WOMEN

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The following is based on an article appearing in Akwesasne Notes, a Native American newspaper. The article was abridged from a report written by a group of Brazilian anthropologists and presented at the XLI International Congress of Americanists, Mexico City, September, 1974. Because of the nature of political repression in Brazil, their names were not attached to the document.

In his first public announcement, the new Minister of the Interior, Mauricio Rangel Reis, of Brazil, declared: This is a promise that I can firmly make: We will assume a policy of inte. grating the indigenous population into Brazilian society in the shortest time possible... We be lieve that the ideals of preserving the indigenous population within its 'natural habitat' are very nice ideals, but unrealistic."

This thesis is not new. With more or less emphasis, it has come to be the dominant Indian policy of the Brazilian Government since 1964. The most notable aspect of this policy is that it completely ignores the history of indigenous experience in Brazil, which has proven, over a period of 70 years, that the hundreds of tribes who have been subjected to a policy of "rapid integration" do not integrate into Brazilian society, but on the contrary, rapidly deteriorate and disappear as a people.

Policy of Genocide

The National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) was created in 1968 in order to counter various accusations that the Brazilian Government was practicing a policy of genocide against its remaining Indian peoples and tribes. In its ori. ginal statutes, FUNAI was presented as a synthesis of the most advanced aspects of Brazilian Indian policy. By 1970, however, FUNAI began to change its policy and deviate from the principles stated in its original charter.

SOUTH AMERICA

Economic groups from the south of the country, large landowners and foreign corporations began to pressure the Government to open up the lands of the Amazon, and opposed the recognition of Indian rights. The Government then announced plans for the construction of the Trans-Amazonic Highway. Finally, several FUNAI declarations began to assume an entrepreneurial position, arguing that Indians must be integrated as a manual labor force into Amazonian development and growth.

On January 25, 1971, the President of FUNAI signed a decree which read: "Assistance to the Indian will be complete as possible, but cannot obstruct national development nor block the various axes of penetration into the Amazon region.

The Symbol of Brazil's Indian Policy...

An Amazonian Woman and Her Land's Colonizers, 1969

Birth

"This is a fascinating state of affairs," she said. Clearly, the U.S. which dominates all the island's affairs, including its public health and family planning services, is not interested in aiding Puerto Rican women to voluntarily terminate unwanted pregnancies. If the U.S. is going to invest in the island's population control, it is going to terminate at one stroke a woman's ability to conceive at all." (From the Guardian)

Population control as an isolated matter is not in itself a negative thing. It all depends on the economic and political forces that carry it out. In Puerto Rico, with U.S. big business changing to less labor intensive heavy industry, they need to eliminate a potentially explosive army of unemployed. And what better way to eliminate them than to keep them from being born?

Guatemala City

A group of women in this Latin American city have been subjected to a new sadistic experiment designed to sterilize women as a means of

"Control"

population control. An injection of paraformal dehyde into the womb caused inflammation in the fallopian tubes, which eventually led to sterility.

Dr. Charles Dagoe and Dr. Harold Thompson concluded that since natural sterilization is frequently caused by blockage of the fallopian tubes by an inflammatory process, why not create an inflammation? They view a trans cervical (through the cervix) approach to sterilization to be the ideal form of sterilization. The women had 5 mm. of paraformaldehyde injected into each fallopian tube; 72 hours later uterus and tubes were surgically removed for study. Twelve women participated, and of them, one suffered a "moderate bronchial spasm" after they injected into her veins in stead of her tubes, There were no deaths reported. (Community Press features)

cont. on page 10

For further information contact; INDIGENA,

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P.Q. Box

In accordance with this new orientation, FUNAI's central preoccupation became the rapid attraction and "pacification" of tribes living along the route of the Trans-Amazonic Highway. Im. mediately, it became clear the FUNAI's function was not the protection of constitutionally recog nized Indian rights, but the protection of highway workers against a supposed Indian threat. Today, it is more than three years since these policies have been put into practice.

The article continues with a description of what has happened to various tribes along the route of the Trans-Amazonic Highway as a result of these policies of attraction and "pacification". One tribe was described as having abandoned its village, and was found wandering, perplexed, along the highway in abject misery. Another tribe, the Paracanas, after having been given blankets, were stricken with influenza and many died. At the same time, FUNAI · officials were reported to be having sexual relations with Indian women, although these allegations were denied.

But in November, 1971, Dr. Antonio Madeiros visited the Paracana village and found a pattern of promiscuity between "civilized people" and the Indians. Thirty-five Indian women and two FUNAI officials were found to have venereal disease. Eight children in the village were born blind as a result of gonorrhea, and at least six children died of dysentery

The article goes on to describe the condition of many tribes in Brazil. Some tribes try to block the highways being built into their territories, and conflicts arise, some of which have not yet been resolved. In other cases there are Indian rebellions with reprisals and assassinations, and eventually the Indians are overwhelmed.

Over the past century, in the extreme North of Brazil, the Indian population has greatly diminished as a result of various forms of slavery created by the rubber and Brazil nut industrial booms. Today the major threat to Indian survival here lies in the construction of the highways.

In the Araguaia River Valley, the Araguaia Indian Park was created by presidential decree in 1971 on the island of Bananal and is the traditional territory of several tribes. The article describes what has happened there.

To call this island an "Indian Park" is misleading, as for more than ten years it has been occupied by cattle ranches and tourist hotels. The once-great Caraja Nation is now reduced to a couple of hundred people, with the men corrupted by alcohol and the women prostituting to local whites. An "Indian Hospital" exists on the island, but 17% of the Carajas have tuberculosis. The infant mortality rate is astounding.

The Javae tribe lives in the interior of the

island. Their territory has been surrounded by barbed wire fences of intruding cattle ranches, and they die in misery from tuberculosis, tra. coma, influenza and measles.

The situation of the Brazilian Indian today remains one of extreme gravity. They are being threatened now as never before. Concerned persons are asked to call for an investigation by the U.S. Senate and House Foreign Relations Committees of all aspects of U.S. aid, assistance, and investment programs in the Brazilian Amazon. Plans are developing for a study of native conditions in Brazil by a select group of native people from North and South America.

page 7/What She Wants/June, 1975