Indigenous leader's killer is convicted in Brazil, but tensions over land remain

[Judi Lynn]

Last edited Wed May 8, 2024, 12:51 AM - Edit history (1)

by Sarah Brown on 7 May 2024

• Bar owner João Carlos da Silva was on April 15 sentenced to 18 years in prison for the murder of Indigenous land defender and teacher Ari Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau four years earlier.
  
  
• Ari’s murder became symbolic of the struggle land defenders in Brazil face when protecting their ancestral territories, including constant threats and sometimes deadly violence.
  
  
• The Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous Territory faces fresh threats after a national lawmaker claimed its current boundaries are wrong and vowed to reduce the area in favor of local cattle ranchers and farmers.
  
  
• It’s one of several territorial setbacks that Indigenous lands across Brazil are currently facing; others include a territory in Paraná state whose demarcation process has been suspended, and one in Bahía state that could potentially be auctioned off.

On April 17, 2020, an Indigenous leader who fought to protect his ancestral land was violently killed in the Brazilian state of Rondônia. Almost exactly four years later, a local bar owner has been convicted and sentenced to 18 years in prison for Ari Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau’s murder. The ruling marks a rare case of justice for violence against Indigenous land defenders, even as conflicts over traditional territories in Brazil persist.

On April 15 this year, a court in Rondônia convicted João Carlos da Silva for double aggravated homicide of the Indigenous land defender and teacher — meaning the murder was intentional, the motive was frivolous, and defense was impossible for the victim. According to court records, Silva had offered Ari drinks at his bar until he became unconscious, before then killing him with blows to the neck and head and taking his body to a different location and leaving it by the side of a road in order to hinder the investigation.

The trial was broadcast live with the presence of several Indigenous people, including family members. Ari’s sister, Mandeí Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau, testified in the trial, calling her brother “a good boy who always defended our territory.”

The crime was originally thought to have been related to Ari’s work in land and environmental surveillance, but the Federal Police ruled out a link between the murder and land defense. Instead, they concluded that Silva knew Ari and killed him due to a dislike of the victim and being bothered by his presence.

More:
https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/indigenous-leaders-killer-is-convicted-in-brazil-but-tensions-over-land-remain/

If you'll notice, in the video, it's mentioned the heavy violence by invaders in indigenous land that this particular brutal stuff started in 2016.

The progressive President, and Brazil's first woman President, Dilma Rousseff was viciously taken from office by Bolsonaro's hard-right, racist majority in the legislature in August, 2016, through filthy maneuvering. She was replaced quickly by Michael Temer, who opened fire symbolically by turning business loose on indigenous territory.

Two articles:

Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff: Impeachment is a coup

Vice president takes over as a defiant Dilma Rousseff, suspended for 180 days, vows to fight on.

13 May 2016
Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff has addressed the nation in a defiant speech outside the presidential palace, calling a senate decision to suspend her for 180 days a coup.

Rousseff, 68, has been in office since 2011 and her suspension came hours after the senate voted 55-22 to put her on trial, a decision that ended more than 13 years of rule by the left-wing The Workers’ Party.

She said on Thursday that she was “a victim of a legal farce and a political farce”.

“When an elected president is suspended because of a crime she hasn’t committed, the name we give is not impeachment but a coup,” Rousseff said.

“I may have made mistakes but I did not commit any crime. The coup d’etat threatens to undo true victories of [the] last decade.”

More:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/5/13/brazils-dilma-rousseff-impeachment-is-a-coup

~ ~ ~

Brazil’s President Temer trashes Indian rights for personal political gain
July 21, 2017



© VOA
Major indigenous protests in Brasilia against government’s attempts to weaken indigenous rights, May 2017 © VOA
This page was created in 2017 and may contain language which is now outdated.


The Brazilian President Michel Temer has accepted a controversial legal opinion which denies Indigenous people the right to their land, and made it official policy.

The opinion states that Indigenous peoples do not have the right to their land if they were not occupying it when the current constitution came into effect in October 1988.

The opinion contradicts the constitution, which clearly states that Indigenous peoples have the right to exclusively occupy and use the lands which they have inhabited since long before European colonization of the country.

Brazil’s federal prosecutor’s office and eminent jurists say that this is only an opinion, and has no legal status as well as being unconstitutional.

Joenia Wapixana, Brazil’s first female Indigenous lawyer said: “Our original rights are imprescriptible, so the time frame is unconstitutional.”

More:
https://www.survivalinternational.org/news/11754