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INDIGENOUS LEADER KILLED : URGENT CALL from Amnesty USA

At around 6:30 am on 18 November, 40 gunmen, many hooded, arrived in around a dozen trucks at the Guaiviry encampment set up on farmlands in the south of Mato Grosso do Sul state. The men attacked the community, injuring several people; they seized indigenous leader Nísio Gomes and shot him repeatedly. His grandson tried to intervene, but the gunmen beat him.

According to eyewitnesses, Gomes's body was dragged along the ground and dumped in one of the trucks. Three children: a 12-year-old boy and two girls aged five and 12, were snatched by the men and taken away in the truck, and have not been seen since. Nísio Gomes’s body has not yet been recovered and there are fears that it may have been taken across the border into Paraguay, making it difficult to trace. Federal police and prosecutors, as well as FUNAI, are investigating the attacks.

The Guaiviry indigenous community, who had been camping by the side of the MS-386 highway, in extremely precarious conditions, reoccupied their ancestral lands on 1 November, and set up camp on farmlands which had been earmarked for identification since November 2008. Anthropological research has been completed but the lands cannot be officially identified until the anthropological reports have been published. Their encampment was repeatedly threatened by gunmen before the 18 November attack. Two days before it, they threatened to kill Nísio Gomes.

In spite of the grave risks the community has vowed to stay on their ancestral lands. “We will stay in the encampment, we will all die right here. We will not leave our tekoha (ancestral land),”  The community is calling on the authorities to redouble their efforts in the search for the body of Nísio Gomes and the missing children.

Please write immediately, in Portuguese or your own language:

 -Calling on the authorities to investigate independently and thoroughly the killing of Nísio Gomes and abduction of three children thoroughly, and bring those responsible to justice;

 -Pointing out that the authorities have failed for a long time to ensure the protection of the Guarani-Kaiowá, and urging them to offer full protection according to the community’s wishes;

 -Urging the authorities to fulfil their obligations under the International Labour Organization’s Convention 169, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the 1988 Brazilian constitution by completing all outstanding land demarcations.

 

PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 2 JANUARY 2012 TO:

Federal Minister of Justice

Exmo. Sr. José Eduardo Martins Cardozo

Esplanada dos Ministérios, Bloco "T"

70.712-902 - Brasília/DF

BRAZIL

Fax: 011 55 61 2025 7803

Federal Human Rights Secretary

Exma Sra. Ministra Maria do Rosário

Setor Comercial Sul-B, Quadra 9, Lote C

Edifício Parque Cidade Corporate, Torre "A", 10º andar, Brasília, DF CEP: 70308-200,

BRAZIL

Fax: 011 55 61 2025 9414

© Amnesty International