BRAZIL – Israel Carlos Miranda Guajajara, 34 years old, died when he was run over in the early hours of Saturday morning (3), in the city of Arame, in the Araribóia Indigenous Land, 440 kilometers from São Luís. Also on Saturday, in the same reserve, in Amarante do Maranhão, Janildo Oliveira Guajajara was killed with a shotgun blast. Janildo Guajajara and a 14 year old teenager were returning from a party. Janildo was shot in the back and died on the spot. The teenager was hit by shrapnel and was discharged this Monday (5) afternoon.
Janildo was part of the group Guardians of the Forest, created in 2007 by the indigenous people themselves to protect the forest from invaders. The Araribóia indigenous land covers an area three times the size of the city of São Paulo, where around 5,000 indigenous people of the Guajajara and Awá Guajá ethnic groups live.
Since 2006, 26 indigenous people have been murdered in the region; six were guardians. According to the United Movement of Indigenous Peoples and Organizations, he was shot in the head on Sunday (4) in the early morning by gunmen. Rifle cartridges and tear gas bombs were found at the scene. The Federal Police opened an investigation.
Gustavo was in a private farm occupied by indigenous people a week ago, in Prado. In a note, the municipality said that since Sunday the access to Vila de Corumbau had been blocked by indigenous people in at least four places.
Who are the ‘Guardians of the Forest’, the group of indigenous protectors of the Amazon in Maranhão
Inside the Amazon forest there is an organized group of indigenous vigilantes who risk themselves to protect what still remains of the territory of the Guajajara, Kaapor and Awa-Guajá ethnic groups in Maranhão. They are the “Guardians of the Forest”, who have sought out loggers and other invaders, and denounce them to the authorities.
“They want to kill everyone that is to take our land to produce soy, cane, biofuel that they want to produce. They want to take away the oil that is inside our lands, the gold. We are an impediment for them,” the Indigenous Laércio Guajajara told a documentary by the NGO Survival International in 2018.
Laércio is the survivor of the ambush last Friday (1) that resulted in the death of the indigenous Paulo Paulino Guajajara, also known as the “Bad Wolf.” An as yet unidentified logger also died, hit in the exchange of fire. The crimes occurred in the indigenous land Governador, near the indigenous land Arariboia, in the region of Bom Jesus das Selvas, between the villages Lagoa Comprida and Jenipapo. The Federal Police are investigating the case.
The “Guardians of the Forest” are active in various regions of Maranhão, especially in the indigenous land of Arariboia, a territory of 413,000 hectares in the southwest of the state, where 12,000 indigenous people live. The group identifies and monitors the trails opened by illegal loggers and catches the criminals’ activities. The Indians are also active in the fight against forest fires. In August, many helped put out a fire that reached an area near the municipality of Grajaú.
Organization
The “Guardians” are divided by ethnicity. According to the Awa Guajá Protection Front, linked to FUNAI, each ethnic group defines the number of guardians for each region that they will work in the Amazon forest. “The Arariboia, for example, defined 16 [guardians] per region. There are 9 regions. It is an internal organization for them,” said Bruno de Lima, coordinator of the Awá Ethnic-Environmental Protection Front.
In the Alto Turiaçu Reserve, in the northwest of Maranhão, the Kaapor Indians also use technology such as hidden cameras and GPS to monitor the jungle. The trackers indicate the route of the trucks, from their origin to their destination. The tracks provided have already helped the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama) to destroy dozens of illegal sawmills around indigenous lands.
Still, the indigenous people say that the government is failing to stop the invaders, and that is the reason for acting on their own. Leaders of the Ka’apor, Guajajaras and Awá-Guajás ethnic groups say they are being threatened by loggers who are settled inside the indigenous area.
“The Guardians of the Forest protect the forest of the Arariboia indigenous land, which is the last remaining corner of forest in Maranhão. Earlier this year they sent a video to the authorities denouncing the threats they had been suffering. The video is just one of several they made to the authorities,” said Priscila Oliveira of Survival International, an NGO which defends indigenous peoples around the world.
