REPORT Nº 8 URIHI

CONTENTS Page

Indian Lands, Environrnental Policy and Geopolitics of Amazonian Development in : The Case 3

Support in the Struggle for Survival of the Yanomami Indians 38

Editors' Note 44

INDIANS LANDS, ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND GEOPOLITICS OF AMAZONIAN DEVELOPMENT IN BRAZIL: THE YANOMAMI CASE. Bruce Albert

The purpose of this article is to analyze briefly the Brazilian State's present strategy of incorporating new spaces to the economic frontier by means of an Indian and environmental policy that seeks to promote the private appropriation of indigenous lands of the Amazon border area under contral of the military. To exemplify the administrative and legal mechanisms that sustain this geopolitical and economic process, we shall consider the case of the recent delimitation of Yanomami lands located along the Brazil- border, in the north of the State of Amazonas and west of the State of .

On 19 August 1988, the president of the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) announced in Brasilia that a directive was being prepared for delimitation of the lands of the nearly 10,000 Yanomami Indians of Brazil (1). This directive was first signed on 13 September (Portaria nº 160) but was later reformulated on 18 November (Portaria nº 250) (2). For 20 years, numerous national and international non-governmental organizations have argued the need to legally recognize .the lands traditionally occupied by the Yanomami, the last large recently-contacted indigenous group of the Americas, in the form of an extensive and continuous area which in Brazil would be legally created as an "Indian park", also for the purpose of ecological preservation (3). The Minister of the Interior declared to the press (4), referring to the pro-Yanomami movement, that the directive in question constituted a response to the national and international community concerned with the preservation of this group and their habitat (5). FUNAI then launched an important campaign in the press and on national television on the question: "Yanomami have their lands demarcated at more than 8 million hectares" (6), presenting this measure as an historic achievement of Brazilian indigenist and environmental policy.

So, what is one to think of this delimitation? Did the government in fact adequately guarantee the historic territorial rights of the Yanomami and effectively protect the ecology of the region? We shall first examine this question in order then to re-insert it into the global context of the current environmental and indigenist policy of the government in the northern Amazon region.

“Yanomami Indian Land” in Portaria nº 160: a double delimitation

The delimitation of Yanomami lands was announced in a sensationalist and partial manner. The campaign launched in the media by FUNAI rests, in fact, on a slogan which is both ostentatious and biased: the Yanomami were to be bestowed with an area of more than 8 million hectares "corresponding to four times the surface area of the State of Sergipe". On the other hand, the publication of the topographical configuration of the area, as well as the effective juridical and administrative bases of this delimitation were left in the dark. For obvious reasons. The area of more than 8,216,925 hectares supposedly conceded to the Yanomami represents a reduction of 13% of the territory recognized by FUNA1 since 1985 as of Yanomami Indian occupation (7) - excluding from its perimeter several indigenous communities -and, above all, consists of a jigsaw puzzle divided into 22 distinct areas governed by different regulations which are, in most cases, directly contradictory to the effective recognition of the territorial rights of the Yanomami. It is thus not a question of a simple legalization of Yanomami lands, but the creation of a complex territorial and administrative arrangement which, despite its spectacular though ambiguous presentation to the public, seeks to trick national and international public opinion through measures that can only have highly damaging effects on the Yanomami.

The duplicity of Portaria 160 can be seen, basically, in its deliberate superposition of several incompatible environmentalist and indigenist juridical figures, that permits a "double reading" of the territorial rights recognized for the Yanomami.

Let us quickly see here the main articulation of this administrative construction:

-The first paragraph (I) of the Portaria in question declares "Yanomami Indian Land, with an approximate surface area of 8,216,925 hectares [to be] of permanent possession of the Indians, for the purpose of delimitation," and defines its perimeter. This paragraph contains the only relatively positive measure of the decree, legally recognizing the occupation of the area by the group, an area which corresponds approximately to the Indians' historical territorial space (this measure would be truly favorable to the Yanomami only if the perimeter of the "Yanomami Indian Land" was corrected and its creation referred to the concept of "traditionally occupied land" as defined in article 231 of the new Brazilian Constitution) .

-Yet, paragraphs II and III of the Portaria establish an administrative differentiation and a territorial fractioning of "Yanomami Indian Land", in contradiction to the previous paragraph that declares it to be of permanent indigenous possession in its totality. Thus, in the end, "Yanomami Indian Land", is divided into a territorial mosaic comprised of two types of areas with opposing functions:

1-Areas governed by the “Forestry Coden”: 2 "National Forests" (the "National Forest of Roraima" and the "National Forest of Amazonas") and a "National Park" (the "National Park of ", created in 1979) (8), totalling 5,781,710 hectares, or 70% of "Yanomami Indian Land."

2- Indigenous Areas (9): 19 discontinuous areas, dispersed and sandwiched between the "National Forests" and in the "National Park" (10 in the "National Forest of Roraima", 5 in the "National Forest of Amazonas", and 4 in the "National park of Pico da Neblina"), totalling 2,435,215 hectares, or 30% of "Yanomami Indian Land."

It should be noted here that the regulation and use of the units of conservation in question, administered by the Brazilian Institute for Forestry Development (IBDF) are contradictory in several aspects with the right to exclusive usufruct that characterizes the permanent possession of lands traditionally occupied by indigenous populations (article 231, §2 of the new Brazilian Constitution). "National Forests" are used for economic purposes, such as commercialization of timber, which is incompatible with indigenous forms of occupation and use of the natural environment. "National parks" are areas of integral or quasi-integral preservation and can thus algo impose restrictions on the exploitation by the Indians of certain floral and/or faunal resources essential to their productive activities. Besides that, the development of recreational and tourist activities, prohibited in indigenous areas, is foreseen inside both units (10). To the extent that Portaria 160 confers onto the greater part of "Yanomami Indian Land" a parallel status of conservation unit incompatible with its indigenous occupation, this will result, in the course of time, in the de facto restriction of the ' exercise of effective and exclusive territorial rights to the surface area of the 19 "Indigenous Areas" which represent approximately one-fourth of the territory that these people effectively occupy, as much from the economic-social, as from the historic point of view. The legal and administrative superposition created by Portaria 160 is thus seen to be not only internally contradictory but also promotes a process of planned expropriation of Yanomami lands. The "double reading" of indigenous territorial rights that it permits (a totality of "Yanomami Indian Land", or 19 "Indigenous Areas") corresponds, in fact, to-a politically' insidious plan for the progressive reduction of indigenous territory for the purpose of making the large-scale exploitation of its natural resources viable. Thus we are dealing with a program of economic acculturation and imposed settlement, to confine progressively the Yanomami to an "archipelago" of reduced "Indigenous Areas" , eliminating the possibility of their use of extensive areas traditionally necessary for spatial mobi1ity and productive activities (70% of "Yanomami Indian Land"). In this process, the areas of indigenous territory to be expropriated come to have the transitory status of environmental protection areas, elevating the international image of the government, until they can be, in due time, liberated for diverse economic activities (exploitation of lumber, mining, colonization projects...). Portaria 160 thus consists essentially of a juridical and administrative measure that seeks to gradually integrate indigenous lands to the economic frontier via a transition phase as conservation units.

The “Yanomami archipelago” in Portaria 250: an explicit expropriation

The architecture of the plan for expropriation contained in Portaria 160 proved, nevertheless, to be still unsatisfactory to its authors who reformulated it in a new version of delimitation of Yanomami lands, promulgated two months later, in Portaria 250. As we have noted, Portaria 160, in paragraph I, recognized the Yanomamis' permanent possession of 8,216,925 hectares, even within the perspective of its reduction over the long range. This rnust have then been considered a factor of political vulnerability, in particular opening up a space for legal recourse by the indigenous and indigenist rnovernent, supported by the dispositions of the new Brazilian Constitution, against the internal division of "Yanomami Indian Land" and, as a result, against its ex officio opening to - panners or mining companies.

Yanomami territory is currently invaded by 30,000 to 40,000 gold-panners (11) distributed in approximately eight main regions (12). There are considerable pressures from local political and economic interests to obtain from the federal govermnent. "legalization" of these invasions in the form of the liberation of areas to be used by gold-panners' cooperatives within zones of enviromnental protection cut out of Yanomami lands (13). The creation of such areas was clearly mentioned in the press by the president of FUNAI during the publicity campaign for the creation of "Yanomami lndian Land". (14) As Governor of the State of Roraima, a post to which he was nominated shortly after the publicizing of Portaria 160, the ex-President of FUNAl continued to assure the gold-panners that their presence would be guaranteed in Yanomami lands (15). Nevertheless, the creation of "Yanomami Indian Land" (Portaria 160) was considered by the "Gold-panners' Association of Roraima" as too favorable for the Indians and, therefore, totally rejected (16). The pressure from the prospectors was certainly an important factor in the reformulation of Portaria 160, in the sense of accelerating the process of expropriation initially planned, probably conceived within the perspective of gradually opening up Yanomami lands to the utilization of mineral rights by industrial companies: besides the eight regions of gold prospecting, Yanomami territory remains under the threat of 27 mineral claims and 363 requests for authorization of mineral research registered with the National Department of Mineral production (DNPM) (17), covering a total of 3,457,632 hectares, or, 37% of the total surface area (as defined by FUNAI in 1985) .

Let us briefly analyze the new dispositions of Portaria 250:

-One notes, as a point of departure, and very significantly, that the reference to the Yanomamis' permanent possession of an "Indigenous Land" of 8,216,925 hectares, which served so much as a display piece for FUNAI in September 1988, has disappeared from the text. Yanomami territorial rights are now directly and explicitly restricted, in paragraph 1, to the 19 reduced and dispersed "Indian Areas" of the previous Portaria now defined as "lands ; traditionally occupied by the Yanomami Indians". The concept of "traditionally occupied lands" has its basis in article 231, §1 of the new Brazilian Constitution. The constitutional text specifies that the notion of occupation refers not on1y to the lands inhabited by the Indians, but also to the lands utilized for their productive activities, those indispensib1e to the preservation of environmenta1 resources necessary to their well-being, and those necessary for their physical and cultural reproduction according to their usages, customs and traditions. Since the Yanomami "Indian Areas" encompass only clusters of villages- hence, only areas of residence (18)- their delimitation by Portaria 250 does not take into account the areas effectively occupied and used by the Yanomami according to the specific needs of their economic and socio-political organization. The concept of "traditionally occupied lands" is, hence, used in this Portaria in a deliberately distorted sense and thus cheats the Brazilian constitutional dispositions on indigenous lands (19).

-The areas subtracted from traditional Yanomami territory remain recognized as units of conservation in the same form as the previous directive (outside of a slight increase in the surface of the "National Forest of Amazonas": 1,573,100 hectares). Nevertheless, the guarantee of exc1usive use of the natural resources linked to the recognition of indigenous possession of these units, already much weakened in Portaria 160, is totally annuled in the new Portaria (paragraph IV). It is, in fact, substituted by the mere recognition of the "preferentia1 use" conceded to the Yanomami over the natural resources of the "National Forests", a notion which is lacking in any juridical and constitutional basis. Besides that, the directive defines that the development of economic activities in these "National Forests" is to be submitted only to the authorization of FUNAI and the IBDF. It is worth noting here that the IBDF, administrator of the "National Forests", in July 1988 prepared a "Proposal for Regulation of National Forests" (20) which, besides the traditional economic objective of this kind of conservation unit -rational exploitation of forest products and subproducts -includes an unusual activity for an area of environmental protection: mineral exploitation (art.1 §3).

To summarize: Portaria 250 annuls the creation of "Yanomami Indian Land" in order to maintain merely the configuration of its internal division. The disposition to expropriate Yanomami lands contained in its provisions is, thus, much more direct than that anticipated in the previous Portaria. Now, the phase of "ecological transition" in the process of integration of indigenous lands to the market of mineral interests is reduced to a mere formality. The official recognition af expropriated indigenous territorial space as pseudo-units of conservation is no longer an intermediate phase in the process of expropriation: it now contains within itself the conditions for this expropriation via the regulation of the "National Forests". Thus, 50% of the Yanomami lands transformed into "National Forests" by Portaria 250 will be directly and as such opened up to mineral exploitation. This mechanism constitutes a form of bypassing another fundamental disposition of the new Brazilian Constitution: the imperative of submitting the decision for exploiting mineral resources on indigenous lands to the National Congress and to the Indians (art. 49 XVI, 176 §lº and 231 §3º and 7º).

Eleven of the 19 "islands" cut out of Yanomami territory by Portaria 250 have a surface area less than 55,000 hectares, seven have surface areas between 90,000 and 250,000 hectares, and one has a little over one million hectares. The average demographic density in this "archipelago" will be 0.41 persons/km2, or approximately four times higher than the average density of the whole of traditional Yanomami territory in Brazil: 0.11 persons/km2. From this we know that over the medium range, if the exclusive access of the Yanomami to the floral and faunal resources that are indispensible to them becomes restricted to this set of dispersed and reduced "Indigenous Areas", they will not have the means to guarantee the functioning of their productive system and will thus see their nutritional and health situation, as well as the natural environment that they use, enter into a process of accelerated degradation before being able to develop economic alternatives (21).

The consequences of the publication of Portaria 250 will thus be overwhelming for the Yanomami. Their territorial space will in short be reduced to 25-30% of the area effectively occupied economically and historically by the group. And even so, these 25-30%, where 120 villages are located (22), will be dismembered into 19 dispersed "islands" the majority of which hardly' have the surface area necessary for the economic use of a community of 80 people which, in the Yanomami system of production based on hunting-gathering and shifting swidden agriculture, is approximately 64,000 hectares (23). And, as if this wasn't sufficiently grave, the massive invasions by gold-panners who, since last year, have assaulted the Yanomami people bringing violence (armed aggression and cases of torture), ecological degradation (excavations, deforestation, pollution of the rivers), and a catastrophic health situation (constant ,epidemics of malaria, measles, flu, venereal disease, tuberculosis, and poisoning due to contamination of the rivers) (24) will simply be institutionalized in complete disrespect of national and international legislation on indigenous populations (25) and the most fundamental human rights. The delimitation of Yanomami lands by Portaria 250 is thus absolutely unacceptable, for its scandalous disrespect of the territorial rights of the Yanomami and because it puts the physical survival of these people seriously at risk, at the mercy of the violence and contamination brought by the gold-panners (*).

(*) The breaking up of Yanomami lands was nevertheless made official at the beqinninq of 1989 by the promulqation of a set of presidential decrees: nºs 97512 to 97530 of 17 February (19 Indiqenous Areas.) and nºs 97545 -97456 of 1 March (2 “nationa1 Forests”.).

Indigenous lands, environmental policy and mining in the geopolitics of development of the Amazon frontiers

We have seen how strategic the administrative and legal role of the areas of environmental protection -in particular, the "National Forests" -is to the process of opening up Yanomami lands to the advance of the frontier in the west of the state of Roraima. There are obvious political advantages to this move which, at the national and international level, allow the government to transform the plundering of indigenous lands into supposed conservationist achievements. It is, in fact, exactly for this purpose that Portaria 250 justifies its measures on the basis of environmental considerations, such as the need to conserve the ecosystem of the headwaters of the rivers of Roraima and to create ecological buffer areas to protect the indigenous habitat (the press release from FUNAI spoke of "green belts ") .

Several facts clearly demonstrate how much the development of this ecological theme is nothing more than a political manipulation for the purpose of eluding national and international public opinion. In the first place, one notes that this environmentalist rhetoric appears exactly at the time when FUNAI is making an effort to bury the juridical figure of the “Indian park" , a very advanced indigenist and environmentalist concept of the 1973 "Statute of the Indian" (see note 3), which anticipated the model, today very highly considered, of "cultural Parks" (26). The option, in the "Forestry Code", for the figure of "National Forest", a conservation unit open to economic use, is also revealing when one notes. that, if ecological preservation was the objective, this "Code" would offer a solution obviously better adapted to the case: the concept of "permanent preservation forest", exactly for the purpose of "maintaining the environment necessary to the lives of forest-dwelling populations". (27) Finally, this manipulation even demonstrates a certain cynicism when it is noted that Davi Kobenawë, one of the most active Yanomami leaders in the defense of the integrity of the traditional territory of his people, was, in April 1988, awarded the Global 500 prize of the United Nations program for the Environment (UNEP), "for notable achievement in the area of the environment", and that the Brazilian government, having received the announcement on 28/4/88, opted never to publicize it, and didn't even inform the recipient who is a functionary of FUNAI (28) (the prize was received two years ago by the rubber-tapper Chico Mendes, recently-assassinated) .

The perversion of legislation and environmentalist concepts for the purpose of reducing and cutting up Yanomami territory is not an isolated case however. In its broad lines, the treatment of the Yanomami case follows the solution given to the lands of the Tukano Indians of the area of Pari Cachoeira (Upper Rio Negro) in January 1988. The Tukano of this region saw their traditional territory cut up into 3 "Indigenous Colonies" (29), partially surrounded by 2 "National Forests", thereby losing their historical rights to 58% of their lands. Later (March 1989), the other indigenous territories of the Upper Rio Negro algo were cut up into 11 "Indigenous Colonies" or "Indigenous Areas" and 9 "National Forests". Including Pari Cachoeira, the total loss of Indian lands in the region is 61% (30). New delimitations of the same type are being prepared for other Indian territories of northern Amapá and Pará, or have been already defined, as in the South of Amazonas and (area of the PMACI -see p. 19 ) .

This "ecological model" for expropriation of indigenous lands of the North and West Amazon border region can be seen, moreover, as a systematized strategy. It is part, in fact, of a series of projects and measures elaborated over the last few years to operationalize the geopolitics for consolidation of the military and economic occupation of Brazil's amazonian border belt (31), defined by the Secretary General of the National Security Council (SG/SCN) (32) (renamed in the new Constitution as the "Secretariat for National Defense Assessment", SADEN) (33). Up to now, there have been two projects: the "Calha Norte project" , launched in 1985, and more recently, the "program for Development of the Border Belt of Western Amazonia" (PROFFAO) , the elaboration of which was only revealed in July 1988 in an Exposition of Motives by the president of the Republic – five lines in the Diário Oficial (34) - authorizing, for the purpose, the creation of an Interministerial Work Group under the direction of the SG/CSN (*).

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(*) A lawyer of the 8 Indigenist "Missionary Council” (CIMI) finally obtained in court the integral publication of this document (Diario Oficial, 10/3/89:3743). The PROFFAO plans basically to app1y a simi1ar logic of mi1itarized deve1opment as that of the “Calha Norte project” to the border area of Western Amazonia.

Given that the tropical forest regions of the Amazon frontiers are characterized, essentially, by their extensive areas of indigenous settlement and by their notorious ecological vulnerability, both of which have become parameters ever more sensitive politically in the process of making the projects in question viable, the SG/CSN - SADEN has, during the Sarney government, adopted a strategy for taking direct contral over the indigenist and environmental policy in Amazonia.

Within the scope of the "Calha Norte project", the SG/CSN began to take on the direction of the process for defining indigenous lands, officiously, from 1985 on and, officially, in 1987 (35). This was done under the pretext that the indigenous question enters significantly in the definition of matters directly relevant to its jurisdiction such as national integration and sovereignty, the integrity of the patrimony of the nation and social peace (36). Apparently considering the Indians of Brazil as subversive apatriates, the SG/CSN-SADEN thus began to develop an extraordinary indigenist policy designed to systematically reduce indigenous territories of the amazonian border area which is exemplified in the recent delimitation of Yanomami lands. One must remember here the insistence with which the authors of the "Calha Norte project" denounced the extent of Yanomami territory and the campaign on behalf of its delimitation as a threat of the future creation of a "Yanomami State" (sic) on the Brazil-Venezuela border (37). It is also interesting to note in this regard that we find exactly the same style of anti-Indian arguments in Venezuelan indigenist policy applied to the Amazon border area, demonstrating that, in this case, the threats to national sovereignty are situated less on the side of the indigenous people than on the side of the transnational doctrine of "National Security" which informs the treatment of the indigenous question in the two countries (38).

The first intervention by the SG/CSN-SADEN in Amazonian environmental policy began in 1988 with its taking control of the coordination of the "Program for Protection of Environment and Indigenous Communities" (PMACI), for which the Secretary of Planning of the presidency of the Republic was responsible (39). The PMACI was created by the government to fulfill the environmental and indigenist requirements of a loan contract for US$146.7 million signed in 1985 with the Inter- American Development Bank (IDB) for the paving of Highway BR-364 from Porto Velho (Rondônia) to Rio Branco (Acre). The SG/CSN's taking control of the PMACI occurred at a time when national and international environmentalist protests denouncing the program's inadequacy succeeded in influencing the IDB to the point of impeding the financing of the loan (40). The "Plan for Definitive Action" (PAD) of the PMACI (August 1988) seeks to implement, in the south of the states of Amazonas and Acre, a zoning complex consisting of conservation units, extractivist settlements (for rubber-tappers) and indigenous areas, designed to buffer the social and ecological impact of the paving of BR-364 in the region. The imposition of the indigenist norms of the SG/CSN-SADEN appears, nevertheless, in this apparently praiseworthy project, in the form of several proposals for cutting up indigenous territories into 10 "Indigenous Areas", 4 "Indigenous Colonies" and 7 environmental protection zones (2 "Ecological Stations", 5 "National Forests") comparable to the configurations created in the Upper Rio Negro and Yanomami directives. The PAD- PMACI was hurriedly approved on 15/9/88, despite protests from the indigenous leaders of the area, in order to be presented to the IDB and thus to get the necessary credit line for the conclusion of the works of Highway BR-364 (41) (*).

______(*) The IDB sti11 does not accept the PAD-PMACI precise1y because of the SG/CSN-SADENS' s use of the “Nationa1 Forest”- concept to expropriate traditiona1 Indian lands (see Jorna1 do Brasi1, 1/4/89). ______

The next step in the SG/CSN-SADEN's intervention in Amazonian environmental policy took place in the form of the launching, in October 1988, after a period of apocalyptic tropical forest burnings, of the "Program for Defense of the Complex of Ecosystems of Legal Amazonia" ("Our Nature program") (42); a launching, for the purpose of widening, along the lines of the PMACI, its media and diplomatic campaign in response to the growing international environmentalist pressure against destructive financing by multilateral development banks in Amazonia. The first measure of the "Our Nature Program", the executive committee of which is controlled by the Secretary General of the SG/CSN-SADEN (author of the "Calha Norte Project") and dominated by five functionaries of this agency, was to create six " Interministerial Work Groups" (GTI) delegated with the responsibility of studying, proposing and promoting measures to attain their objectives of ecological protection of Amazonia (43). The 6 GTIs were the following: I.) Protection of the Forest Covering; II.) Chemical Substances and Inadequate Mining Processes; III.) Structuring of the Environmental Protection System; IV.) Environmental Education; V.) Research; VI.) Protection of the Environment, Indigenous Communities and Populations Involved in Extractivist Processes (44).

The results of the work of these GTIs were publicized on 6 April 1989 in the context of a political demonstration against the "internationalization of Amazonia" orchestrated by the SG/CSN-SADEN. The only concrete measures immediately promulgated were the creation of one "National Park" in Amazonia ("Chapada dos Guimarães", ) and the promulgation of a decree against the use of mercury by gold-panners (nº 97507). The rest consisted of 46 decree projects, pre- legal projects and memoranda of the President of the Republic, anounced through a list released to the Press.

Moreover, it has already become clear that one is not dealing here with merely environmental protection but that in the heart of this plan for ecological defense are incorporated essential measures of indigenist policy commended by the SG/CSN- SADEN. The GTI VI ("protection of the Environment, of Indigenous Communities and Populations Involved in Extractivist Processes") officially expects to systematize economic-ecological planning of the PMACI, to generalize its zoning model and to research possible sources of international financing for the implementation of integrated projects conceived on this basis (45). Nevertheless, the "socio-economic presuppositions" indicated by the SG/CSN-SADEN for guiding the elaboration of measures related to indigenous populations submit the definition of their lands -in complete disregard of the new Brazilian Constitution -to the perspective of "development of these communities for the purpose of their total integration into regional society" (our emphasis) (46 ), which makes it very clear that the model of "ecological expropriation" of the SG/CSN-SADEN, experimentally used in various indigenous territories of border areas (Upper Rio Negro, Yanomami, PMACI) could also be systematized to be applied to all Amazonia under cover of the measures derived from the "Our Nature program" (*) .

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(*) However until now (May 1989). the main result of the GTI VI work (besides a pre-leqal project to create a “National Environmental Fund” to seek foreign financing and a memorandum to give priority to extractivist settlements) is a decree project to postpone the deadline of its studies. ______

The budgetary previsions of the "Calha Norte project" for 1989 have also left it clear that the SG/CSN-SADEN will transfer 10% of its resources for maintenance of the "National Forests" surrounding the "Indigenous Areas" to the IBDF, thus providing one more indication of the subordination of national environmental and indigenist policy to the geopolitics of "National Security" (47).

One notes thus that, in the series of measures we have just described, the projects for economic and military occupation of the Amazon border areas - the "Calha Norte Project" and PROFFAO -are progressively endowed with carefully measured-out administrative instruments to open up the indigenous lands remaining in these regions to economic exploitation, and this with the least national and international political cost possible, via phantom conservationist measures. Let us now examine briefly the economic logic underpining this official expropriation of indigenous lands on the Amazon border regions, taking the example of the ""Calha Norte Project".

The "Calha Norte project" extends to 6,771 km of the north-Amazonian border belt of Brazil, where the application of important public financing is foreseen in order to increase the military presence in the area, as well as to develop the routes of communication, energy production and basic services, to attract investments and migratory flows. The key political and economic problem of this project for the "interiorization of development poles" under military contral, is the question of liberating the natural resources of indigenous lands of the region to private appropriation and, in particular, to industrial or semi-industrial mining companies. The authors of the "Calha Norte project" in fact consider as a decisive factor for its planning "the large number of mineral deposits situated in indigenous or supposedly indigenous areas, interdicted by FUNAI for the purpose of studies and delimitation" and "the increasing superposition of these indigenous lands on lands surveyed for mineraIs (sic)" (48). This statement obviously inverts the data of the problem, but it has the merit of pointing out the fundamental logic of the "Calha Norte Project". Turning the equation on its head, let us see through some figures what the threat of mining interests is to indigenous lands on the North Amazon border belt (49). Indigenous lands included in this region represent approximately 242,000 km2 (50). The surface area of the permits and requests for mineral research registered in , the DNPM, occurring in these indigenous areas, is divided in the following manner (51):

Nº of permits: 76 Extent: 5,712 km3 Nº of Requests: 973 Extent: 88,160 km3 Total: 1,049 93,872 km3

Thus, 39% of the surface area of indigenous lands on the North Amazon border belt have their subsoil blocked and lotted by mineral titles (data from June 1987), comprising a considerable market reserve for state and private, national and transnational mining companies. The 27 permits registered in the Yanomami area thus belong, for example, to 10 companies: a state company (CPRM) , 2 multinationals (Brascan & Anglo-American) and 7 private nationals (counting the requests, the total is 25 companies: 2 multinationals, 3 state companies, 20 private nationals). The lands that excite the greatest interest are situated in the northwest of Amazonas (Tukano, , Maku lands) , the west and northeast of Roraima (Yanomami, Macuxi, Wapixana lands) and the northeast of Amapá (Waiãpi, Galibi, , Karipuna lands). These are precisely the most dynamic regions for implementation of the measures for territorial expropriation of the indigenous peoples and for implantation of the military apparatus of the "Calha Norte project" ("Frontier platoons" , air bases, barracks, and lands reserved for the Army).

Conclusion:

The facts we have presented demonstrate how much present State indigenist and environmental policy is subordinated to a military-corporate model for integration of the border areas of the north and west of Amazonia in geopolitical and economic continuity with the development projects for the region of the seventies. Nevertheless, we have noted that, given the negative international repercussion of the high social and ecological costs of these projects, translated into a growing pressure from public opinion and non-governmental organizations on the multilateral banks that finance them, Brazilian military have been forced to greatly modify the political style of their implementation. The environmentalist and indigenist victories of the new Brazilian Constitution have also had an important influence in this regard. It is thus directly in response to these new parameterf; of the international and national political situation that the SG/CSN-SADEN, connected to interested corporate sectors, has, within the last few years, developed its penetration into national indigenist and environmentalist policy. This intrusion consists of an institutional means by which the State seeks to obtain an ideological recomposition of the social and ecological image of the model of Amazonian development of the ‘70s, without having its deep structure significantly affected. It thus seeks above all to neutralize the influence of the international environmentalist and indigenist movement on the conditions for socio-ecological protection connected to multilateral development bank loans, a movement denounced by the military as being conducted by "unconfessable interests" that intend "to exercise undue influence in the Brazilian Amazon" (52). The new environmental policy of the SG/CSN-SADEN is thus essentially motivated by the fact of considering "the problem of deforestation in Amazonia a strategic point because of the great interest of. foreign organizations." (53)

The tactical and rhetorical character of the government's environmental initiatives in this context of economic occupation of the Amazon border regions becomes even more obvious when one compares the superficiality of the measures taken, with the increasing amplitude of the process of destruction of the tropical forest in Brazil. The estimated cleared area in the Brazilian Amazon was about 112 160 km2 (2.25%) in 1978, by 1988 it is 399 765 km2 (8%) (54).

Let us take for example, the case of the State of Rondônia which received, from 1980 to 1988, a massive migratory flow (approximately one million people), a situation which, very probably, the North Amazon will know in the coming decades. In 9 years, about 14% of the tropical forest of the State (approximately 33 942 km2) were destroyed (55). Currently, only 15,000 km2 of this surface area are used for perennial plantations, 10,000 km2 for pastures, and 5,000 km2 for annual plantations (56). The paving of the Cuiabá-Porto Velho highway (BR-364) gave rise to a broad movement of land-holding speculation which in large part made small-scale agriculture inviable. Thus, the average amount of abandoned lands in colonization projects is higher than 50%. The result is land-holding concentration, rural exodus, accelerated deforestation, and the invasion of indigenous lands and conservation units. To complete the picture, the cutting of lumber in ecological reserves and indigenous areas is considerable and with no control on the part of FUNAI or the IBDF (57). Worse yet, a Parliamentary Investigative Commission of the local legislative assembly has revealed the systematic complicity of FUNAI and lumber companies in illegally exploiting the forest resources of indigenous reserves: 13 illegal lumber contracts on Indian lands (211 580 m3 of lumber) had been signed by the former President of FUNAI between September 1986 and October 1987 (58) .

The native forest of Rondônia, at its current rate of destruction, could become extinct during the next decade: the estimated cleared area in Rondônia were 0.5% in 1975, 3.12 in 1980, 11.37 in 1985, 15.18 in 1987 and 17.1 in 1988 -thus showing an exponential growth curve of deforestation (59). Finally, it should be remembered here that the "development" of Rondônia received financial benefits from the World Bank ("Polonoroeste project") but with conditions of implantation and contral through a series of environmental and indigenist protection measures to be implemented by the relevant Brazilian administrations.

(1) According to FUNAI (Parecer nº 190/88 of 19/8/88) the Yanomami population of Brazil is 9,910. (2) Interministerial Portaria nº 160 of 13/9/88 and nº 250 of 18/11/88 signed by the Ministries of the Interior, Agriculture, Agrarian Reform and Development, and the Secretary-General of the National Security Council. (3) "Statute of the Indian", Law nº 6.001 of 19/12/73, article 28. The "Indian Park" has as its principal goal the protection and assistance of indigenous populations and preservation of the environment. (4) Correio Braziliense, 26/8/88: ("Yanomami Area will be Demarcated Soon"). (5) According to the president of FUNAI, the agency received in one year 829 letters of support in the campaign for the creation of the "Yanomami Indian park" (Correio Braziliense, 26/8/88). (6) Title of the "press Release" of the presidency of FUNAI on 19/8/88. (7) FUNAI Portaria nº 1817 of 8/1/85 which delimits the territory effectively occupied by the Yanomami (9,419,108 hectares) as a preliminary administrative measure to the creation of the "Yanomami Indian park". (8) Decree nº 83.550 of 5/6/79. (9) "Indigenous Areas" are those defined by Decree nº 94.946 of 23/9/87: "Areas occupied or inhabited by unacculturated forest-dwellers, or in the early phases of acculturation". (10) On all this, see the "Forestry Code", Law nº 4771 of 15/12/65 (art.5), the "Plan for the System of Conservation Units of Brazil", 1982: 20-21, 25- 26, the "Regulations for National parks of Brazil", Decree nº 84.017 of 21/9/79, and the "Statute of the Indian" (article 58). (11) Commission for the Creation of the Yanomami park (CCPY) , 20/10/88: YANOMAMIURGENTE nº 4, p.2. (12) Rio Maturacá (Amazonas), Rio Preto- Serra da Mocidade, Alto Apiaú, Alto Catrimani, Alto Parima(RR) , Rio Couto de Magalhães/Alto Mucajaí, Furo Santa Rosa/Rio Uraricaá, Rio Uraricoera/Arakaçá (Roraima) . (13) Local politicians support the "legalization" of gold-panning activities in the "National Forests"( Folha de Boa Vista, 21/8/88: "Yanomami gain more than 8 million hectares of lands") , as does FUNAI (Manchete, 28/1/89: "Amazonia the green war”). (14) Correio Braziliense ("Yanomami Reserve will be demarcated, FUNAI guarantees") and the Folha de S.Paulo, 20/8/88 ("Area defined for Yanomami Reserve"). (15) Folha de Boa Vista, 9/10/88 ("Jucá defends invaders of Yanomami land") and A Crítica-Roraima, 15/10/88 ("Jucá will support gold-panners"). (16) Folha de Boa Vista, 21/8/88; article cited in YANOMAMIURGENTE , nº 4 of 20/10/88, p.4-5, under the title, "New Governor of Roraima has plans to legalize gold mines". CCPY, são Paulo. (17) CEDI/CONAGE, 1988: Empresas _de mineração e Terras Indígenas na Amazonia, p. 11. .São Paulo, CEDI. The DNPM is an agency connected to the Ministry of Mines and Energy. (18) In reality, it doesn't even include all the inhabited areas: at least 23 Indian villages were left out of the "Indigenous Areas". (19) Moreover, even the figure of "Indigenous Area" used in this delimitation (see note 9), defined in opposition to the "Indigenous Colony" (set aside for "acculturated Indians") , is based on an arbitrary differentiation and a perspective of assimilationist integration that have been rejected in the new Constitution. (20) Memorial 107/88 IBDF/DE of July 1988 sent by the Director of Forestry Economy to the President of the IBDF (6/9/88). (21) See Bruce Albert, 1988: " Economy , Territory and Health among the Yanomami" , Report prepared for the CCPY. (22) FUNAI Parecer nº 190/88 of 19/8/88. The FUNAI survey published in 1984 ("Yanomami Indian Land, Documents") , p.4, identified a minimum of 149 Yanomami communities. (23) See W. Smole, 1976: The Yanoama Indians. A Cultural Geography, p.78. Austin University Texas Press. (24) On the dramatic consequences of the invasion of the gold-panners in Yanomami territory, see the documents of the CCPY: Urihi, nº 6 (4/88) and nº 7 (11/88), YANOMAMIURGENTE , nº 1 and 2 of 20/4/88 and 20/6/88, and the announcements to the press from the delegacy of FUNAI in Boa Vista (Roraima): "25 Yanomami die of malaria and poisoning" , A Crítica-Roraima, 8/6/88; "Yanomami die of measles-; malaria, and contaminated water", A Crítica-Roraima, 7/8/88. (25) See Manuela Carneiro da Cunha, 1987: Os Direitos do Índio. Ensaios e documentos. São Paulo, Editora Brasiliense. (26) See "The First World Conference on Cultural parks" , Cultural Survival Quarterly, 1985, 9(1),p.25. (27) "Forestry Code", art. 3, item g. (28) O Estado de S.Paulo, 11/2/89 ("Itamaraty hides award"). (29) The "Indigenous Colonies" are "areas occupie or inhabited by acculturated Indians or in advanced stages of acculturation" (Decree nº 94.946 of 23/9/87). FUNAI Portaria PP/nº 1.098 of 6/9/88 defines the criteria for evaluation of the degree of accu1turation of indigenous groups (see note 19) . (30) Interministerial Portarias nº 12 of 26/01/88 and nºs 25 to 29 of 6/3/89. (31) See "Amazonia: Military Conduct a Policy of Occupation" , Porantim, nº 113, p.3, Nov., 1988 on the geopolitical of the development projects on the border of the Brazilian Amazon of the Sarney government. (32) The National Security Council is an assessment agency of the presidency of the Republic where the military ministers of the three armed forces exercise a dominant influence. Since its creation, after the coup d'état of 1964, the CSN has assumed functions of control and politico-strategic planning outside of any democratic contral whatsoever. with the new name of "National Defense Council" (CDN) , it continues to have, under the new Brazilian Constitution, many of its previous attributes (art. 91). (33) The military of the CDN succeeded in imposing, in the new Brazilian Constitution, their economic-strategic dominion over the border areas, in art. 91, 81º III which confers on the CDN the power to "propose criteria and conditions for utilization of areas indispensible to the security of the national territory and to give opinion on their effective use, especially on the border belt, and in those areas related to preservation and exploitation of natural resources of any type". (34) Exposition of Motives/PR nº 002 of 12/7/88. (35) The interference of the SG/CSN in the , definition of indigenous lands was officialized, if not legalized, through Decree nº 94.945 of 23/9/87. (36) See Study nº 007/30 SC/81 of the SG/CSN: "The Indian Question and the Risks to Sovereignty and the Integrity of National Territory". (37) See SG/CSN, 1985: Development and Security in the Region to the North of the Channels of the Solimões and Amazonas Rivers. Project Calha Norte, p. 5. (38) See N. Arvelo-Jimenez & S. Zent, 1985: "The Nationalization of an Ideology: National Security and Indigenous Peoples in Border Areas", ms. Caracas, IVIC. (39) The SG/CSN controlled the entire process of the elaboration of the definitive version of the PMACI (see PMACI -Plano de ação definitiva, agosto 1988, p. 2 & 10). (40) M. H. Alegretti, 1988: "Nature and Brazilian Foreign Policy", Tempo e presença, nº 330, p. 14-15. (41) O Estado de S.Paulo, 17/9/88 ("Indian denounces government to BID", and the Jornal do Brasil, 28/9/88 ("Technicians of FUNAI make accusations on the CSN project"). (42) Decree nº 96.944 of 12/10/88. (43) The approval of new fiscal incentives and credits for ranching projects in Amazonia (Decree nº 96.943 of 12/10/88) was algo suspended for a period of 90 days (later renewed for an additional 90 days); and the President of the Republic recommended to the Ministry of Finance the prohibition of lumber exports, and to the Ministry of Agrarian Reform and Development the adaptation of legislation referring to agrarian reform to the environmental norms of the new Constitution (MEM PR/SADEN nº 001 and 002/88). (44) See Annex to the Exposition of Motives/PR nº 001 of 12/10/88. ( 45 ) Idem, p. 9 . (46) MEM PR/SADEN (1988): Our Nature Program. Annex D (Memento of the Report of the GTI to the NGA of the "Our Nature_program"), "Socio-economic Presuppositions", p. 01 (documentos GTI VI). (47) Jornal do Brasil, 1/12/88 ("Calha Norte will receive 11 billion cruzados"). (48) Citations from the speech of Coronel A. Nascimento on the "Calha Norte project" made at the "Superior Institute of Amazonian Studies", in Manaus, 6/1/88. (49) 150 km strip considered to be "National Security". (50) Estimate made on the basis of data from the document Terras Indígenas no Brasil, CEDI/Museu Nacional, 1987. (51) Estimate made on the basis of data from the CEDI/CONAGE document (see note 17). (52) Correio Braziliense, 28/11/88 ("Armed forces go to war over ecology"). (53) See note 47. (54) See P. Fearnside, 1989: "Deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia", in G. M. Woodwell (ed.), Biotic impoverishment. Cambridge University Press, New York (in press). (55) See Fearnside op.cit. and Fearnside, 1985: "Explosive deforestation in Rondônia, Brazil", Environmental Conservation, 12 (4): 355-356. (56) See W.P. Groeneveld, 46th Congress of Americanists, Amsterdam, 1988, Volume of Abstracts, p. 476. . (57) See S. Schwartzman, 1988: "Development, Environment, and Indigenous Peop1es", Tempo e Presença, nº 330, p. 11-13. (58) Correio Brazi1iense, 20/8/88 ("Deputy fears action by lumberman") and Senhor, 13/6/88 ("Out termites"!). (59) See Fearnside 1985 and 1989. SUPPORT IN THE STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL OF THE YANOMAMI INDIANS

In YANOMAMIURGENTE Nº 5, we requested that individuals and organizations demonstrate their concerns against Interministerial Decree 250 of 18/11/88, which in effect takes away 70% of the area traditionally occupied by the Yanomami Indians and divides the remaining 30% into 19 discontinuous areas.

We have received various copies of letters and petitions sent to the authorities, two of which we reproduce below.

In December, 1988, the Indigenist Missionary Council (CIMI, of the National Council of Brazilian Bishops -CNBB) launched a campaign in defense of the Yanomami people, concentrating on the disastrous situation they face and the destruction of the environment in which they live. In a document publicized on 16 December 1988, Dom Luciano Mendes de Almeida, president of the CNBB, declared that "this decree (250) signifies a death sentence for these people."

This campaign, which is already having international repercussions, seeks a guarantee from the government of the demarcation of the lands traditionally occupied by the Yanomami, which means the immediate revocation of Decree 250 which not only divides the Yanomami area into 19 sub-areas but also determines that the forest and the park are not exclusively the Indians'. Thus, an appeal is being made to all our friends to come to the immediate aid of theYanomami people in demanding the revocation of Decree 250.

Once again we ask that individuals and organizations who have continued to support the Yanomami demonstrate their concerns against the demarcation defined in Decree 250 by writing to the President of the Republic at the address below:

President José Sarney Palácio do Planalto 70150 Brasília DF Brasil

The following are two of the demonstrations of support we have received.

"The researchers of de DCH -Department of Human Sciences, of the MPEG - Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, with great respect wish to declare the following concerning the recent 'demarcation' of Yanomami territory (19/08/88) propagandized by the Federal Government:

1. We note that Funai in reality has demarcated 19 Yanomami areas, in the west of Roraima and north of Amazonas, totalling 2,435,215 hectares, in contradiction with the definition of the total extent of the indigenous territory expressed in Decree 1817/E of 1985, in which Funai itself delimited a continuous area of 9 million hectares;

2. The total extent effectively demarcated as indigenous land represents less than 30% of the lands traditionally occupied by the Yanomami;

3. The decision fragments the unity of Yanomami territory by cutting it up into 19 discontinuous areas, thereby compromising the historic form of occupation and social reproduction of these people;

4. The remaining 70% are reserved, in accordance with the demarcation of Funai, for the National Park of Pico da Neblina (1,872,000 hectares), the National Forest of Amazonas (1,245,025 hectares), and 800 thousand hectares are set aside for the nearly 20,000 gold-panners who have invaded the area;

5. Funai, therefore, under the pretext of protecting the environment, in reality has created a multiplicity of legal situations wich create the conditions for large- scale exploitation of natural resources on Yanomami lands:

6. The recent 'demarcation' does not take into consideration the project for the creation of the Yanomami Indian Park prepared by Senator Severo Gomes (Legal project nº 379/85), which was based on excellent scientific documentation of the area and the populations involved, and seeks to guarantee the physical and cultural survival of these indigenous people in accordance with a previous manifestation (25/03/86) by researchers of the Museu Goeldi, and which also has the important advantage of not only protecting the Yanomami but also guaranteeing environmental protection for the vast area of the Orinoco-Amazon interfluve which the Yanomami have occupied for thousands of years -an area recognized by specialists as a region of the greatest ecological importance for Amazonia, it being a region of formation of new species of flora and fauna.

Consequentely, the type of demarcation chosen by Funai will have destructive repercussions for the Yanomami, exposing them to all sorts of injuries (mineral extraction activities, whether by industrial mining or gold-panning; the building of roads, hydroelectrics and urban nuclei and military bases; timber extraction; the implantation of ranching projects, etc.) from the non-indigenous activities that assault the environment and put the very physical and cultural survival of these people in danger. Currently, a pattern of destruction is being formed against the Yanomami which is evidenced by dramatic increases in outbreaks of various infectious/contagious diseases, by the losses of lives among the Yanomami and gold-panners, and also by the contamination of the rivers, from which the Yanomami get their water, through the indiscriminate use of mercury in the extraction of gold.

Although the present and future of the Yanomami are desparate and dramatic, there is still time to reverse the situation described above and to preserve these people as well as the environment they have occupied from time immemorial.

Certain that the demarcation of any indigenous territory, and that of the Yanomami in particular, will benefit more than the indigenous people, that it will benefit all of Humanity for whom they, the Indians, constitute an inalienable patrimony, we appeal to Your Excellency to annul this demarcation and to take the necessary measures to remove the thousands of gold-panners who illegally occupy Yanomami territory.

We appeal to Your Excellency for respect for the new Constitution and for the demarcation of the 9 million hectares, in a continuous area, delimited by Funai Decree l8l7/E, of 08/01/85, guaranteeing for the Yanomami the permanent possession of their lands in their integrity.

Belém, 8 November 1988"

Thirteen signatures follow.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

UPAN (União Protetora do Ambiente Natural) Letter to president José Sarney:

São Leopoldo 22 December 1988

Mr. President:

As an environmentalist organization concerned with the future of the national forests and the situation of the Yanomami Indians, we urgently request that Interministerial Decree 250, signed by Your Excellency on 18 November 1988, be revoked.

We demand that the Indians' right to permanent possession of lands, guaranteed by Decree nº 160, of 13 September 1988, which created the Yanomami Indian Land, be respected.

The right to preferential, and not exclusive, use defined by Decree nº 250 will result in the destruction of a people and the irreversible devastation of a large, ecologically-sensitive area of the Brazilian Amazon, for it will permit the exploitation of the region by gold-panners and lumbermen who at the present time are criminally liquidating the forests and exterminating the Indians.

We expect your attention to this grave problem and a positive response on your part.

Carlos Cardoso Aveline president of UPAN EDITORS’ NOTE:

In URIHI Nº 5, of November 1987, which dealt with the Calha Norte project, the CCPY published, on pages 16 to 21, a statement by Maurício de Lima Wilke, then a functionary of Funai, who worked in the Yanomami area on the Serra de Surucucus, and who had witnessed the building of military installations near the Indian Post of Funai.

As the text was ceded to the CCPY to be used in its publications in the way that we considered appropriate, we decided to edit it to protect the author's person and also, as a cautionary measure, as it was the time when the CCPY health team was being removed from the Yanomami area by Funai.

A year having now gone by, we reproduce the paragraphs edited as they were written in the original: page 16 -"The approximately 3,000 Yanomami Indians jurisdictionally connected to the old Surucucu Attraction Front (in 1987 transformed into an Indian Post) , Indians considered the most primitive in the world, are being exposed by the Brazilian Army to contacts of mortal consequence." page 20 -"In giving an Indian child a piece of clothing, one could be bringing about the deaths of several other Indians." page 21 -"With the disappearance of remedies and Funai health personnel since the beginning of the works for the military detachment in Surucucus, when the Indians most needed them, this makes clear a synchrony of unpraiseworthy interest. Our Army which_ought to be an example of diqnity and honesty is violating the Constitution in collusion with Funai.”