Thursday, March 6, 2014

Indigenous- Government Relations in Pantanal

Hello everyone!
So first off, as I promised, here is the link to the full documentary about the land claim conflicts between the Indigenous Tribes of the Pantanal and the Fazenda owners. This documentary shows both sides of the conflict, and even though it is in Portuguese you should be able to understand most of what is happening. 


Also I was thinking about the questions you guys asked about the rights of indigenous people in the Pantanal and any government benefits they may receive. So I was inspired to look more into this topic and this post will be a follow-up to some of the topics brought up by your questions. 

Looking at the big picture the indigenous tribes in Brazil do qualify for all the wonderful benefits offered by the Brazilian Government, healthcare, education, ect. However the actual delivery of these resources is another issue. Many of these tribes dont speak Portuguese  they still speak their native language. In addition many of the tribes are very isolated or far away from cities on the land the government allocated for them. I would imagine that it would be rare to find a government health clinic on their lands since they are often far removed from urban centers. 
So the technical answer is yes, these tribes have option to seek out these government services. But are these services accessible by the indigenous peoples? Based on what I have read, definitely not. 

The branch of the Brazilian government today that is responsible for maintaining the rights of the indigenous peoples is called FUNAI, National Indian Foundation. Their job is to ensure their rights as outlined in the Brazilian constitution and Indian Statute are being respected. Before FUNAI existed the Indian Protection Service (SPI) was the main government branch concerning the indigenous peoples. The mission of this department was to try to integrate the indigenous tribe into mainstream life to eliminate cultural diversity and freeing up their land for the government to allocate to farming or mining. 

So I hope this answered some more questions you may have had. Overall the relations between the government and the indigenous tribes are pretty bad, and mirror that in many other countries in the Americas. 

-Martell 

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