At least two individuals from the indigenous Guarani Kaiowá people were shot in attacks carried out by men in pick-up trucks in different regions of the state of Mato Grosso do Sul between Sunday (14) and Monday (15). The attacks took place after ancestral territories already demarcated, but whose demarcation had stalled, were retaken by the Indigenous people last weekend. The areas are overlapped by farms.
Between Saturday night (13) and Sunday morning (14), a group of Guarani Kaiowá occupied an area of the Panambi-Lagoa Rica Indigenous Land in the town of Douradina, Mato Grosso do Sul. At around 2 pm, armed attacks were recorded not only in the area retaken, but in the four communities that currently make up the territory: Itay, Guyra kamby'i, Gaaro'ka, and Tajasu Iguá.
Indigenous man Paulo Aquino, 56, was shot in the left leg. Sheila Kaiowá, 63, a nhandesy (prayer, in the Guarani language), was wounded in the arm and foot. A video released by the Terra Vermelha Collective shows many pick-up trucks on a dirt road and Indigenous people running while gunshots are heard.
Around 110 km away, in the town of Caarapó, Mato Grosso do Sul, another area whose demarcation is stalled, belonging to the Amambaipeguá I Indigenous Land, was retaken by the Guarani Kaiowá Indigenous people in the early hours of Monday morning (15).
Early in the morning, an attack with similar characteristics besieged the area. Daiane Guarani Kaiowá, a young woman, was shot in the leg. At noon, Brasil de Fato spoke to an Indigenous leader in the area. At that time help had yet not arrived.
In a statement, Aty Guasu, the Guarani Kaiowá Great Assembly, denounced that the attack was carried out by “farmers from the region, who invaded our community in gangs.”
“They are shooting to kill and promising a massacre. We are urgently asking for help,” the Indigenous organization warned.
In a post on Instagram, Aty Guasu tagged the Brazilian president's profile. “The Guarani and Kaiowá people patiently waited when Lula said we would be a priority. Now we will do several retake actions and we're facing bloodshed and death!" reads the post. “Answer us, Lula,” demanded Aty Guasu.
When contacted by the Brasil de Fato, the Federal Police said they were “closely monitoring the case, together with FUNAI [National Foundation for Indigenous Peoples] and the MPF [Federal Public Prosecutor's Office], who are also at the scene. At the moment, the investigative phase has begun to clarify the facts."
FUNAI was asked about the current situation and the demarcation process for both Indigenous lands, but had not responded by the time this article was published.
Panambi-Lagoa Rica
Since 2011, the Panambi-Lagoa Rica Indigenous Land has been officially recognized, identified and delimited over 12,100 hectares. Over the last 13 years, however, the demarcation process has not progressed – a declaratory decree and homologation have yet to be published.
It is because of these “long years of waiting”, “surviving in tarpaulin shacks, without the minimum living conditions, suffering threats and persecution from large state owners that surround us with their grain production” that, according to a statement from Aty Guasu, a group of Indigenous people decided to retake part of their ancestral territory.
“Until this year, FUNAI was still working on the process of contesting the landowners' claims, which is a step that should have been concluded in mid-2012, 2013,” says Matias Hampel, from the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI, in Portuguese).
“This negligence towards the Kaiowá people created two problems. The first problem is that farmers started attacking Indigenous peoples. And the second is a lawsuit that even questions the validity of the demarcation process,” he says.
This scenario, combined with ruralist pressure in the National Congress, which approved the Timeframe Limitation Law (14.701/23) and is trying to strengthen it in a Proposed Amendment to the Constitution (PEC 48/23), increased tensions in Mato Grosso do Sul.
“Among Indigenous peoples, this has generated a feeling that not only is the government not going to homologate the lands, but that the applicability of the timeframe limitation or any of these other tools of death, as they call them, will directly affect the demarcation processes,” says Matias Hampel.
The attacks last Sunday and Monday add to a history of murders of Indigenous people in the region. “We remember that in 2015, these same groups of farmers attacked the Guyrakamby'i community and that they only failed to commit a massacre because the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office prevented them from doing so. We ask for urgent help and for the state to guarantee our safety, because we are on our ancestral territory,” Aty Guasu said in a statement.
The Indigenous people are referring to an attack carried out by farmers in the Bocajá district in 2015, which resulted in the death of Semião Fernandes Vilhalva. At the time, Mato Grosso do Sul’s MPF opened an inquiry to investigate the possible formation of a private militia by landowners.
The case entered the spotlight after the publication of WhatsApp messages in which the president of the Rio Brilhante Rural Union, Luís Otávio Britto Fernandes, called on “rural producers to unite and go to the place” where there was an “invaded farm."
Caarapó and the memory of a massacre
Delimited in 2016, the Dourados Amambaipeguá I Indigenous Land covers 55,400 hectares. However, the Guarani Kaiowá live confined to an area of around 3,000 hectares.
The shots fired from inside pick-up trucks on Monday (15) are reminiscent of an episode that took place in the same area eight years ago. The Caarapó Massacre was a response to the retaking of a traditional territory overlapped by the Yvu Farm.
On that occasion, around 70 gunmen met at the headquarters of Coamo, one of the largest agro-industrial cooperatives in Latin America. The attack was carried out at the behest of farmers Nelson Buainain Filho, Virgílio Mettifogo, Jesus Camacho, Dionei Guedin, and Eduardo Yoshio Tomonaga. Indigenous man Clodiodi Aquileu Rodrigues de Souza was killed, six others were injured, and one person was arrested.
Since then, violence has not stopped. In February of this year, about five months after they had built an oga pissy (prayer house, in the Guarani language) in the retaken land of Kunumi Verá, the indigenous people saw their sacred space set on fire and reduced to ashes. The perpetrators of the attack have not been identified.
Edited by: Felipe Mendes
