Brazil gets into the act

Press, 8 May 1985, Page 21

Brazil gets into the act

From

ROBERT DEL QUIARO

in Rio de Janeiro

The new civilian Government of Brazil has moved to protect the biggest concentration left on earth of tribes still unaware that white people exist. Nelson Marabuto, chairman of the Indian Department Funai, has ordered the withdrawal of Petrobras, the Government’s giant oil company, from a remote region in the far west of Amazonian Brazil, near the frontier with Peru. The company has been penetrating this region, towards the River Javari, for two years, using drilling rigs and helicopters to search for oil and natural gas in the rain forest.

Some of the tribal peoples in the area are known to exist only because villages have been glimpsed from the air through the forest canopy, and because of signs of their passage through the jungle. Anthropologists and missionaries complain that these peoples, whose languages and customs are unknown to outsiders, are about to have white society burst upon them in the form of terrifying machines and drilling crews, unconcerned with making a gradual contact to win their trust and protect them from white people’s diseases. Even simple influenza, laryngitis, and measles turn into fatal epidemics among tribal peoples, who have no natural or vaccinal immunity. The jungle clearance (involved increases tine incidence of leichmaniosis: a mosquito that

normally lives in the forest canopy is brought down to the jungle floor and transmits the horrendous disease, which destroys the cartilages of the body, especially in the nose and ears.

Also, Indians suddenly encountering technical teams with amazing machines and creature comforts decide that whites can work any magic and will do so for them. In areas already opened up to prospectors and loggers, villages have collapsed into social dependency, which has later turned into surly and drunken disappointment. The decision to expel Petrobras, and anyone else lacking Funai permission to visit the area, is the first indication of the attitude of the new civilian administration, which took over on March 15 from a 21-year-old military regime, to demands by oil, mineral, and timber companies that they be allowed to exploit Indian tribal lands. In his order, Marabuto cited Article 198 of the Brazilian Constitution, which declares that the indigenous peoples have exclusive rights to the resources of the lands they inhabit.

Little was hpard of this article while the genitals ruled and were giving green lights to various com-

mercial companies, even in officially recognised reservations. The presence of senior figures in the regime, or their nominees, on the boards of mining companies did not make this trend smell any better.

Officials point out that Brazil has a monster foreign debt and that an important part of meeting its hard-currency commitments is to develop its own oil and gas, and so spend fewer dollars on fuel imports.

Even so, the new Government is promising to give more emphasis to welfare, education, and the protection of minorities. To do that, the swollen budgets the military allowed Petrobras and other nationalised enterprises will have to be slimmed. In stopping an oil and gas search far from the cities of Brazil’s east coast, which might well entail one day a costly pipeline snaking for 4000 kilometres across the country, the Government can both help the Indians and save itself a packet of money. Even where it might suit the Government’s book for the Indians to give ground, the tribes are proving that the* are bouncing back from nearly five centuries of

dwindling numbers and expulsion from their lands.

At the same time as the Government action — the annual “Week of the Indian” in Brazil — members of the Gorotire tribe chased 500 pick-and-shovel goldminers off their land in the tropical northern state of Para because they want more than the 1 per cent they get now of the value of the gold extracted.

Having no writing in their languages, and being illiterate in the national language, Portuguese, does not inhibit tribes in conflict from calling on other peoples for help. They send a messenger with an exhortation on tape cassette — and they give forthright interviews to the media. The attitude of Brazilians, most of whom never see any of the 250.000 Indians who still live tribally, is changing. One of the national TV networks has started an 11-part series on the tribes of the river Xingu — including the percentage-minded Gorotire. It is respectful, superbly photographed — and sponsored by Petrobras.

The unseen Indian who shot an oil driller in the buttock with an arrow last year — only as a warning because the braves know how to shoot to kill, and besides there was no venom on the tip — is having his point taken. „ Copyright — London observer Service.