Church demands end to armed attacks on Guarani

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Brazilian bishops have demanded that the government take urgent action to put an end to armed attacks on Guarani communities in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, south of the Amazon.

Last month, Guarani of Y’poi community were held prisoner by gunmen after they returned to their ancestral land, now occupied by a ranch.

Guarani of another community, Ita’y Ka’aguyrusu, who had also attempted to reoccupy their land, suffered several armed attacks and the violence is ongoing. It is reported that ranchers have beaten women and children and thrown explosives into the area.

The Bishops described the Guarani’s situation as an ‘outrageous violation of their rights’, and demanded that the authorities respect Brazilian law and map out the Guarani’s land, in order to ‘put an end to the shameful violence in the area and to protect the lives of this tribe which honors the country with its culture and customs’.

Many of the Guarani Indians of Mato Grosso do Sul live in dire conditions in overcrowded reserves or on the side of roads, as almost all their land has been taken from them to make way for cattle ranches and soya and sugar cane plantations.

In the past, leaders of Guarani communities which have reoccupied their land, tired of waiting for the authorities to officially map it out, have been subjected to violent attacks, and some of their leaders, such as the internationally renowned Marcos Veron, have been assassinated.

The UN’s expert on Indigenous rights published a report last month, in which he says he is ‘deeply concerned about the allegations of violence against the Guarani people and the severe impact that the aggressive policy of governments in the past to sell large tracts of traditional lands to non-Indigenous farmers has had on the Guarani communities’.