MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
AI top level mission to Brazil to discuss indigenous peoples’ rights and police violence
Salil Shetty has appointments with several ministers, lawmakers and the Brazilian Bar Association Indigenous peoples’ rights and police violence are the focus of a High Level Mission (HLM) by Amnesty International’s Secretary General, Salil Shetty in Brazil where he is scheduled to meet with top politicians and officials to discuss an array of human rights abuses and violations which need to be addressed.
“Given the deep stated commitment of the people and Government of Brazil to making possible all human rights of all Brazilians and its growing importance on the international stage, it is imperative that Brazil takes concrete steps to improve the state of human rights in the country,” said Salil Shetty, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.
According to UN figures, more than 2,000 people are killed by the police every year in Brazil. Between 1998 and 2009, more than 10,000 police killings were recorded in Rio de Janeiro state alone; police violence is also prevalent in many urban centers.
Salil Shetty is scheduled to visit Maré, the biggest favela (slum) in Rio de Janeiro with a population of 130,000. Here civilians often bear the brunt of heavy handed policing caught up in shoot-outs between the police, drug barons and rival gangs. In June 10 people were shot dead during a police operation in the favela, including one police officer.
“Violence, excessive use of force and live fire by police officers during the recent protests highlight serious entrenched problems with policing in Brazil. Repeated promises to change have come to nothing,” said Salil Shetty.
Likewise there are almost 900.000 indigenous people living in Brazil, according to the 2010 census. Many have been forced from their land with little or no consultation and face persistent persecution.
Salil Shetty will travel to Dourados in western Brazil, an area shared by two different indigenous peoples, the Terena and Guaraní-Kaiovás.
“Although indigenous rights are guaranteed under international law and even in Brazil’s Constitution, decades of delay over the demarcation of ancestral lands has led to worsening conflict, putting lives at risks,” said Salil Shetty ahead of his visit.
AI Secretary General agenda in Brazil includes Justice Minister, José Eduardo Cardoso; Human Rights Secretary, Maria do Rosário Nunes; Ministry of Secretary General of the Presidency, Gilberto Carvalho, and the President to the National Assembly, Henrique Alves.
He will also meet representatives of the Ordem dos Abogados do Brasil (Brazilian Bar Association), the Legislative Assembly of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and several civil society organizations.
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Read all commentsTo late for Ethnic Argentinians ......THEY ARE ALL MURDERED.
Aug 07th, 2013 - 09:13 pm 0“According to UN figures, more than 2,000 people are killed by the police every year in Brazil. Between 1998 and 2009, more than 10,000 police killings were recorded in Rio de Janeiro state alone; police violence is also prevalent in many urban centers.”
Aug 07th, 2013 - 10:07 pm 0Do they think the police deliberately jumps into the forest to kill indigenous? This figure is quite misleading if read alone. Living near the reserves are a nightmare for Brazilians who always fear those intruders entering their land - yet this minority own 13 of my country. Thanks God we have less indigenous than Peru. The majority of them are just POOR PEOPLE who are TAUGHT to be indigenous by the marxist gangs and ONG's financed by rich foreigners who want the country to be in chaos (read: George Soros). In the end, Brazilians lose their land and those poors are left in the roads selling stuff and not cultivating anything at all. This process is well documentated and repeated in almost every issue involving the natives.
These are two distinct issues:
Aug 08th, 2013 - 06:49 am 0i. The use of weaponry in the attack on, and defence of, the citizenry, resulting in deaths of protagonists and of bystanders.
ii. The land rights issue, particularly with respect to peoples with pre-colonial ancestry.
i. ..... The drugs-based gangster fiefdoms of the favelas could be left to the warlords - as it is in the North West Frontier of Pakistan/Afghanistan, with a nod and tacit agreement that these fiefdoms are part of Brasil, and live to different rules. This is done in many, many areas of the world, but the BRICS aspire to a coherent culture and fight gangster fire with fire. There is no 'halfway house' here, where the protagonists agree to meeting in a stadium on a Saturday night and grind out an eventual 'winner'. No, the heavy automatic weaponry deployed by the gangs cannot be controlled by batons and shields.
It will be interesting to hear the solutions proposed by Amnesty International .... sit down and talk, perhaps.
ii. ..... The land issues are well known worldwide and well documented. Much of Brasil, where the margin of agriculture meets the 'virgin forest', is fought-over and land-grabbed by the coronels and their extended families. They run the state governments, control the state judiciary, and dominate the actions of the federal government; they have their own fiefdoms. They are immune from the law. This is like the pre-USA Clanton gang and the cattle barons.
Landless peasants have created a huge Marxist 'travelling circus' of discontent, winning regular government cash and land sufficient to temporarily keep them quiet and away from agro-industry.
'Indigenousness' is declining as each year goes by - by land-loss, interbreeding and urbanisation . FUNAI, the agency for 'indians', tries to intercede with the ranchers, loggers and miners.
Imagine if the USA left all indian-occupied land of the 1800s to the indians ... no 'development'. Same with the Belo Monte dam, etc.
Amnesty I. ... over to you ..
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