Birdwatchers highlights the shocking plight of the Guarani, through a love story between a young Guarani shaman apprentice and the daughter of a wealthy landowner.
Exiled from their land and struggling to survive, the Guarani community in Birdwatchers – like many real life Guarani – resolve to take back their land from the rancher who occupies it. And like so many real Guarani ‘retomadas’ (retakings), their attempt is met with violent repression.
The film stars Guarani Indians who had never acted before, and who worked together with director Marco Bechis to devise the script. Their moving performances are testimony to the Guarani’s refusal to give up hope.
Exactly one year ago today, at six a.m., an indigenous leader called Alberto Pizango was walking to his office in Peru’s capital city, Lima, when his mobile phone rang.
A voice said: ‘Brother, they’re killing us. The government has started the massacre. Listen.’ Alberto listened.
‘Baguazo’, as this tragic event became known, made international headlines and sparked protests against Peru’s government around the world: 33 people were killed, more than 20 of them policemen, and 200 injured.
The government’s response? A mixed bag including suspending two of the laws, appointing a commission to investigate the killings, and instigating a campaign against Peru’s indigenous leaders that forced Alberto, among others, to seek asylum in Nicaragua.
When the commission published its report, in December, two members refused to sign it and announced, on Christmas Day, that they would write their own instead.
That report, released on 15 April, said exactly what Peru’s government didn’t want to hear: that the police operation at Bagua was ‘badly planned’ and ‘could only lead to disaster’, and that the laws the Awajún and Wampis were protesting against were ‘highly contradictory’ to indigenous rights.
An eyewitness account of the violence that erupted after the Peruvian government decided to break up an indigenous roadblock by force.
Has Peru’s government, one year on, learnt its lesson? Hardly. Two weeks ago, in London, I listened to a delegation from state oil firm Perupetro declare that 10.9 million hectares of Peru are up for auction this year to oil and gas companies.
Almost all of this area is indigenous land in the Amazon, and is in addition to millions more hectares that Perupetro has already opened up to companies.
If contact is made, the consequences could be catastrophic: disease, deaths and epidemics.
And Alberto? He returned to Peru last week, but was arrested immediately at Lima’s airport before being released on bail.
The charges against him are part of what AIDESEP calls a ‘destabilization campaign’ aimed at destroying Peru’s indigenous movement, and which has included forcing other leaders into asylum and a legal move to close down AIDESEP.
We urge Peru’s government to drop all charges against Alberto, to recognize indigenous peoples’ rights to land and self-determination, and to do all it can to make sure that nothing like ‘Baguazo’ ever, ever happens again.
There are reports that the Obama administration, in the wake of the tragic Gulf of Mexico oil spill, intends to suspend new oil drilling in the Arctic.
Vast areas of the Amazon are being auctioned to oil and gas companies.
Last week, Peru announced it intends to open 10 million hectares of the Amazon to oil and gas companies – in addition to millions more hectares already opened up for exploration and drilling.
Indeed, one of the companies involved is US energy giant ConocoPhillips, which is currently gearing up to explore for oil in a remote Amazon region inhabited by two uncontacted tribes.
These tribes lack immunity to outsiders’ diseases so any form of contact with oil crews could decimate them. Big Oil doesn’t need to spill to kill.
Supporters of tribal peoples’ rights might be interested to know the position of the main English political parties on this issue.
The Labour government’s position was that the UK should not ratify the international law on tribal peoples (ILO Convention 169), ‘because the UK has no indigenous peoples’.
Davi Yanomami visits the Houses of Parliament to urge the British Government to ratify ILO 169.
Nevertheless, 23% of Labour MPs signed an ‘early day motion’ (EDM) in 2008 disagreeing and saying the government should ratify it.
The Conservative party agrees with Labour’s position. 3% of Conservative MPs signed the same EDM.
The Liberal Democrats have made a formal decision to ratify the law. The same EDM was signed by 87% of LibDem MPs.
Survival has no political position and supports no political party.
We do, however, believe it to be important that all countries ratify the law.
We are urging Survival supporters to ask the candidates in their constituency for their position on this issue.
The percentage of MPs from the three main parties who signed an Early Day Motion calling for the British Government to ratify ILO 169, the international law for tribal peoples.
In celebration of the 40th Earth Day, we thought you might like to see some statements from tribal peoples across the world – Penan of Malaysia, Bushmen of Botswana, Yanomami of Amazon river basin – that depict the profound ties tribal peoples have with their lands.
For many, their part of the Earth is the very bedrock of their lives – it provides their shelter, food and medicines, is the burial place of their ancestors and the inheritance of their children.
Tribal peoples still understand better than most the vital connections between man and nature, and that in damaging the Earth we are also damaging ourselves and our collective future.
These quotes are taken from Survival’s book We Are One and our archives.
We were made the same as the sand, we were born here. This place is my father’s father’s father’s land. Bushman, Botswana
We did not think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills, the winding streams with tangled growth as ‘wild’. Only to the white man was nature a ‘wilderness’ and only to him was it ‘infested’ with ‘wild’ animals and ’savage’ people. To us it was tame. Luther Standing Bear, Oglala Sioux, American Indian
Our land belongs to us because we belong to the land. Wichi, Argentina
I do not think the measure of a civilisation is how tall its buildings of concrete are, but rather how well its people have learned to relate to their environment and fellow man. Sun Bear, Chippewa, American Indian
This land is the house we have always lived in. Linda Hogan, Chicksaw, American Indian
Paraguay’s Environment Ministry, SEAM, later cancelled Yaguarete’s licence to work there.
Ayoreo-Totobiegosode men talk about the destruction of their land and concern for their relatives in the forest.
Yaguarete’s accusation was reported in the Paraguayan newspaper ABC Color on 27 March 2010. The company accused ‘Minister Rivas of being a representative of the NGO Survival,’ ABC states.
‘In the opinion of Yaguarete’s Eduardo Livieres, the Environment minister, Rivas, owner of the NGO Sobrevivencia, is the Paraguayan representative of Survival International. ‘Survival has installed itself in the Environment Ministry,’ said Livieres.’
You can see why the company got its wires crossed: ‘Sobreviviencia’ is the Spanish word for ‘survival’.
However, the fact is that neither Rivas nor Sobrevivencia, a Paraguayan NGO, have anything to do with Survival International.
Indeed, we have never met or even spoken with Mr Rivas, although we have written to him, along with other Paraguayan officials like president Lugo and the head of the government’s indigenous affairs department, about the Totobiegsode.
Rather than trying to tarnish Survival’s reputation, Yaguarete should worry more about its own.
In recent months its destruction of the Totobiegosode’s territory has been covered by media in India, the US, the UK, Spain, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Panama, Cuba, France, Argentina, Brazil, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and Paraguay.
Indeed, it is now the biggest international news story concerning Paraguay.
The film depicts an Aboriginal community in the Central Australian desert where two teenagers, Samson and Delilah, live.
Very little seems to happen in their day to day lives. There is a palpable listlessness, a lot of sitting around on fences and wandering aimlessly along the red roads, kicking up dust. The flies buzz, the crickets chirrup, a band plays loud repetitive music from a verandah. And Samson sniffs petrol.
There is a feeling that the collective spirit of this indigenous community has been ground down to such a degree that to grind it down further in solvent abuse matters little.
Thousands of people from the Endorois tribe met in ritual celebration last weekend as they returned to their ancestral home, around Lake Bogoria, in Kenya’s famous Rift Valley after an absence of thirty years.
They were thrown off their lands in a series of evictions that began in 1973, so that the government could transform their land into the Lake Bogoria National Reserve.
The African Union endorsed a ruling earlier this year that confirmed the eviction had been illegal.
The Union confirmed the Endorois’ right to access Lake Bogoria at any time, to return to their ancestral land, and to benefit from the successful tourist operation established there during the tribe’s exile.
The Endorois marched to the banks of Lake Bogoria, lit a ceremonial fire and danced in celebration throughout the day.
At the celebration, one Endorois woman said ‘Time has scattered our little group to the four winds. So much has changed. But God has answered our prayers and hopefully we will be back as one.’
Members of the Ogiek tribe and others also joined in the celebrations. The ruling could have significant repercussions for tribal peoples’ rights throughout Africa.
Luis Fernando had some sobering facts to hand: at least 32 Colombian tribes face ‘extinction’. 1,400 indigenous Colombians have been murdered in the last eight years. 80,000 people have been displaced.
The causes? Mega-projects, exploitation of natural resources, military conflict and the government’s so-called ‘democratic security’ policy that has brought ‘death, fear and terror’ to Colombia’s tribes.
Luis Fernando, together with Neyda Janeth Yepes Rodriguez, was speaking as part of a European tour to launch a campaign to save at least thirty-two Colombian tribes, including the Nukak, from ‘extinction.’
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It’s a very painful story and I hope to find ways that people in Europe can support us.Neyda Janeth Yepes Rodriguez, ONIC, Colombia
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‘I never imagined I would come to Europe to talk about this,’ Neyda said. ‘It’s a very painful story and I hope to find ways that people in Europe can support us.’
Luis Fernando described it as an ‘invisible’ genocide – not just internationally, but within Colombia as well. ‘We sometimes wonder if Colombian society is anaesthetized or asleep,’ he said.
It’s time to wake up. Colombia’s national indigenous peoples’ organisation, ONIC, is encouraging the public to get involved in its campaign. Writing to Colombia’s president is one way to start.
An Ayoreo-Totobiegosode communal house discovered when a road was bulldozed through their land. © Survival
