The Dark Side of Brazil: Police teargas Indians at anti-World Cup protest

30th May. Hun­dreds of Brazil­ian Indi­ans are protest­ing against the World Cup this week, march­ing in the streets of Brasília and around the capital’s Mané Gar­rin­cha foot­ball sta­di­um, call­ing for their lands and lives to be pro­tect­ed.

Yes­ter­day Indi­ans bran­dish­ing bows and arrows and car­ry­ing signs read­ing ‘FIFA NO. DEMARCATION YES!’ were tear­gassed by police. Watch a video clip here.

There is mount­ing anger at the government’s fail­ure to rec­og­nize and pro­tect their lands, vital for their sur­vival, while spend­ing mil­lions of dol­lars on host­ing the World Cup.

The pro­tes­tors who are from sev­er­al tribes have forced FIFA to close the sta­di­um, and to can­cel its tro­phy dis­play.

A del­e­ga­tion of 18 indige­nous pro­tes­tors met the Min­is­ter of Jus­tice yes­ter­day. Indige­nous leader Sonia Gua­ja­jara, nation­al coor­di­na­tor of the Asso­ci­a­tion of Indige­nous Peo­ples (APIB), said, ‘We are here to show that with­out our land, we are chained up. We are impris­oned. We are here to demand our rights.’

The Guarani tribe, Brazil’s largest, suf­fers extreme­ly high mal­nu­tri­tion and sui­cide rates as their land has been stolen to make way for vast sug­ar cane plan­ta­tions. Their lead­ers are fre­quent­ly tar­get­ed and killed by gun­men act­ing for the landown­ers.

They are call­ing for their land to be demar­cat­ed as a mat­ter of urgency before more lives are lost, and for the can­cel­la­tion of a series of draft bills which, if passed into law, would dras­ti­cal­ly weak­en their, and oth­er tribes’, con­trol over their lands. Those in the Ama­zon are call­ing for a halt to the many hydro-elec­tric dams being built on their land.

Ear­li­er this year, Nixi­wa­ka Yawanawá, an Ama­zon Indi­an from west­ern Brazil, greet­ed the World Cup tro­phy on its arrival in Lon­don with a T‑shirt read­ing ‘BRAZIL: STOP DESTROYING INDIANS’.

Brazil is home to more uncon­tact­ed tribes than any­where else in the world. They are the country’s most vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple and face extinc­tion if their lands are not pro­tect­ed. Sur­vival is call­ing on Brazil to pro­tect their land and remove all invaders, as has recent­ly been achieved with the Awá, Earth’s most threat­ened tribe.

In the run up to the FIFA World Cup, Sur­vival is high­light­ing ‘The dark side of Brazil’. Click here to find out more about the sit­u­a­tion of Brazil­ian Indi­ans and the government’s attacks on their rights to their land.