Brazilian Federal Police raids Native village and abducts Chief Babau in Bahia State

At around two o’clock in the morning on March 10th a group of unidentified armed people entered the Tupinambá Native American Village Serra do Padeiro in the South of the Brazilian state of Bahia and brutalized, threatened with murder, drugged and abducted the local Chief Babau.

Only the day after we managed to find out that the perpetrators in fact were Federal Police. Acting, though, like bandits and arresting without observing any legal requirements.

This has not been the first time.

Federal Police are willing and arbitrary (and probably paid for) tools of the regions political and economic strongmen.
The Tupinambá Nation suffers enormous pressure from this perfidious coalition of Genocide since their Reservation following a draft bill prepared by a commission of anthropologists last year shall become expanded. Exactly the opposite of what the power coalition is working for.
In their understanding of “order & progress” Native people are either a lie at all (an invention of foreign sponsored troublemakers), or lazy and savage bastards and – in any case – an obstacle for development.
Development, that is, that envisions the total destruction of the last remaining original forests in the area and exactly within the Reservation already under constant arson and motor saw attacks by poor villagers who are paid by the regions strongmen in order to have the land cleared (ethnically) to plant Eucalyptus on a huge scale for high profits for a very few.
A destructive and impoverishing economical pattern that already devastated the neighboring Deep South of Bahia and makes survival for the Native Nations there next to impossible.

Tupinambá Chief Babau of Serra do Padeiro has been for many years a strong advocate of indigenous life style, indigenous self-sufficiency that is based on the forests and also the most dedicated leader in defending his Nation and his Nations Culture and rights guaranteed in the Brazilian Constitution.

Therefore he has been under constant threat. And survived a few attempts of assassination. Other Tupinambá were not that lucky. Over a hundred were killed already.

The national and especially local media is strongly supportive of the local genocide alliance since it is from them where the money comes from.
When Tupinamá people were killed, the Brazilian public reads of violent Indians. When forests were cut down illegally by the alliances henchmen we read that Indians are burning down everything in order to frighten non-Indian neighbors. And so on.

Chief Babau was meanwhile taken to a Federal Police detention center in the Capital of Bahia Salvador. They took him away from the South to make it impossible for his fellow Tupinambá to get in touch with him. He is isolated, continuously handcuffed, hurt and has not been given medication or medical attendance at all. After five days.

Brazil’s history and contemporary history show that the life of a Native American ain’t worth shit. That includes lives of Natives in the “care” of authorities which are paid by public money in order to protect order and law and citizens from criminal activities and persons.
Reality, though, often is the opposite.

Chief Babau and all Native American Nations within Brazil need your support and immediate solidarity!

Please e-mail (write, call, fax) your indignation and protest (and/or solidarity with Chief Babau) to:

ascom [at] prba.mpf.gov.br (The general prosecutors office of Bahia)

marinasi [at] senado.gov.br (The Native American friendly presidential candidate)

eduardo.suplicy [at] senador.gov.br (The human rights defending senator)

cesarborges [at] senador.gov.br; joaodurval [at] senador.gov.br (Senators of the state of Bahia)

dep.edsonduarte [at] camara.gov.br; dep.jairocarneiro [at] camara.gov.br; dep.josecarlosaraujo [at] camara.gov.br (Bahian members of parliament/representatives)

espacodoleitor [at] grupoatarde.com.br (Bahia’s biggest daily newspaper)

nordeste [at] recordnewstv.com.br (A local TV Station)

gandhy [at] filhosdegandhy.com.br (A local NGO promoting peace and the end of ethnic/cultural discrimination)

If you can, please contact NGOs that work for Native Peoples rights in your country plus the Brazilian Embassy (Consulate) in your country. Only solidarity ACTION can help!

One World – Many Cultures – One Love
arDaga