Rights groups alarmed at Brazil Indian decree

Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 14:53:32 -0500

BY MICHAEL CHRISTIE

Reuters

BRASILIA -- International human rights groups this week expressed their alarm at
 a Brazilian government decree changing the rules for creating territory for the
 indigenous population.

Carlos Igoita, director of Amnesty International in Brazil, said Friday the 
group feared human rights abuses would result. And Human Rights Watch/Americas 
expressed concern that provisions allowing non-Indians to challenge reserves 
could lead to violent incursions into Indian land by wildcat gold diggers and 
loggers seeking to exploit resources.

``We are concerned that it could create a climate conducive to further illegal 
incursions into Indian areas, which may well be violent and which have in the 
past not been responded to adequately by the government,'' Jim Cavallaro, 
director of Human Rights Watch's Brazilian branch, said.

The law, signed by President Fernando Henrique Cardoso on Jan. 8, gives 
interested parties three months to register their claims to Indian lands. It has
 enraged Indians and indigenous pressure groups, who fear reserves will be 
overwhelmed by judicial challenges.

In some cases, Indian have taken up arms. A tribe from the Amazon recently took 
government officials hostage for several days in a bid to force settlers off its
 land.

In London Wednesday, human rights groups Amnesty International, OXFAM and 
Survival International delivered a protest note to the Brazilian ambassador, 
Rubens Barbosa.

``The latest decree is a recipe for tragedy,'' Amnesty said in a statement faxed
 to Reuters in Brasilia. ``By throwing the demarcation of over 344 indigenous 
lands into doubt, the government has paved the way for the invasion of 
indigenous lands by settlers, miners and loggers. In the past, this has resulted
 in massacres, selective killings, abductions, threats and assaults on 
indigenous people.''

The government says the decree was intended to remove a loophole in the law that
 might have allowed state governments to challenge the constitutionality of 
indigenous reserves. But local human rights activists accuse Justice Minister 
Nelson Jobim, the author of the decree, of ``hypocrisy.''

Before becoming justice minister, Jobim acted as an attorney for the state of 
Para in challenging an Indian reserve. His action was dismissed by the Supreme 
Court.

About 210 reserves have been demarcated under 1991 laws protecting Brazil's 
300,000 indigenous people -- down from 5 million when Portuguese settlers 
arrived in 1500. Another 344 areas are in the process of registration as Indian 
territory.

Amnesty said partial figures showed at least 123 Indians had been killed in land
 disputes over the past five years. And Human Rights Watch/Americas said 31 
Indians had been killed in the Amazonian state of Roraima alone since 1988.