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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 SAO PAULO 000309 
 
SIPDIS 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE PASS DRL FOR MITTELHAUSER 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PINR PHUM KPAO BR
SUBJECT: "Land is Life": Indians vs. Agro-Industry in Mato Grosso do 
Sul 
 
REF: A. Brasilia 1; B. Brasilia 349 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED--PLEASE PROTECT ACCORDINGLY 
 
¶1.  (U) Summary: Indigenous groups and agriculturalists disagree 
vigorously over land rights in Mato Grosso do Sul state, and 
observers on both sides see no easy solution to a problem with 
economic and cultural dimensions.  On one side, the GOB, NGOs and 
indigenous groups insist that state governments must return native 
lands to the Indians, who then intend to return to their traditional 
way of life.  On the other, state and local political leaders scoff 
at the legitimacy of Indian demands, saying this would break the 
back of the region's prosperity.  In the background, the Indians are 
grappling to define themselves.  Indian participation in democratic 
politics is rising, but there were also indications of possible 
increased polarization at the grassroots level.  End Summary. 
 
¶2.  (U) During a March 10-13 visit to Mato Grosso do Sul State, 
Consul General and Poloff met with a variety of Federal and State 
government, private sector, and indigenous representatives.  Poloff 
also visited an Indian reservation on the outskirts of the regional 
city of Dourados (pop. 200,000).  Among those interviewed were: 
State Governor Andre Puccinelli, State Chief Justice Elpidio 
Helvecio Chaves, Federal Prosecutor and indigenous rights advocate 
Marco Antonio Delfino, Federal Anthropologist (Consultant to 
Prosecutor) Marcos Homero Ferreiro Lima, President of the local 
federation of industries (FIEMS) Sergio Marcolino Longen, Catholic 
Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) attorney Rogerio Battaglia, and 
Guarani indigenous leaders Otonicl Ricardo, Teodora de Souza, Edil 
Benites, and Norvaldo Mendes. 
 
Agriculturalists vs. Indians 
 
¶3.  (U) Mato Grosso do Sul's thriving agriculture, powered by 
sugarcane, cattle, wood, and soy production is moving the state 
forward economically.  The agricultural boom, however, has cost 
indigenous groups, mostly Guarani and Terena Indians, their 
ancestral lands.  During the 1950s, Indians were pushed off their 
lands in a variety of ways, ranging from purchases for artificially 
low prices to outright expulsion.  Consequently, only 0.5 percent of 
the state's territory remains in the hands of indigenous groups, 
according to State Prosecutor Marco Antonio Delfino.  This contrasts 
with neighboring Mato Grosso State where 27 percent of the land 
remains in indigenous hands. 
 
Farmers Have Land, But Not Titles 
 
¶4.  (U) Mato Grosso do Sul's agribusinesses possess the contested 
lands, in many cases for decades, but relatively few have legal 
title to those holdings.  According to University of Sao Paulo 
geographer Professor Ariovaldo Umbelino de Oliveira, 30 to 40 
percent of the big agriculturalists in states like Mato Grosso do 
Sul have no title to their holdings.  Encouraged by the recent 
Raposa/Serra do Sol decision (Refs A and B), the Indians are now 
awaiting a Federal Government survey ("demarcation") that promises 
to give back their ancestral territories. 
 
The Establishment: Just Say No! 
 
¶5.  (SBU) State and local leaders from the top down were adamant in 
their rejection of Indian land demands.  They also had strong 
criticisms of Indian attitudes and culture.  Among the views 
sampled: 
 
-- Governor Puccinelli scoffed at the idea that land, in an 
agricultural state like Mato Grosso to Sul, could be taken away from 
productive farmers who had cultivated these lands "for decades" and 
returned to Indian groups. 
 
-- State Chief Justice Chaves complained that Indian advocacy 
groups, including the Catholic Church NGO CIMI, regularly slander 
local law enforcement representatives, charging them with torture 
and racism, when local officials are simply trying to enforce the 
law. 
 
--Chaves warned that trends toward separatism in the Indian 
community - concentrating Indians on expanded reservations - would 
only magnify their problems.  Dourados has a neighboring 
reservation, which Chaves predicted would become "Brazil's first 
indigenous favela" if tendencies to isolate and give separate 
treatment to indigenous peoples continue. 
 
SAO PAULO 00000309  002 OF 003 
 
 
 
--Chaves and other local officials clearly believed the Indian land 
claims and stated intentions to return to traditional life were 
baseless.  City and state officials asked how the local Indians 
claim to be indigenous, when these same Indians "use cars, sneakers, 
drugs?"  They complained about state subsidies to the Indians, 
stating that the latter "would have to learn to work like everyone 
else." 
 
The Indians and Their Allies 
 
¶6.  (U) Indigenous advocates, including GOB officials, and 
indigenous representatives held diametrically opposed views: 
 
--Indigenous leaders were unrelenting in their land demands and 
would accept no substitute for their ancestral territories, where 
their forefathers are buried and where they can live in a more 
traditional, communal fashion.  "The land is life," they said. 
 
--GOB and CIMI representatives charged that local officials had used 
scare tactics, whipping up panic-inducing public campaigns that 
exaggerate how much land would be returned to the Indians.  They 
also stated the indigenous make up a disproportional amount of the 
area's prison population. 
 
On the Reservation 
 
¶7.  (U) A visit to the Guarani/Terena Indian reservation just 
outside Dourados with Federal Anthropologist and Indian advocate 
Homero Ferreiro Lima confirmed elements from the accounts given by 
those on both sides of the conflict. 
 
The State Has Provided Help... 
 
¶8.  (U) On the one hand, Federal and State officials, as well as 
Protestant missionaries, have provided the reservation with tangible 
benefits, including a hospital, two schools (one functioning, one 
under construction), and brick houses.  Indians also receive a 
monthly stipend from the GOB. 
 
...But It Often Doesn't Match Indians' Needs 
 
¶9.  (U) On the other hand, much of what the government gives does 
not match the Indians' needs, according to Ferreira Lima.  Brick 
houses, for example, do not support the Indian's nomadic lifestyle, 
which is how they have historically avoided intra-group conflict. 
Among those who do not abandon their government-constructed houses, 
reservation life has escalated interpersonal tensions, often 
resulting in assaults and murders. 
 
¶10.  (SBU) Lima Ferreira also noted that historically the Guarani 
had practiced infanticide.  One possible legacy of this is a 
significant number of abandoned, undernourished children cared for 
in a special division of the reservation hospital, visited by 
Poloff.  As Lima Ferreira acknowledged, child abandonment may still 
be culturally acceptable among some of the Indians, but constitutes 
a crime and a scandal in the eyes of the Brazilian State and 
society. 
 
Indian Political Participation/Possible Polarization 
 
¶11.  (U) Indigenous groups are divided among the best course of 
action to achieve their political goals.  Ferreira Lima noted that, 
in the face of public campaigns against Indian land claims, the 
Indians were making inroads into local politics, electing 
state-level congressional representatives and mayors in 
predominantly indigenous areas.  At the same time, teachers at the 
reservation school advocated direct action.  During Poloff's visit, 
faculty were showing students a film about how Yanomami Indians had 
kidnapped and held hostage a bulldozer operator who threatened to 
cross into their lands.  They released him when local law 
enforcement arrived.  The local teachers asserted that this was a 
good "consciousness-raising" example for students. 
 
Comment: No End in Sight 
 
¶12.  (SBU) It was difficult to see a potential middle ground in the 
Indian-agribusiness conflict over land in Dourados.  Though the 
local Indians seem less radical than, for example, the non-ethnic 
Landless People's Movement (MST), they appear no less dedicated to 
their eventual goal of regaining ancestral lands.  Landowner 
 
SAO PAULO 00000309  003 OF 003 
 
 
opposition is similarly entrenched.  Curiously, the Indians have 
never linked up with the MST, because they see their 
ethnically-based cause as distinct from that of those who are simply 
landless.  While agribusiness often lack clear land title, they 
frequently can show long-term land utilization, and their activity 
is crucial to the state's growing economic prosperity.  The outcome 
of ongoing legal cases is unclear, but, 
in the meantime, indigenous land issues in Mato Grosso do Sul and 
other areas will continue to present challenges to Brazilian 
democracy.  End Comment. 
 
¶13. (U) This cable was coordinated/cleared by Embassy Brasilia. 
 
WHITE