BELO MONTE OCCUPIED! I WISH I WAS THERE!!!

Declaration of the Parakanã People

We, the Parakanã people of the Apyterewa Indigenous Territory, are tired of waiting. We are telling the federal government and Norte Energia that we are tired of waiting for you to resolve the fact that our lands have been invaded illegally by farmers, land grabbers, miners, loggers, and colonizers who for many years have destroyed our traditional territory, preventing us from hunting, planting, or caring for our children, while threatening our people. For many years the government has said that it would remove the white invaders and return our territory to us, so we could live in peace. But the government wanted to build the Belo Monte Dam, and that they would resolve our land problem before building it- this was a prerequisite of the environmental license. We believed them, but the government lied. Belo Monte is almost complete. While our territory continues to be invaded by white people. We no longer believe the government, because the government has not fulfilled its own laws, it has not fulfilled the project prerequisites that itself assigned to Norte Energia for the construction of Belo Monte. The government does not care about our territory, it does not care about indigenous people, it does not care about our suffering, it only cares about Belo Monte. The Juruna people from the Paquiçamba territory, the Arara da Volta Grande, and the Arara da Cachoeira Seca, are also suffering without their complete territory, and we are worried for our relatives, but the government does not care. Our rights are being violated, but no one cares for this. We are tired of waiting for the good faith of the federal government. So our people, elders, women, and children, therefore occupy the Belo Monte Dam. We occupy the dam because it should only continue if our lands were free from invaders and returned to our people. Because this was a prerequisite to build Belo Monte. So, if our territory is still not returned to us by the federal government, Belo Monte must stop. And we will stop Belo Monte until the federal government resolves this problem of our land. We are not here to ask for handouts from Norte Energia. Norte Energia has also lied, it also owes us much of what it promised to our people, but today we are not here to dialogue or negotiate with Norte Energia. We demand to speak with representatives of the federal government, with the Secretary General of the President's Office, with the Chief of Staff, with the Minister of Justice, with the President of INCRA, with the President of FUNAI, and demand that they fulfill their obligations and return to us our traditional lands free of invaders. We want you to send the Federal Police to remove the whites that are destroying our lands. If you instead send the Federal Police to remove us from occupying the Belo Monte Dam, we choose to die here at Belo Monte, because without our territory, we will have lost our lives.

Altamira, 12 September, 2013

Life on the Tapajos River

Story goes like: in 1989 we got together to protest against various projects funded by The World Bank, particularly the many dams to be built in the Amazon basin. We were quite successful: We managed to convinced the World Bank not to fund them and it was put in limbo for over 20 years. It took twenty years for my country to produce enough commodities and have a bank with more dosh than World Bank: BNDS: Now the Chinese and Europeans can have their dreams come true, an infinite source of natural resources! on the Brazilian side, we dream of being their best consumers, not matter what they produce from Chinese baby toys to German nuclear power plants. From the beginning: I always thought i was the happiest kid in the planet, it had to do with the fact I spent my childhood in a small village in the Tapajos River, which I think is the most beautiful and least polluted river in the world. During the 70's and 80's its fish fauna, the communities settled along it and the river itself were threatened by the intensive gold prospection in its head waters. More Mercury was dropped there than in any other portion of the world combined. But the paradise continue to look the same, and we never found traces of mercury contamination in human beings living far way from the mines. The gold industry created lots of minute-rich people, like i have a friend who has a picture with 300kg of gold behind him and today runs a motor-taxi, or Eike Batista(i dont think he is my friend) the 5th richest man in the World. The demonstration back in 80's was effective but the government is about to finish Sto Antonio dam in the Madeira River; has started Belo Monte Dam at Xingu river and will not stop until every kilowatts used to produce aluminum to China and some European countries is sparked. Recently it has started the complex in the head waters of the Tapajos river. When I think back in 1989 when Tuira, a member of the first nation to be affected by Belo Monte shaved the president of eletronorte with her machete, making him shit in his pants, i wish she had slightly chopped his head. These guys will never learn the lesson, unless the lesson is really practical.

By building the dams in the Tapajos river, most of the mercury dropped by gold prospectors will be

removed from the bottom of the river; many first nation communities will be affected and so the fish fauna, one of their main source of proteins.; The tourism industry will be affectedd since the Amazon River will most certainly replace many areas in the Tapajos river, including Alter do chao, one of the most beautiful places in the planet. What the duck can be done now?? We have to stop these dam projects!

Belo Monte

While at Altamira we had a chance to check what will be the third largest dam in the world and maybe the second largest rainforest destruction in Brazil. Lots of worriers and weapons of mass destruction in the area.

It is NOT true that we are on the verge of collapse energy. It is true NOT that we are on the verge of a "blackout." We have enough power. What we need is to prioritize the improvement of quality of life by increasing the availability of energy for the population. And this can be done with local alternatives, closer, not centralized, with the change in consumer habits.
It is important to lose this reference that we carry today that this kind of project is necessary because it will bring progress and development of the country. This is a fallacy. Of course, if it continues like this, if the forecast of increased production of electro materializes, will be lacking power.

But, citizens get informed, put pressure and open up channels of participation and decision-making process to define what country we want. And there are those who say, "Oh, but he is willing to live by candlelight ...". No, I'm saying we can reduce our energy consumption by rationalizing that we consume, we can reduce the consumption patterns of electricity, allowing more people to be met without building a big, a huge plant that will bring enormous social, economic and environmental.

It is important to KNOW that every time you turn on an electrical appliance, television, computer, or the light of your home the energy  is the result of a painstaking process of expulsion of people, the removal of a population of their material life. And this is absolutely reprehensible, especially if they are indigenous and traditional peoples. But it also relates to our own lives. You must have a critical awareness of our way of life that will not change tomorrow, but it must already be in people's minds, because not only energy, is a series of natural resources that we simply do not consider being exhausted and committed. 
 It is necessary from school children to have this discussion, this discussion incorporate into your daily life. I also have a great difficulty to get here in my room and not just connect the computer to see emails and stuff. I confess that I have. But I also know a great satisfaction when I can not do that. And that sense of satisfaction is a cultural thing, personal, subjective. But it must be perceived by people. That our world is not only for us to benefit from these "amenities" that the power supplies in particular. Now it requires effort, and we live in a world where the effort to see life differently is not encouraged. So it's difficult. And so, for those who want to build a plant, whether they do well, wants to win votes, or maintain a situation of privilege, whether local or national, for these people is very easy to convince that it is done with respect to such works. As much as I have always called attention to the absolute illogic of the plant, issues involving economic and financial logic of this dam, to the absurdity of the use of public money for this, the reference to the need to require in the near future, face a violent pace of cost of living, sending money to support projects like this, it is very difficult to make people understand the relationship of this situation with great projects. And Belo Monte is more an instrument of that. I'm not catastrophic, I have no perception of evil hydroelectricity. Not demonize hydroelectricity. I just note that, the way it is conceived, particularly in our country in recent years, is one of the foundations of social injustice and environmental degradation. If you are not thinking of you, you necessarily need to think about future generations.  
This is the message to the reader: it is necessary to rethink the relationship with the energy and the development model, you need to change our industrial profile and you also need to change the culture of people in relation to consumption habits. We need to change the relationship that leads to a blind resource exhaustion.
taken from   
http://revistaepoca.globo.com/Sociedade/noticia/2011/10/belo-monte-nosso-dinheiro-e-o-bigode-do-sarney.html

Belo Monte

The Brazilian Government is reluctant in building the Belo Monte Dam no matter how much rain forest will be destroy or how many indigenous people suffer or die.
Clearly, every megawatt produced by this project will be used to produce aluminum to sell to China and India. Perhaps one good way to stop it would be asking the other countries involved in boycotting Brazilian aluminum. A few Chinese organizations are already working on this.