In this Aug. 2010 photo released in 2012 by Survival International, Awa Indians stand in a forest in Maranhao state, Brazil. For generations, the Awa lived far away from the rest of humanity, following the seasons' rhythms in the lush Brazilian Amazon rainforest. Then the rest of the world found the Awa. Watchdog groups say conflict is inevitable as government-backed projects such as hydroelectric dams and roads bring thousands of settlers to remote areas. Two bills now working their way through Brazil's Congress would further open indigenous territory to development and potentially weaken tribes' hold on their land. (AP Photo/Domenico Pugliese, Survival International) (Photo: )
The New Year has brought some good tidings for the Awá people of Brazil.
It has been over 10 years since Brazil's government formally demarcated Awá territory in the state of Maranhão, but the country has done little to enforce the boundaries. This week, however, the government launched an operation to evict illegal settlers from Awá land. According to the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), squatters have 40 days to pack up their goods and get off the land.
The Awá are an indigenous, nomadic tribe in Brazil who subsist largely on hunting and gathering. For years they persisted apart from the rest of humanity until agricultural developments brought rail lines and logging roads through their lands. Today, 100 of their roughly 450-member population are believed to still be uncontacted.
Settlers illegally occupying the Awá land include loggers and landless farmer who have held the land long enough to construct nearly 300 buildings, some of them sawmills used for logging purposes.
The Guardian notes that Brazil's reluctance to intervene until now may be related to the government's strong ties to agro-business lobbying groups. Developing agricultural land, on the one hand, has helped boost Brazil's economy. But the country also faces pressure from international media, celebrities and human rights groups to address the encroachment on tribal land, which threatens the members of the Awá tribe.
Survival International, a tribal rights organization, celebrated the government's announcement as the successful culmination of campaigning efforts. As Director Stephen Corry said in a January 6 release: "This is a momentous and potentially life-saving occasion for the Awá. Their many thousands of supporters worldwide can be proud of the change they have helped the tribe bring about."
Tensions among farmers, loggers, the government and indigenous peoples in Brazil are longstanding and delicate. Brazilian authorities have reportedly promised to assist the illegal settlers in relocating and getting access to social services.
As Survival International's Corry notes: "All eyes are now on Brazil to ensure it completes the operation before the World Cup kicks off in June, and protects Awá land once and for all."
Damiana Cavanha stands by the side of a Brazilian road, a blue-feathered maraca made from a pumpkin gourd in one hand, and starts to sing. The ground is littered with trash; behind her stand huts constructed from corrugated iron, plastic sheeting and tarpaulin. Trucks thunder past; the noise drowns out her invocations. (Photo by Survival International)
Damiana is from the Guarani-Kaiowá tribe, who are thought to have been one of the first peoples to be contacted after Europeans arrived in South America. (Photo by Survival International)
A decade ago, cattle ranchers intimidated Damiana and her family, evicting her from her ancestral lands. The Apy Ka'y community has since lived in squalid conditions by the highway. On Sept. 15, 2013, however, they carried out a courageous 'retomada' (reoccupation) of the sugar cane plantation that has taken over their ancestral land. "We decided to reoccupy part of our traditional land where there is a well of good water and a bit of remaining forest," said Damiana this week. "Faced with the threat of death, the loss of our relatives and so much suffering and pain, we decided for the fourth time to reoccupy our land." (Photo by Survival International)
For as long as they can remember, the Guarani have been searching for a place revealed to them by their ancestors, where people live free from pain and suffering; a place they call the land without evil. But they did not find it here, on a red patch of no-man's land, where flies swarmed in hot shelters and polluted water was collected in plastic bottles thrown from passing cars. (Photo by Survival International)
The Apy Ka'y community's only water source was one that is polluted by chemicals used to spray soya and sugarcane plantations. "When it rained, we drank dirty water like dogs," says Damiana. (Photo by Paul Patrick Borhaug)
In the past few years, Damiana's husband and three of her sons have been run over and killed on the highway. They are buried on their ancestral land, which is now a fenced sugar cane plantation. Damiana has taken great risks in breaching the area in order to pray at their gravesides. (Photo by Paul Patrick Borhaug)
"They were my three warriors," says Damiana, of her sons who were killed on the road. The location of their graves was a factor in Damiana's decision to carry out the retomada. "We decided to return to the land where three of our children are buried," she said. (Photo by Paul Patrick Borhaug)
In August 2013, a fire had raged through the Apy Ka'y camp, forcing Damiana and her community to flee as her shelter smoldered and possessions were lost to the blaze. The fire was reported to have started on the São Fernando sugarcane plantation and mill that occupy her ancestral land. It was not the first time her camp had been engulfed by flames; in September 2009, gunmen set the Apy Ka'y shelters alight and attacked members of Damiana’s community. The Guarani now say that the characteristic reddish color of the earth is tinted by the spilled blood of their people. (Photo by Spensy Pimentel/Survival International)
The loss and destruction of their lands have been at the root of the Guarani's appalling suffering. Many have succumbed to mental anguish. Over the past 30 years, more than 625 Guarani Indians have killed themselves, making their suicide rate 19 times higher than the national average. Young adults under the age of 30 have accounted for 85% of the suicides; the youngest was only 9 years old. "The Guarani are committing suicide because we have no land," said a Guarani woman. "In the old days, we were free. Now we are no longer. So our young people think there is nothing left. They sit down and think, they lose themselves and then they commit suicide." (Photo by Paul Patrick Borhaug/Survival International)
"Our shelters, clothes, food, pots, pans and mattresses have all been burned," says Damiana. "We have lost everything, except the hope we will return to our ancestral land." (Photo by Paul Patrick Borhaug/Survival International)
A 'retomada' has long been Damiana's hope and solace: the goal that has sustained her through the brutal years of eviction, fear, humiliation, malnutrition, bereavement, illness and depression. It is a dangerous act; other Guarani have been murdered carrying out a 'retomada,' and the sinister presence of pistoleiros (gunmen) parked near her shelter in blacked-out jeeps has always been a constant reminder of the value of land in Brazil, and the price people pay for their actions. They have already received three death threats, and say that an attempt was made to poison their water. (Photo by Simon Rawles)
Just as it is only a thin line of barbed wire that has separated the Apyka'y camp from the sugar cane plantation that has taken over their lands, so there is only a slender demarcation between the outer world of nature and the inner world of self, for the Guarani. Their homeland is the mainstay of their identity: to live disconnected from it is to live in purgatory. "We have decided to fight and die for our land," says Damiana of this week’s retomada. (Photo by Paul Patrick Borhaug/Survival International)
Survival International is campaigning for the Brazilian authorities to map out Guarani territory as a matter of urgency. In 2012, Survival successfully persuaded oil giant Shell to scrap plans to source sugar cane from lands stolen from the Guarani, and successfully lobbied judges to suspend an eviction order which threatened to force Guarani Indians of Laranjeira Ñanderu community to leave their land. "It isn't surprising that the Guarani are taking matters into their own hands," said Stephen Corry, Director of Survival, this week. "They desperately need support, or they are likely to be evicted and attacked yet again." (Photo by Survival International)
"We are refugees in our own country." -Damiana Cavanha (Photo by Survival International)
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