UNITED NATIONS NATIONS UNIES 21st Century
Producers: Charles Lyons & Francis Mead Duration: 8’17” FINAL
SUICIDE AND DESPAIR AMONG BRAZIL’S INDIGENOUS
In Brazil, many young indigenous people are finding the ultimate way to escape despair; suicide. Behind this disturbing trend is a conflict over land. (12”)
VIDEO AUDIO NARRATION IN A MAKESHIFT HUT A RECENT January 2014. A small village in Brazil VICTIM OF SUICIDE A SHAMAN DANCES, RELATIVES WAIL. WE near the border of Paraguay. An Indian SEE A DEAD BOY’S BODY teenager named Dedson hangs himself. He was 15 years old (14”) . TONICO BENITES: (In Portuguese) ON-CAM INTERVIEW WITH TONICO “At the moment, a lot of people I know, BENITES my friends, feel that they have lost their autonomy, their joy, their capacity to survive. So they start thinking about dying.”(11”)
NARRATION:
There’s no one simple reason why a
young, healthy adolescent like Dedson
1 BENITES ADDRESSING A GUARANI (DEDisson) would commit suicide – but COMMUNITY he’s part of a trend among his people –
the Guarani, the largest indigenous
ethnic group in Brazil, numbering SHOTS OF VAST OPEN FIELDS IN MATO GROSSO DO SUL 45,000. Government figures show that
Guarani suicide rates are 12 times the rate for Brazilians as a whole, with a disproportionate number of adolescents and young adults taking their own lives. (32”)
For Tonico Benites, (TonEECo BenEEtess) an anthropologist and Guarani spokesperson, the root cause is the loss of the sacred tie with the land. Over the past century, most Guarani were forced to leave their ancestral lands and move to reservations.(17”)
BENITES: (In Portuguese)
They have this longing for their own
ON-CAM INTERVIEW WITH TONICO land, for the way they used to live there BENITES – this longing for a beautiful place,
IMAGES FROM A RESERVATION freedom and the autonomy they had in
their old area. In the reservation you
can’t have any of that. Suicide is a way of refusing to accept this. (27”)
NARRATION: A second cause, according to
2 anthropologist Maria de Lourdes de Alcantara, (Maria dey Lorjiss dey alCANTara) is the weight of prejudice against Guarani. (8”)
ALCANTARA; (PORTUGUESE): What is happening is that young indigenous are living between cultures. They are dealing with a dialogue with the society around them – and this society is very prejudiced against the indigenous. (10”)
NARRATION: Plagued by depression, alcoholism, poverty and violence, around 500 Guarani Indians committed suicide in the last decade, according to official figures. Others leave reservations to live marginal lives in or on the edge of cities. (17”) . ALCANTARA; (PORTUGUESE): When they come back to the tribe, they don’t feel belonging there, because their families are fragmented. (6”)
NARRATION:
The despair at the loss of land is the DRIVE BY OF INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES outcome of a vicious and sometimes
deadly struggle across large swathes
3 INDIGENOUS GROUP of Brazil. Tonico works with Guarani
communities in Mato Grosso do Sul, a
vast and fertile state in the South West
of Brazil – and the epicenter of this
struggle. On one side are farmers, who
moved onto indigenous land and
cultivated it, often many decades ago -
on the other Guarani people like Tonico
who are campaigning to return to their
lost homeland. (38”)
ON CAMERA Because of his activities, he says he
has been threatened many times over
the years. (5”)
BENITES: (In Portuguese) DRIVING In my case, they pursue me by creating
pressure via cellphone, saying, ‘do not
get involved in this struggle for land or
you will be killed. (14”)
It happened to me three times, when I
was waiting on the side of the road and
a truck came at high speed towards
ON CAMERA me, so I had to jump, otherwise it
would have hit and killed me.
And then later they say it’s an accident.
But it isn’t.” (14”)
NARRATION:
He says farmers, ranchers and
4 vigilantes are behind the attacks. (4”)
DRIVING BENITES: (In Portuguese)
They surround us, burn our shacks,
and people, they take people away and DEBRIS they start firing rubber bullets and they
use torture. (15
NARRATION:
The violence picked up after the fall of
Brazil’s dictatorship in the 1980s, when
the government finally recognized
indigenous land rights and in 1990
began officially demarcating land as
FARMERS belonging to the Guarani - however the
process has been very slow – held up
by frequent legal challenges.
But for the region’s farmers and
ranchers, the narrative is very different.
According to the president of Brazil’s
ranchers’ association, Francisco Maia,
(FranSEESco MAI-ah) the
government’s policy of returning land to
the Guarani is patently unfair. (40”)
MAIA ON CAMERA MAIA: (In Portuguese)
There are farms and families here in WITH FARM ANIMALS this region that have had property held
by the same family, and they contribute
and pay taxes. All legal. And then,
suddenly, they tell you, ‘Leave this land
5 because this doesn’t belong to you.
(17”)
NARRATION:
And not only do ranchers and farmers
complain about the government, some
also accuse the Guarani of staging
violent assaults against them. Adao
Ribeiro (AdOWM ReeBEYRoo) and his
daughter, Hilda are small farmers in
.Mato Grosso do Sul. (15”)
HILDA: (In Portuguese) HILDA ON CAMERA There were only two of us and the
Indians came and invaded. They were
getting closer and more of them came.
Early in the morning. (7”)
TRACKING SHOTS JUNGLE NARRATION
Hilda says Guarani Indians invaded her
family’s farm ten years ago. (4”)
HILDA ON CAMERA HILDA: (In Portuguese)
They had pieces of wood and the
weapons that Indians use. And they
were really threatening us. When the
time came for us to pick up our
belongings, we were walking facing
their weapons—sticks, bows and
arrows. (15”)
6 NARRATION:
Father and daughter fled the farm,
never to return. The divide that pits
farmers and ranchers against Guarani GVS UN remains deep and hostile - but James
Anaya, the former United Nations
JAMES ANAYA STILL SHOTS WITH Special Rapporteur on the Rights of INDIGENOUS Indigenous Peoples, believes both sides can still find a way forward. He says that farmers and ranchers ought to be fairly compensated for the land they are giving up - but at the same time, those same farmers need to acknowledge the Guarani’s predicament.(31”)
JAMES ANAYA: (In English) “I think there needs to be a deeper understanding, among the farmers more generally, about the importance of that land base to the survival, both physical and cultural survival, of the indigenous people in that region. And ultimately all of Brazil as a society, can benefit from the presence and survival of indigenous people and what they could bring to the country and to this region of Brazil.”(24”)
NARRATION Both sides say they want a peaceful
7 solution… but there’s a long way to go before current tensions can be eased. In the meantime, in Guarani villages across Mato Grosso do Sul, life and hope too often give way to despair – as was the case with 15-year-old Dedson. But Tonico Benites doesn’t want to believe that this young man’s death is the last word on his people’s future. (31”)
BENITES: (In Portuguese) Our biggest hope is to secure a place so we can keep together as a people, like it was before, when were happy, joyful, with a shared bounty. Because in our history the Guarani people never suffered from famine, never suffered from extreme poverty, never had to beg from anyone – even from the white man. (23”) Our greatest hope is that they will return a part of the land to us, so we can keep our joy .(7”)
TAG: So far only a small proportion of land has been returned to Brazil’s indigenous peoples and negotiations over the process are stalled (10”).
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