Beginning in July of this year, millions of indigenous peoples of several different ethnic groups (Miranha, Kokama, Apurinã, Baré, Sateré-Mawé, Tuyuka, Tikuna, Mura), along with some non-indigenous farmers and river-dweller peoples, occupied a large area of land, at kilometer 4 of the Manoel Urbano Highway, in the town of Iranduba. This municipal is located on the other side of the Rio Negro [Black River], facing the city of Manaus, capital of the State of Amazonas, in Brazil. This indigenous mobilization caused an intense dispute over public unoccupied lands, whose possible owner has yet to be determined during the last 3 months of the creation of a new indigenous “community” called Deus é por Nós – “God is for Us”.
Saturday afternoon, September 28th, shortly after leaving the scene of conflict, our research team of the New Social Cartography of the Amazon Project, which has been following the indigenous movement within the city of Manaus and bordering cities, received news that the Federal and military police managed to push the remaining occupants of this indigenous land occupation out of the area after a week long struggle between members of Deus é por Nós and State and Federal authorities.
On September 24th, we received news by phone call that the police had blocked the entrance into the land “occupation”, as it is designated by the indians and their allies. In this way, those who had left to work during the day, or to look for food and water, upon coming back were surprised to discover that the police would not allow them to go back into the “community”, separating them from their families, and keeping those that were inside the “occupation” from access to food or water. This caused a series of health problems for those who could not leave due to police intrusion. Among those starving and sick were hundreds of children.
Photos: Helen Catalina Ubinger, 09/25/2013
We were also informed of the death threats that the indigenous leaders were receiving from authorities, not to mention the physical violence that the indians were suffering from police agents. Our research team arrived at the area of dispute on the 25th of September. The occupants had become an obstacle to the interests of the authorities who want to free the area for real estate speculation. FUNAI, the National Indian Foundation, a governmental protection agency for indian interests, contributed to the dispute by not complying with the responsibility of initiating and completing an official survey: collecting data on how many indigenous peoples were actually occupying the area and how many possessed a RANI, administrative indigenous registration, official documentation that states indigenous identity. This information is crucial to determine the land rights of these people. If the land is federal union or public land, it could possibly be liberated for indigenous use by the State and Federal authorities under Brazilian law.
Photo: Helen Catalina Ubinger, 09/25/2013
The local journalistic news has continuously classified these peoples as “invaders” or “supposed indians” which discredits their ethnic identity and weakens the indigenous movement as a whole. After speaking with representatives of the Military Police, the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) and the State Secretary of Indigenous Peoples (SEIND) that have been involved in this operation, it has become clear that the local press has reproduced the discourse of these official agents. This has contributed to a distorted public vision about these indigenous peoples, camouflaging problems related to land distribution in the metropolitan region of Manaus. Such manifestations arise as a result of unequal access to land that defines the configuration of this city and districts nearby.
Physical violence by Military Police was reported, as part of the strategy to isolate the area. A 16 year old Tuyuka indian boy showed us the wounds on his body, after being assaulted by police when he was trying to return to the land “occupation” on Monday, September 23rd. He explains: “They handcuffed me, threw me into the police car and took me. When we arrived in there, the policeman locked me in the room with him alone and said: “now we’re going to talk”. He grabbed his police stick. The [Iranduba] delegate arrived. They held me down and punched me”. The Young boy also told us that, “I felt threatened when [he] said that he was going to discharge a pistol in my face”. This was stopped when a team from the Tutelary Council arrived.
The small homes were destroyed and the occupants were not allowed to take their possessions or go back in to look for family members. The summons for land repossession by police authorities came to its final stand off on Saturday (09/28/2013) as remaining indigenous peoples were pushed back into a small indigenous structure, considered sacred to them. Suffering threats and ridicule by police and government agents, as well as starvation, not being able to withstand the malnutrition of babies and small children, the indians were finally forced to leave.
Photo:Before Deus é por Nós was destroyed.Marcia Meneghini and Photo: After Deus é por Nós was demolished. Helen Catalina
08/21/2013 09/25/2013
Non-indigenous people began to leave the “occupation” as soon as the injunction for land repossession began to be enforced on Monday, September 3rd, knowing that according to legislation, those who actually have possible withstanding legal rights to the land are strictly indigenous peoples.
We interviewed a non-indigenous woman who spoke about the situation, and the well-known indian leader, Sabá Kokama, who is being criminalized by the police as a repercussion of this collective movement. Rosa, 53 years old, told us: “Mr. Sabá and Artemes helped create the settlement. We helped with food, make food for the others, and we were all there together. So Mr. Sabá and the other warriors gave their heart for others, because it isn’t easy to face 20 million families that were there, right? And he did that for us. They say that he is being accused of destroying nature. He didn’t do any of that and when we arrived here, he didn’t let us start fires, right? He said that indians don’t burn, don’t deforest. […] I, as I have never in my life had an experience like that, now I have. Great, it was a very marvelous home for the time that it lasted. When it didn’t last, patience, we will go back to the floods again. I came from Manaus, Igarapé do São Vicente, in the Aparecida neighborhood [small river dwelling in the city that floods half of the year]. We were going to leave, we were waiting. We don’t even have a little house for us, because we don’t make millions, right? We made the houses, because with what we spent we would gain a little piece of land for us, how great, everyone was excited. We planted a whole bunch of coconut, vines, watermelon, cashew fruit, parsley, anything that we could grow. It all stayed behind, but that’s the way it is. It was really nice, only it didn’t work out. The idea was good. All,total union. The only thing was re-payment. Because he didn’t let anyone sell their little piece. You couldn’t sell. You could only make a home, never sell it. If you sold, you lose your plot of land and whoever sold it would be expelled, because they don’t need it. That is what he said, understand? And that’s what happened to us” (September 28th, 2013).
Rosa’s story demonstrates that this land occupation was not only about indigenous rights, but about human rights, and social justice as a whole. Many of the people we spoke with said that they participated in this movement due to a real need for a home, a lack of “decent” living conditions. Most pay rent with a very small salary, or don’t have a home and live in very poor conditions, like city slum flood areas, as pointed out in Rosa’s testimony. Government programs that promise help and better living conditions do not follow through with their propositions. This indigenous movement seemed to embrace not only a historical indigenous cause, but the cause of the poor in general. In this way, offering the hope of having a home for their families. In other words, this situation points out a broader problem of class and inequality in and around the city of Manaus. Most of the people who have been forced out of the land “occupation” in Iranduba, after 3 months of “decent” living, lost what little possessions they owned during the aggressive land repossession completed by police agents, don’t know where to go now.
Helen Catalina Ubinger
Anthropologist/Researcher of the
New Social Cartography of the Amazon Project
September 30th, 2013.