigenous people. The indians estimate that there are over 300 illegal people in the territory, many of whom are connected to the illegal extraction of timber.

A year ago, the MPF (Federal Prosecutor’s Office) of Pará requested the Federal Police and the command of the Army in Belém for an urgent operation in the region in order to “prevent attacks by loggers against Tembé peoples in the Upper Guamá River Indigenous Territory (TI).” The request was also forwarded to FUNAI and the government of Pará. The MPF explained that the invasions escalated in 2019.

According to the Pará MPF, since 2014 there has been a judicial decision in favor of the indigenous that ordered the federal government to submit and execute a plan to remove non-indigenous people. The government has not submitted the plan to date, according to the MPF.

On September 1st, in a text released to the press, the MPF celebrated the 1st Region Federal Appellate Court (TRF) decision, which upheld the arguments of the lawsuit brought by the MPF and preserved the integrity of the indigenous land. The municipality of Nova Esperança do Piriá (PA) had been trying in court since 2006 to separate 69,000 hectares of indigenous territory, under the allegation that this portion belonged to settlers.

In June, the TRF decided that there was no evidence supporting the city government’s allegation, and affirmed a lower federal court decision. The case became res judicata, that is, it was definitively closed on August 25th, as no appeal was made from the TRF decision.

According to the MPF, the indigenous territory began to be invaded during the military dictatorship (1964-1985), when the government’s promises attracted several settler families to the region. INCRA (Federal Agrarian Reform Bureau) even issued an ordinance that purported to exclude a portion of indigenous land. This administrative dispute between FUNAI and INCRA, however, was settled still in 1993, with the final ratification of the indigenous land.

Now the TRF has accepted the MPF position, which said it was “proven that the area claimed by the appellant municipality is an area of immemorial indigenous possession, so much so that since 1945, for over 60 years, it had already been recognized as an area of indigenous occupation.”

This area being litigated no longer houses settlers, reported the MPF. The families have already been resettled by INCRA in another location.

Plan for disintrusion

The prosecutor in Paragominas (PA) Renan Lima confirmed that the indigenous land of the Upper Guamá River “is regularly delimited and any non-indigenous occupant who insists on remaining is in an irregular situation.”

“The MPF also filed a repossession lawsuit in 2012 in favor of the indigenous so that non-indigenous occupants could be removed and ownership of the land returned to the indigenous. This lawsuit was decided on October 9th, 2014, when the court ruled that the federal government should submit a “disintrusion” operational plan. Consequently, there has been a decision since 2014 for the federal government to submit and implement the plan. The government failed to meet the deadline and as a result the MPF requested the imposition of a fine and also demanded again that the federal government be ordered to submit this plan definitively and enforce disintrusion. The MPF has worked and continues to work in defense of the rights of the indigenous so that they may secure the whole territory.”

Source: Rubens Valente Column, UOL