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A entire tribe of 170 Indians have vowed to commit mass suicide after a court in Brazil ruled they must leave what they believe is sacred land, it was reported today.
The community of 50 men, 50 women and 70 children from the Guarani-kaiowa tribe are camped inside a ranch in Brazil's southern state of Mato Grosso do Sul.
The Indians claim the land has been the graveyard of their ancestors for centuries, according to Brazil's Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI).
Protest: An ethnic Guarani-Kaiowa Brazilian Indian from the state of Mato Grosso do Sul fixes a cross into the lawn at the Esplanade of Ministries in Brasilia yesterday. His entire tribe of 170 Indians have vowed to commit mass suicide after a court ruled they must leave what they believe is sacred land
A Guarani Indian family ride a horse-drawn cart in southern Brazil in 2004. The Indians claim the disputed land has been the graveyard of their ancestors for centuries
But this week, Judge Henrique Bonachela upheld a petition made by the ranch's owner to have the tribe evicted from the land.
He decreed a fine of £150 for every day the tribe remains on the land, on the banks of Brazil's Joguico River.
A spokesman for the tribe today said they do not intend to fight the judge's decision but would rather die on the land than be made to leave.
And in a letter the tribe called on the Brazilian government to respect their wishes to be buried there along with their ancestors.
It read: 'Because of this historic fact, we would prefer to die and be buried together with our ancestors right here where we are now.
'We ask, one time for all, for the government to decree our extinction as a tribe, and to send tractors to dig a big hole and there to throw our dead bodies.
'We have all decided that we will not leave this place, neither alive nor dead.'
A spokesman for CIMI described the development as of 'exceptional seriousness'.
And Federal Deputy Sarney Filho warned of the 'extremely worrying' situation.
In a letter to Brazil's Justice Minsitry, he wrote: 'This tribe has had its culture and lands attacked for centuries. They could now go down in history as being the tribe which wiped themselves out by committing collective suicide.
'We must take the necessary measures to avert the worst.'
Indian tribes in southern Brazil have for years been fighting for the country to recognise their traditional lands, many of which now belong to farmers and rich landowners.
You had me there and then you just HAD to go and throw in the "palestinians".
When the Brazilian government tried to move a tribe of Brazilian Indians out of the rain forest, the tribe committed mass suicide rather than leave their home. This tragedy inspired Sepultura’s song "Kaiowas," which the band recorded in a castle to achieve just the right sound. They also incorporated Brazilian instruments like the tamburin and cuica. "Kaiowas" was the first of several songs to reflect the band’s rising social sense.answers.com
Originally posted by purplemer
reply to post by Corruption Exposed
Tribal peoples should be treated as sovereign nations and given the same rights of protection..
Based on the geological evidence that we have, there seems little doubt that tropical South America includes some of the most ancient land on the Earth's surface that was never submerged by the ocean nor ground under the tremendous glaciers of the Ice Age. This has led archaeologists to speculate that this now mysterious heartland may very well have been the cradle of the Earth's civilization from which it later spread outwards to Europe and Africa on one side, and Asia on the other. (By comparison, at this period some 60,000 years ago, our European ancestors were living in caves in the regions of what are now Pyrenean France, Cantabrian Spain and Lacustrine Switzerland.)
en.wikipedia.org...
Survival
The Guarani-Kaiowá had no contact with the European settlers before the late 1800s. Today their land is occupied by loggers and miners, and FUNAI, the national organization responsible for protecting and supporting the indigenous peoples in Brazil did little to help the Guarani[citation needed]. The Guarani are forced to leave their land and seek work on plantations, where they work as underpaid labourers. Over the decades hundreds of Guarani-Kaiowá natives, including children, have died.
On october 2012, a group of 170 Kaiowás (50 men, 50 women and 70 children) camping for almost an year at the Cambará farm, near the Joguico River in Iguatemi, Mato Grosso do Sul, at the border with Paraguay, declared they were ready to accept their extinction.[2] According to a letter sent to the Conselho Indigenista Missionário (Cimi, Missionary Indian Council) and to the national management of Fundação Nacional do Índio (Funai)[3]:
“ We are already going to and want to be killed and buried along with our ancestors here where we are today, therefore, we ask the Government and the Federal Justice not to decree our eviction, but instead we request them to decree our mass death and to bury us all here.
We ask them, once and for all, to decree our total decimation and extinction, besides sending many tractors to dig a large hole to drop and bury our bodies. This is our request to the federal judges. We already await this decision of the Federal Justice. Decree our mass death Guarani and Kaiowá of Pyelito Kus/Mbarakay and bury us here. Given that we fully decided it and won't leave this place dead or alive.
”
The eviction order was given by federal judge Henrique Bonachela. According to his order, the daily fine for ignoring the order is of R$500.00 (some US$ 250.00).
Parts of the Brazilian press understood the letter as a mass suicide announcement,[2][4], but Cimi later denied that possibility.