Brazil's 'lost report' into genocide surfaces after 40 years [View all]

[Catherina]

Brazil's 'lost report' into genocide surfaces after 40 years

Figueiredo report reveals alleged crimes against indigenous tribes from 1940s to 1980s and sheds light on current land policy


Jonathan Watts and Jan Rocha
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 29 May 2013 12.50 BST


Umutima shaman in 1957: the Figueiredo report caused an outcry after it revealed crimes against Brazil's indigenous population. Photograph: José Idoyaga/Survival

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"The Indian Protection Service has degenerated to the point of chasing Indians to extinction," the prosecutor writes in an introduction addressed to the interior minister.

The pages – all bound, initialled and marked MI-58-455 – include an alphabetical list of the alleged perpetrators and the indictments against them. Most are accused of falsely appropriating land, misusing funds or illegally selling cattle or timber to enrich themselves at the expense of the communities they were supposed to be protecting. But many are implicated in far more heinous crimes.

The number of victims is impossible to calculate. The Truth Commission believes that some tribes, such as those in Maranhão, were completely wiped out. In one case, in Mato Grosso, only two survivors emerged to tell of an attack on a community of 30 Cinta Larga Indians with dynamite dropped from aeroplanes. Figueiredo also details how officials and landowners lethally introduced smallpox into isolated villages and donated sugar mixed with strychnine.

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Survival International's director, Stephen Corry, said nothing has changed when it comes to the impunity regarding the murder of Indians. "Gunmen routinely kill tribespeople in the knowledge that there's little risk of being brought to justice – none of the assassins responsible for shooting Guarani and Makuxi tribal leaders have been jailed for their crimes. It's hard not to suspect that racism and greed are at the root of Brazil's failure to defend its indigenous citizens' lives," he said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/29/brazil-figueiredo-genocide-report