Avá-Guarani Indigenous people suffer due to pesticide spraying and the destruction of their crops in a new attack in Brazil

Brasil de Fato

“We’re going to die here, but we’re not going to go back,” says an Indigenous leader who will not be identified for security reasons, after yet another attack on the Yvyju Avary community of the Avá-Guarani Indigenous people, between the municipalities of Guaíra and Terra Roxa, in western Paraná state. The area is part of Tekoha Guasu Guavira Indigenous Land.

In an attack on Thursday (23), a tractor drove over crops and sprayed pesticides near the Indigenous houses. “The children are feeling sick. They have stomach aches and nausea,” says an Indigenous woman, whose name won’t be revealed for safety concerns. The Avá-Guarani people recorded videos of the convoy’s arrival, which, in addition to the tractor, was made up of a truck, a van and two Military Police cars. The vehicles drove ahead, while the tractor got close to the houses spraying poison.

This is the second attack on the site in less than a week. On October 17, a truck and four tractors loaded with pesticides advanced on the community, allegedly at the behest of a landowner who is demanding the expulsion of the Indigenous people from the area. The rural property overlaps the Indigenous territory. 

“All we managed to save that day was destroyed today,” the woman laments. 

According to the Guarani Yvyrupa Commission (CGY, in Portuguese), the Avá-Guarani community lives in constant tension due to attacks by agribusiness people on Indigenous territories in the process of being regularized. One of the businessmen in the region agreed to negotiate the sale of his land for the demarcation of the Indigenous land, while another chose to resist violently, escalating the conflicts, which have been intensifying since July.

In September, the human rights mission organized by the Collective of Solidarity and Commitment to the Guarani Peoples visited three areas retaken by the Avá-Guarani people: the Arakoe, Araguaju and Yhovy Tekoha, in the municipalities of Guaíra and Terra Roxa. The delegation brought together Indigenous and human rights organizations, authorities and public figures on a mission in solidarity with the Guarani, who have been the target of ongoing violence over the last two months.

In a statement, the government of Paraná demanded fast action by the federal government to end the agrarian conflicts in the region. The document also states that, as these are Indigenous peoples, responsibility lies with the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, the National Foundation for Indigenous Peoples (FUNAI, in Portuguese) and the Federal Police. “Governor Carlos Massa Ratinho Junior has already met with the Ministries of Justice and Public Security and Agrarian Development and Family Farming to reinforce the need to seek urgent responses for the safety of all people involved,” it said.

The Ministry of Justice and Public Security reports that the National Public Security Force is on the territory to support FUNAI in collaboration with Paraná’s public security agencies, under the coordination of the Federal Police. 

“The actions of the National Force are full-time and focused on mediating conflicts between Indigenous people and farmers in the region, as well as carrying out ostensive patrols and judicial police activities in support of the local Civil Police. All these actions are made respecting the cultures of Indigenous peoples, promoting the protection of the human rights of this population,” the Ministry of Justice and Public Security said in a statement. 

Brasil de Fato also contacted FUNAI and the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, which are monitoring the case but had not heard back from them by the time this news story was published.