Kaiowá Indigenous land retaken in Brazilian state becomes the epicenter of conflict for demarcation: ‘We are at war’

Brasil de Fato

A contaminated river, armed attacks, a young man with a bullet lodged in his brain, Indigenous people shot in the neck and leg, forests and Indigenous houses set on fire. With the lack of definition for the cut-off point, the recovery of ancestral territories by the Guarani Kaiowá people and the violent reaction of large landowners, the small town of Douradina in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul has become the epicenter of a new chapter in land conflicts in Brazil.  

Last Friday (13) marked two months since Indigenous people took back three areas of Panambi Lagoa-Rica Indigenous Land. Since then, tensions have escalated in Mato Grosso do Sul. The 12,196-hectare area was delimited and recognized by the National Foundation for Indigenous Peoples (FUNAI, in Portuguese) in 2011 as being traditionally occupied by the Guarani Kaiowá people, but the land demarcation process has stalled ever since. According to data from the Land Management System of the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA, in Portuguese), there are at least 26 rural properties overlapping the territory.

On September 8, rockets were once again fired at night from the camp set up by men linked to the agribusiness sector in the Yvy Ajherê Guarani Kaiowá community. The Indigenous group see the attack as retaliation for the construction of a prayer house in the area. 

With the shots, the Kaiowá advanced towards the camp, so did the National Force and, amid mediation attempts and war cries, the men abandoned the post for the first time in 57 days. They fled closer: to the headquarters of Cleto Spessatto’s farm, a few meters away.

The farmers’ encampment was then dismantled. It had been set up since July 14, supported by far-right federal deputies such as Marcos Pollon (Liberal Party) and Rodolfo Nogueira (Liberal Party).

“I had never seen the formation of an encampment of rural producers who stay in front of Indigenous retomadas daily,” says Daniele Osório, from the Federal Public Defender’s Office in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul.

With pick-up trucks and banners saying “taking land means invasion”, the tents were set up hours after the Guarani Kaiowá retook the three areas in the Panambi Lagoa-Rica Indigenous Land: Yvy Ajherê, Kurupa’yty and Pikyxyin. Between August 26 and 30, Brasil de Fato visited all of them. With the three recent retomadas, there are now a total of seven areas occupied by Indigenous people in the Indigenous land (the first was in 2010).

“All this used to be an Indigenous community [known in Portuguese as “aldeia”], says Gerusa*, pointing to the barren land around her. With her two granddaughters by her side, the Kaiowá woman recalls that her grandparents – Pedro Henrique and Celestina – are from the generation who lived on that land and who were forcibly removed by the Getúlio Vargas government in the 1930s and 1940s.

It was during the period known as “March to the West”, a development project for the economic integration of the northern and midwestern areas of the country. The Indigenous people were confined to a village bearing the same name and located on the edge of the land claimed. Meanwhile, the Brazilian state issued titles to agricultural settlers who then settled on the territory of Indigenous peoples. The failure to demarcate the land has dragged out the conflict to this day. 

“Now these men want it back again and we’re not going to give it to them anymore. Because this is our right, that’s why we’re fighting. We could die. We may even die – let them plant us here too. We’re going to fight and we’re going to die for the land,” says Gerusa.

“We’re at war”: the fire

“We’re claiming land that was ours. We’re at war now,” said Isaías*, a young Guarani Kaiowá man. The term was not random. He said it while observing the waters of the river which, since the end of August, have turned charcoal-colored. 

In the Indigenous people’s opinion, the waters have been poisoned on purpose to make it difficult for them to remain in the areas. It is yet another element in a kind of ‘hot-cold’ war that has been in place in the Panambi Lagoa-Rica Indigenous Land.

“Cold” because it is marked by permanent tension that can explode at any moment. In an encampment recently used for corn and soy monoculture, the Indigenous people of the Yvy Ajherê retomada, the National Force encampment and the representatives of the agribusiness sector who also claim ownership of the area (and who were once also camped and are now sheltered at the headquarters of the Spessatto Brothers) live together, separated by a few meters.

The Guarani Kaiowá watched from a distance the men who admitted to the attack. They sleep for shorter periods. At night, searchlights or truck headlights point to the retomada. In shops in the urban areas of Douradina and the nearby town of Bocajá, Indigenous people are being boycotted.

The tension is also “hot” because it often explodes, as evidenced by the large number of Indigenous people with scars on their bodies. The heat can be literal, like the fire that reduced a thatched house to dust in the Pikyxyn retomada in the early hours of September 5 or the one that set fire to areas surrounding Yvy Ajherê on August 4. 

The bloodiest of the armed attacks took place on August 3, when men on pick-up trucks fired live and rubber ammunition at the Kurupay’ty retomada. Ten people were injured. Erielton*, 20, was shot in the head. To the surprise of many, including the doctor who saw him, he and his 17-year-old cousin, who was shot in the neck, survived. 

“The boy inside the car was setting off fireworks. Then he stopped setting off any more fireworks. Then, they started shooting at us. When I realized this, it hit me in the head. I fell to the ground, I was shaking. My leg was shaking like this,” Erielton gestures with his hand as he tells Brasil de Fato. He said he ran bamboozled down the road, seeing nothing, when he was rescued by another Indigenous man on a motorcycle. 

Illuminated by the light of the bonfire and with his mother by his side, Erielton was outraged when he recalled a video posted on social media by the Liberal Party candidate for councillor in Dourados (Mato Grosso do Sul state) Sargento Prates, in which he accused the Indigenous people of “pretending to be victims”. Putting his hand on his head at the exact spot where Erielton was shot, the Bolsonaro supporter suggests: “Let’s see if they didn’t put tomato sauce there to harm the farmers”.

A 20-yer-old Guarani man was shot in the head during an attack by men related to the agribusiness sector / Iolanda Depizzol

The bullet is still in the young Kaiowá’s head. “It’s dangerous to take it off,” he says. He can talk, walk and do services that don’t demand too much physical effort. But he feels pain. He can’t be exposed to the sun or carry any weight. “Even the doctor was surprised that I hadn’t died,” he says. “’How are you still alive?’ he said to me. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know…’. I think I’m trusting God,” he says.

Poty Rendy is 63 years old and has been a nhandesy (“prayer”, in the Guarani language) since childhood. During her childhood and youth, her grandmother passed on the teachings to her in that very land, to which Poty has now returned, in the Kurupa’yty retomada. “My son brought me here to pray, so that something ugly wouldn’t happen here,” she explains. 

“This is called yvyrai,” she points to an altar before her. “We pray here, we talk to nhanderu guasu [great God, the Guarani languade] in heaven. He talks to us too. That’s why we can’t take advantage of this. This is the most important thing for us. Because of this, the karai [white people] didn’t kill us,” says Poty, also known as Dona Yara.

Dona Yara, 63, a Guarani Kaiowá prayer, de 63 anos, photographed in the Kurupa’yty retomada / Iolanda Depizzol

“They [the Indigenous men] were shot there, but they [the shooters] didn’t come here,” Poty Rendy shows how far the pick-up trucks got on the day of the attack that wounded Erielton and nine other people. “I went there to pray after they brought my nephew on a motorcycle for me. I prayed all the way here, on the edge of the ditch,” he says. “Great Tupã blessed us so that worse things wouldn’t happen in our lives,” he says.

Francisco*, the leader of the Pikyxyn retomada, is eating very little and sleeping less after the attack. “They are all kids,” he sighs. “Young people are supposed to have a future. If they die… it was by God.” 

“How are we going to invade what is ours?”: the land

“We have to beat these farmers because it’s our right,” says Gerusa. “How many years have we been fighting? Several people who were waiting for the land to be demarcated have already died. What is left are the children, grandsons and granddaughters. And now they’re fighting, the people are fighting,” she says. 

“The farmer took this land and he’s profiting from it. He’s buying a car, a lot of things. He’s rich, he’s got a nice house. And the Indigenous peoples are being sacrificed, having nothing. The landowner doesn’t see it. They’re rich at the expense of Indigenous peoples,” says Mrs Kaiowá.

“We don’t want an agreement anymore. We want the land now,” says Gerusa. The “now”, regarding the case of the Panambi Lagoa-Rica Indigenous Land, as evidenced by the back and forth over the cut-off point in Brasília (Federal District), has only been possible with Indigenous peoples taking back their territories on their own.

Tekoha means “a place where you are” in the Guarani language; Yvy Ajherê means “round land” / Gabriela Moncau

The ruralist thesis of the Time Frame Law argument, according to which Indigenous peoples can only have demarcated the lands they were occupying in October 1988, the date of the promulgation of the Brazilian Constitution, was already ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in September 2023. 

In an almost simultaneous reaction, the National Congress approved Law 14.701/23 which, among other attacks on Indigenous rights, establishes the cut-off point as the condition to demarcate Indigenous lands. The Indigenous movement sued the Supreme Court to overturn the law and, until the legal imbroglio is resolved, it is in force.

In addition, the failure to resolve the issue paralyzes all judicial and land demarcation processes that would be affected by the cut-off point. The Panambi Lagoa-Rica Indigenous Land is one of them. 

Kurupa’yty retomada amid a devastated territory due to decades of monoculture / Iolanda Depizzol

“Unfortunately, this lack of response will lead to a worsening of violence in the countryside,” says public defender Daniele Osório. “In Douradina, the Indigenous people have been waiting for at least 60 years. How many generations have lived and died amid this struggle and have not had a definitive answer?” she concludes.

“All this is happening here because rural producers want to own everything,” says Joselino*, a Yvy Ajherê leader. “They say this land is theirs, but we’ve been living up here since our ancestors, hundreds of years ago. I was born here, my father was born here, my grandparents were all born in this area,” he says. 

“We know this land because it’s ours,” says Joselino. “We didn’t come from anywhere else. The farmers say we’re invading their property, but that’s crazy. How are we going to invade what is ours?” he asks. “This land is our blood, our breath, our joy,” he says. 

Francisco* hesitated when he was asked to take part in the retomadas on July 13He says he lives “in a little corner” of the Indigenous community that houses around a thousand Indigenous people on 362 hectares. The space is small and full of stones, he describes. 

“I wasn’t going to come. But then I said to my wife, we have nothing here. Why are you staying? And what are we going to eat? Then I said to her, ‘If you give me the strength, I’ll go’,” says Francisco. “As there are my children, right? Then they have children too, right? And they start having children. And where are they going to live? You have to have something in life, right?” he argues. “The people gave me courage,” he says.

“We want justice as fast as possible. They have to demarcate this land because we’ve waited for many years,” he argues. “We’re not here for nothing. We want what is ours. Our grandmothers, our great-grandmothers were expelled from here,” he says. ”And now we’ve decided: we want our land [back]. We have to demarcate it before it’s too late.”

*The names were changed to protect the interviewees.