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!