Indigenous boy protests on pitch during World Cup opening ceremony

16th June One of the three Brazil­ian chil­dren who released white doves dur­ing the World Cup open­ing cer­e­mo­ny used the occa­sion to demand recog­ni­tion of Indi­an land rights – but his protest was cen­sored by FIFA.

Imme­di­ate­ly after releas­ing a white dove, Jeguaká Mir­im, an indige­nous Guarani boy, held up a red ban­ner read­ing ‘Demar­ca­tion Now!’ But his coura­geous protest was not broad­cast, as the TV cam­eras swift­ly cut away.

Jeguaká’s father, Guarani author Olívio Jekupe, said that the act “showed the world that we are not stand­ing still… My son showed the world what we need the most: the demar­ca­tion of our lands.”

The Guarani are Brazil’s most numer­ous tribe and they live in five states. Much of their land has been stolen from them and is being used for cat­tle ranch­ing and sug­ar cane pro­duc­tion, whilst many Guarani are forced to live in over­crowd­ed reserves or in road­side camps where mal­nu­tri­tion and dis­ease are rife. Some, like Jeguaká’s com­mu­ni­ty known as Kruku­tu, live near urban areas like São Paulo on almost no land.

As a result of the loss of their land, the Guarani-Kaiowá of Mato Grosso do Sul state suf­fer the high­est sui­cide rate in the world, and their lead­ers are tar­get­ed and killed when they attempt to reoc­cu­py patch­es of their ances­tral land.

The Guarani, Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al and oth­er orga­ni­za­tions are call­ing on the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment to uphold its own con­sti­tu­tion and inter­na­tion­al law, and map out the Guarani’s land for their exclu­sive use.

Coca-Cola, one of the World Cup’s main spon­sors, has recent­ly become embroiled in the Guarani land scan­dal by buy­ing sug­ar from US food giant Bunge, which sources sug­ar cane from their ances­tral land. The Guarani are urg­ing Coca-Cola to respect their rights and stop this pur­chase imme­di­ate­ly.

To high­light the deep irony of Coca-Cola and FIFA pro­mot­ing the World Cup with an image of a hap­py Indi­an man with the words ‘Wel­come to the World Cup for Every­one’, Sur­vival has cre­at­ed a spoof ad fea­tur­ing Nixi­wa­ka, a Yawanawa Indi­an wel­com­ing the view­er to ‘The Dark Side of Brazil’ and demand­ing ‘Let the Guarani live!’.

See Survival’s web­site on the ‘Dark Side of Brazil’ for more exam­ples of Brazil’s assault on indige­nous rights.