BRAZIL – The Military Police (MP) Shock Troop, mobilizing a helicopter and about 100 agents together with gunmen at the service of the large estate, promoted a cowardly massacre against young Guarani Kaiowá in the early morning of June 24 in the retaken territory Tekoha Gwapo’y Mi Tujury in Amambai, in Mato Grosso do Sul. According to reports from the Guarani Kaiowá people received by the editorial staff of AND, five people were killed and ten others were hospitalized, some of them in serious condition.
The attack began at 4am with the arrival of the gunmen at the resettlement. The reports of the indigenous people reveal that the military police also invaded and surrounded the territory with six vehicles and corroborated the attack under the pretext of a repossession without any legal validation, without a court order, and therefore in an illegal action. From a helicopter, the reactionary military fired at the indigenous people on the ground, dropping gas bombs on the resisting masses.
At least six young people shot by the reactionary military were taken to the Amambai Regional Hospital. In spite of the military police’s attempt to delay treatment of the wounded, according to a statement issued by the Aty Guasu, the indigenous people Nayara Souza, 15, Wilke Vasques, 17, and Natieli Rodrigues, 23, are still under medical care and police escort.
The indigenous youths present in the territory filmed the attacks as they resisted.
JOPARA RETAKING
The night before, on June 23, approximately 30 Guarani Kaiowá Indians took back part of the Kurupi/São Lucas territory. The action took place in response to the murder of young indigenous man Alex Ricarte Vasques Lopes, 18 years old, which occurred on May 21 on the Taquaperi farm in the municipality of Coronel Sapucaia (MS).
This was one of the reoccupations promoted by the Guarani Kaiowá people after the murder of young Alex. On May 22, another occupation took place on the Taquaperi farm, site of the crime promoted by the latifundium.
During the afternoon of May 22, after the retaking, the Department of Frontier Operations (DOF), acting at the service of the large estate, began a police siege, blocking the MS-286 highway with vehicles, the access road to Tekoha Jopara, the Taquapri TI and other indigenous territories.
On May 23, drones and vehicles circulated in the area and landowners gathered at the police barrier. However, the indigenous resistance continued and the people still remained camped.
On the same day, in a letter issued by the Great Kaiowá and Guarani Assembly of the Aty Guasu, the indigenous people declared: “Alex is not an isolated case and we cannot allow it to be defined as such. Alex’s death is another attack against our territory and the lives of our people. It was not just one family, Alex’s family, that rose up against his murder, but an entire community. This would not happen if the community did not have in its soul the notion that a collective attack has been inflicted on them, just one of many. Isn’t that right? The indigenous people also said that for a Kaiowá like young Alex, to live is to fight, and demanded justice for the attacks and cowardly murders that had occurred.
