{"id":141831,"date":"2019-09-02T12:00:05","date_gmt":"2019-09-02T11:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=141831"},"modified":"2019-09-09T09:23:19","modified_gmt":"2019-09-09T08:23:19","slug":"amazons-indigenous-warriors-take-on-invading-loggers-and-ranchers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/09\/amazons-indigenous-warriors-take-on-invading-loggers-and-ranchers\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon’s Indigenous Warriors Take on Invading Loggers and Ranchers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trincheira Bacaj\u00e1 indigenous land:<\/em> Under threat from fire, deforestation and Bolsonaro, Xikrin people take matters into own hands.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Xikrin warriors return to Rapko after an expedition to expel invaders. Photograph: Lalo de Almeida<\/p><\/div>\n

29 Aug 2019 – <\/em>Threatened by fire, deforestation and invasion, the Xikrin people of the northern Amazon are fighting back.<\/p>\n

While the authorities stand idle and the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, tries to undermine their territorial rights, the indigenous community have taken matters into their own hands by expelling the loggers and ranchers who illegally occupied their land and set fire to the forest.<\/p>\n

Armed with rifles and wooden batons, groups of Xikrin warriors have swept through their extensive territory in the state of Par\u00e1 over the past week. Whenever they encountered fire-scarred land, illegal clearances and habitations, they went from hut to hut, ejecting the invaders and confiscating chainsaws and other tools.<\/p>\n

At the end of the 40km expedition, the warriors felt empowered. In a war ritual, they marched back to their homes in Rapk\u00f4 village. As their families gathered round, they showed mobile phone clips of the raid they had conducted on the intruders\u2019 huts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy are we protecting our land? So we can hunt. So our sons and grandsons can live well on this land,\u201d said Tikiri Xikrin, one of the oldest warriors, during a ceremony to mark the group\u2019s safe return. \u201cOnly if I die will the kuben<\/em> [white people] occupy the land.\u201d<\/p>\n

By law, this ought to be the task of the federal police. The 1,651,000-hectare Trincheira Bacaj\u00e1 indigenous territory was officially recognised by the government in 2000. Nobody but the 1,100 members of the Xikrin community has the right to live on it.<\/p>\n

But the elders know there is scant hope that the government will enforce their rights. The land-grabbers first started to creep into the area in June last year, using a rough road that had been cut into the forest by illegal loggers. The Xikrin filed complaints to official agencies several times, but to no avail.<\/p>\n

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A Xikrin warrior observes a demarcation sign.\u00a0 Photograph: Lalo de Almeida<\/p><\/div>\n

Last month, the slow trickle of deforestation became a flood across the Amazon, with a 278% <\/a>increase over the same time last year. One of the worst-affected areas was the supposedly protected land of the Xikrin. In July, land-grabbers razed an area of pristine forest the size of 1,500 football pitches in their territory, according to the independent monitoring group Imazon.<\/p>\n

The problems have a long history, but Bolsonaro has made things worse. Instead of defending the territories from crime, critics say he repeatedly undermines indigenous residents in his speeches and through his policies. During a meeting with Amazon region state governors on 27 August, the nationalist president alleged native communities have been used by foreign interests to limit Brazil\u2019s growth.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Indigenous peoples] don\u2019t speak our language, but they have somehow managed to get 14% of our national territory,\u201d Bolsonaro said recently, adding: \u201cOne of the purposes of this is to impair us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bekara Xikrin, the chief of Rapk\u00f4 village, said the land-grabbers had been encouraged by the president. \u201cOne guy [among the invaders] told us the land is freely accessible, that Bolsonaro granted access to it, that this is not indigenous land.\u201d<\/p>\n

The invader claimed he wanted to help the indigenous community to work their land. Bekara gave him short shrift. \u201cI told him: this indigenous person doesn\u2019t want help, the old warriors don\u2019t want help. Deforestation<\/a> is not allowed here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Xikrin\u2019s self-defence actions have not scared off the land-grabbers. In an audio message circulated by WhatsApp, one of them warned that close to 300 people were preparing an attack against a nearby indigenous village.<\/p>\n

To prevent violence, the federal prosecutor for the region, Thais Santi, formally requested action by the police on 26 August. She said an operation should be carried out within 24 hours, but two days later nothing had happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Trincheira Bacaj\u00e1 case involves widescale negligence by the government,\u201d Santi said. \u201cThe Xikrin registered a complaint against the occupation of their land. Because the police failed to act in time, the invasion spread.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Xikrin warriors gather in Rapko village. Photograph: Lalo de Almeida<\/p><\/div>\n

Many other indigenous lands in the Xingu river region are under similar pressure. This basin \u2013 one of the biggest in the Amazon \u2013 has been opened up by the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, which brought an influx of business people and labourers. The municipality around the main city of Altamira now ranks first in Brazil<\/a> for fire outbreaks.<\/p>\n

From 1 January to 26 August, the municipality experienced 2,566 blazes, an increase of 459% over the same period last year, according to Brazil\u2019s national space research institute, Inpe.<\/p>\n

Neighbouring the Trincheira is the Apyterewa indigenous territory of the Parakan\u00e3 people, which has suffered a huge invasion by cattle ranchers. In July, 28 sq km were deforested in this area \u2013 the largest inside a Brazilian indigenous territory that month, according to Imazon.<\/p>\n

Apyterewa illustrates how the federal government\u2019s inaction predates Bolsonaro. In 2015, the federal supreme court (STF) ordered the eviction of hundreds of invaders but, four years later, the ruling has not been enforced. In fact, the number of land-grabbers has increased.<\/p>\n

In the same region, Ituna\/Itat\u00e1 indigenous territory lost 9 sq km of forest last month. These three indigenous lands are the worst affected in Brazil in recent weeks, according to Imazon.<\/p>\n

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A deforested area inside the Trincheira territory. Photograph: Lalo de Almeida<\/p><\/div>\n

Pressure against the Xikrin comes mostly from livestock farming. The cattle ranching industry is staunchly in support of Bolsonaro. Not far from their territory is S\u00e3o F\u00e9lix do Xingu, the municipality with the largest cattle herd in the country, numbering 2.24 million in 2017. There is nowhere in the Amazon with more degraded pasture \u2013 286,000 hectares, according to 2014 figures from the agricultural and livestock research agency. \u201cThis indicates that a large area has been deforested and is now misused,\u201d says researcher Paulo Barreto of Imazon.<\/p>\n

The Xikrin are now fighting to prevent their territory from suffering the same fate. The warriors say they are proud of what they have done to defend it, though the initial sense of jubilation has been replaced by a sombre realisation that they may now face a counter-attack.<\/p>\n

Holding a sickle in his hands, Tikiri Xikrin was defiant: \u201cI am not afraid of the white invaders. I have courage. We have courage. If the kuben<\/em> start a conflict, we will fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 theguardian.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

29 Aug 2019 – Trincheira Bacaj\u00e1 indigenous land: Under threat from fire, deforestation and Bolsonaro, Xikrin people take matters into own hands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":141834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[224,45,180,53,221],"tags":[536,547,239,120,794,331,354,401,267,866,541,234,109,287,103,985,126,172,75],"class_list":["post-141831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-human-rights","category-activism","category-brics","category-latin-america-and-the-caribbean","category-indigenous-rights","tag-amazonia","tag-brazil","tag-brics","tag-conflict","tag-deforestation","tag-development","tag-economics","tag-environment","tag-geopolitics","tag-indigenous-rights","tag-latin-america-caribbean","tag-media","tag-politics","tag-power","tag-racism","tag-social-justice","tag-violence","tag-west","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}