30th June 2012

About 150 indige­nous peo­ple are protest­ing a mas­sive dam they say will dry up the riv­er their liveli­hood depends on.

A clus­ter of 12 men from the Xikrin tribe chant in their native lan­guage while march­ing togeth­er, arms inter­locked, stomp­ing their feet against the dry red dirt. They say this is their call of resis­tance from the Ama­zon.

The Xikrin are joined by about 150 indige­nous peo­ple from three oth­er tribes — the Arara, Juruna, and Parakana — that are occu­py­ing one of the work sites at the Belo Monte dam con­struc­tion site in what is becom­ing a high-stakes stand­off. The occu­pa­tion, which is enter­ing its sec­ond week, has halt­ed a part of the con­struc­tion on what will be the world’s third-largest hydro­elec­tric dam.

At the site of the protest, vis­it­ed by Al Jazeera on Wednes­day, the tribes­men were car­ry­ing clubs and spears and had built rudi­men­ta­ry sleep­ing quar­ters in what has essen­tial­ly become a non-vio­lent sit-in. An anthro­pol­o­gist was with them, typ­ing away at her lap­top as the indige­nous peo­ple artic­u­lat­ed their demands.

The tribes are occu­py­ing a road, built by the dam builders, which cuts through part of the Xin­gu River’s water­ways. The road blocks the nat­ur­al flow of the waters.

The occu­pa­tion of the site began at about 11 am on June 21 and played out like some­thing from a fic­tion­al Hol­ly­wood movie. The indige­nous peo­ple arrived at the work site in half a dozen small boats, charged the area, and announced that they were tak­ing over. The con­struc­tion work­ers, see­ing the tribes­men with their faces paint­ed for com­bat and armed with spears, imme­di­ate­ly fled for safe­ty.

“The work­ers were scared, so they imme­di­ate­ly ran when we arrived,” said Bepumuiti, from the Juruna tribe. “They prob­a­bly thought they were going to die.”

The tribes­men con­fis­cat­ed the keys to more than three dozen dump trucks and heavy machin­ery left behind.

What the indige­nous peo­ple want

Last year, a series of con­di­tions were agreed upon with the indige­nous peo­ple to reduce the impact of the con­struc­tion of the dam on their com­mu­ni­ties. Some of the con­di­tions includ­ed the demar­ca­tion of indige­nous lands, the con­struc­tion of health facil­i­ties and schools, and means of trans­porta­tion for the trib­al peo­ple when the rivers dry up.

In exchange for their agree­ment, the indige­nous said they would not force­ful­ly oppose the dam con­struc­tion.

The prob­lem, the indige­nous now say, is that while the con­struc­tion of the dam steams ahead, the promis­es made by the con­sor­tium build­ing the dam and by gov­ern­ment-led Norte Ener­gia — the ener­gy com­pa­ny over­see­ing the dam — have yet to be ful­filled.

So the tribes decid­ed to invade. This was a his­toric and sig­nif­i­cant move, because the deci­sion was made with­out the assis­tance or knowl­edge of local or inter­na­tion­al NGOs or gov­ern­ment rights bod­ies, who in the past often assist­ed tribes dur­ing protest move­ments.

“We would not be here today if the builders and the gov­ern­ment would have done what they promised us,” Bebtok, a tribe elder from the Xikrin tribe, told Al Jazeera. “In my com­mu­ni­ty, noth­ing has been done. There is no qual­i­ty health post, there is no school, they have not built a road for us. My road is the riv­er and that is going to be dried up.”

Since Octo­ber, the tribes most affect­ed by the con­struc­tion of the dam have been receiv­ing a bud­get of about $15,000 from the gov­ern­ment, through which they can request any­thing they want, such as gaso­line for their boats, food or con­struc­tion mate­r­i­al.

But the tribes have been told that the mon­ey — called “emer­gency assis­tance” in gov­ern­ment par­lance — will stop lat­er this year, infu­ri­at­ing the trib­al peo­ple at the very moment they are start­ing to feel the neg­a­tive impacts of the dam, they say.

The indige­nous peo­ple are now also start­ing to see the impact the con­struc­tion is hav­ing on their lives. Surara, from the Parakana tribe, showed Al Jazeera how a road built on the con­struc­tion site through a nat­ur­al water­way of the Xin­gu riv­er has already start­ed to dry out one side of the riv­er.

“We were always nav­i­gat­ing this riv­er because we know this riv­er like the palm of our hands,” Surara said. “And today, as you can see, it’s very dry. That is sad for us.”

Surara pre­dict­ed that, at the cur­rent pace of con­struc­tion, in two years the tribe will no longer be able to reach their com­mu­ni­ty by boat because of the changes in water lev­els. The tribes have a new list of demands they want ful­filled before they say they will end their occu­pa­tion.

Response from gov­ern­ment and builders

The tribes’ occu­pa­tion of the dam seemed to catch the dam builders and the gov­ern­ment by sur­prise. In response, Norte Ener­gia has tak­en what seems like a pecu­liar approach that involves two very oppo­site respons­es, using the car­rot and the stick at the same time. Three days after the occu­pa­tion began, a judge reject­ed a request to have the indige­nous evict­ed by force from the area.

At the same time, Norte Ener­gia is pro­vid­ing the indige­nous peo­ple three meals a day at the occu­pa­tion site. Often times, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the com­pa­ny will show up at the site dur­ing a meal and ask the indige­nous peo­ple for the keys back to their heavy machin­ery. So far, the tribes have refused to hand them over.

Last week, Norte Ener­gia refused an Al Jazeera request for an inter­view on the mat­ter. Norte Ener­gia has said in the past that the eco­nom­ic and social assis­tance pack­ages to help the tribes will be imple­ment­ed at var­i­ous points dur­ing the entire­ty of the project, as pre­vi­ous­ly agreed upon.

Behind the scenes, the com­pa­ny is fac­ing a daunt­ing task. Not only do each of the four tribes involved in the occu­pa­tion have their own set of demands, but there are also as many as 35 dif­fer­ent sub-com­mu­ni­ties with­in the tribes tak­ing part in the occu­pa­tion, and each have their own inter­ests and requests they want met.

Activists face arrest

Pres­sure is build­ing on mul­ti­ple fronts. Con­struc­tion of the dam ramped up ear­li­er this year, and there are strict timeta­bles to get the dam up and run­ning by late 2014.

Aside from the indige­nous protest, sev­er­al oth­er tense issues sur­round­ing the dam are coa­lesc­ing at the same time.

In Altami­ra, the clos­est city to the dam site, 11 peo­ple — all unaf­fil­i­at­ed with the indige­nous protest now occur­ring — are fight­ing arrest war­rants after being accused of help­ing organ­ise an anti-dam protest ear­li­er in June that the dam builders say led to prop­er­ty dam­age. Local TV chan­nels have been air­ing video of bro­ken win­dows and the burn­ing of office equip­ment at the con­struc­tion site.

The activists fac­ing pos­si­ble arrest all deny they were involved, and say any protests they organ­ised were peace­ful and legal. They include, among oth­ers, a Catholic priest, a nun, some mem­bers of Xin­gu Vivo Para Sem­pre — a local anti-dam NGO — as well as a local fish­er­man fea­tured in an Al Jazeera report in Jan­u­ary

Police have an open inves­ti­ga­tion, and have yet to for­mal­ly announce if charges will be filed. How­ev­er, even the threat of jail time has sent a chill through the tight-knit com­mu­ni­ty of local anti-dam activists.

How will it end?

On Thurs­day, in the city of Altami­ra, more than 60 of the indige­nous occu­piers met with a high-lev­el del­e­ga­tion from Brasil­ia that includ­ed the pres­i­dent of Norte Ener­gia.

The meet­ing last­ed near­ly four hours, and was closed to the media. The indige­nous peo­ple dis­cussed their demands to end the protest, but no agree­ment was reached. Norte Ener­gia said they need­ed to take the requests back to Brasil­ia for analy­sis. A new meet­ing was set for July 9. In the mean­time, the tribes say their occu­pa­tion will con­tin­ue. It was also agreed by all sides that work will con­tin­ue on the parts of the con­struc­tion site not under the con­trol of the tribes.

“This was a very friend­ly con­ver­sa­tion; the tribe elders are very wise and mea­sured,” said Car­los Nasci­men­to, pres­i­dent of Norte Ener­gia, in a brief press con­fer­ence after the meet­ing. “There are some young tribes­men that want some improve­ments, and as much as we can, we will do any­thing in our pow­er so these kinds of things will not hap­pen again.”

The indige­nous seemed deter­mined to keep up the fight for as long as it takes. “What we asked for, the dam builders did not give us an answer to, so we will only leave the con­struc­tion site when they bring an answer to us on paper,” Giliar­di, from the Juruna tribe, said after the meet­ing. “And as long as they don’t do any­thing in our com­mu­ni­ties regard­ing infra­struc­ture, we are not leav­ing the occu­pa­tion.”

Mean­while, more boats loaded with indige­nous peo­ple are arriv­ing at the protest site every day. It is an indi­ca­tion that this stand­off in the Ama­zon could drag on for days to come.

More pho­tos and video