Marcelo Netto Rodrigues (CIMI Dourados)
Caarapó (Mato Grosso do Sul)
“For them who do not understand our language, I will translate it. The Guarani people were like a river that slowly ran in its course when a giant rock was launched into the stream. The water splashed into several corners. And the survivors are today here reunited”, this said Anastácio Peralta, Guarani-Kaiowá indian, under the looks of agreement of his 'relatives' of Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay.
Elucidate the allegoric reconstitution of the diaspora Guarani - forced by the arrival of the invader in the South American continent - is vital to understand the launching of the Campaign ' Guarani People, Great People', that happened between 21 and 23th of September, in the village Tey Kue, municipal of Caarapó (MS). The event, that counted about 400 representatives of Brazil and the other three countries, gave continuity to the effort of the Missionary Council on Indigenous Issues (Cimi) – who organized earlier the meeting of the Guarani-Kaiowá teachers and young leaders – to concretise joint actions of the Guarani who are dispersed over the South American continent.
They say that nowadays 50 thousand Guarani live in Brazil, 350 thousand in Bolivia, 53 thousand in Paraguay and 5 thousand in Argentina – and besides this, in Uruguay the Guarani continue to frequent their 'tekoha' (its traditional land) also without the recognition of this land by the State. To compare, at the beginning of the invasion, in 1492, the Guarani reached around 2 million people - the double of the population of Portugal at that time.
Relatives
The campaign can be seen as the result of the attempt to reunite the Guarani people. This actually started in February 2006, with the accomplishment of the 'First Continental Meeting of the Guarani', in São Gabriel (RS) and wasf ollowed in April 2007 by a 'Second Meeting' in Porto Alegre.
Divided by strange borders in the understanding of their territory, the Guarani still experience distance in organizing a jointly struggle - although they constitute one of the most populous native groups of the continent and have succeeded keeping their linguistic unity through the times. The proof of this was the meeting that happened in the Guarani language and not in 'portunhol' (a mixture of spanish and portuguese). "It is necessary to show that we exist as a great people. We have the same blood, we are relatives who passed the same suffering. There exists no bigger nonsense than to say 'Argentinian indian', `Paraguayan indian', and even more `Brazilian indian'. For us, the borders do not exist", explains the chief of the village Tey Kue, named Zenildo. His speech makes echo. "The Guarani people are waking up", concludes Hamilton Lopes, of the Marangatu village, in the municipal of Antonio João. "They have tried to domesticate us like parrots for their civilization, but in the same way a prisoned parrot can listen to a free parrot and communicate with it, the Guarani people, besides everything, continue alive and are coming back to communicate with eachother."
Bicycle
The metaphors, characteristic for the Guarani universe, are constant present at the meeting. Otoniel Ricardo, member of the commission of Guarani teachers of Mato Grosso do Sul, compares the people og the Guarani with the parts of a bicycle, and announces that he will demonstrate why. He takes a new bicycle and asks the people present to make a circle outside the hall where the meeting takes place.
Everybody makes a round on the bicycle. From the small boy to the leader – who can cycle with just one hand; from the young to the supporters; event the 'relatives' of Bolivia, Argentina and Paraguay participate.
"What do you all see?", asks the teacher - a function that recently assumed status of respect in the villages, alongside that of the Indigenous Agents of Health. "Harmony, agility, joy, attention, fear, control, balance", answers everybody, one by one. "Indeed, the bicycle did not stop cycling. It went faster or slower, and nobody decided to change the gear", concludes Otoniel.
After that the bicycle is disassembled and the teacher now asks the Guarani to construct it again, without knowing that some persons already had been guided by the teacher to act as those that confuse the assembly of the bicycle. The conflicts start among the indigenous people. Supporters and even the indigenous people themselves say, even they are known as trustworthy, that parts of the bicycle have been stolen. But, at the end, due to a 'mutirão' (word of origin tupi-guarani, a kind of joint work), they succeed that the bicycle cycles again, although it was impossible to make it the same like as it was.
"Our people is like the reconstructed bicycle. It will not be like it was before, because they have destroyed our forest and our animals, but it is possible to make the bicycle cycling again", concludes the teacher. "And we have to join the parts from here with the ones of the other countries", suggests the Guarani teacher, Teodora de Souza, of the village of Dourados.
Mercosul
The task becomes each time more urgent. For the anthropologist Antonio Brand, who is doing research on the Guarani issue since the seventies, the governments of the countries of the Mercosul should institute common public politics to take care of the Guarani - since they have already constitute the cultural base of Mercosul, being present in all the country-members.
"To prevent migratory flows of the Guarani between the countries, it is necessary to have answers articulated in relation to the right to land, retirement, food security and to the natural resources", warns Brand, remembering that recently 1,300 Guarani-Mbyá who lived in Argentina had crossed the border with the state of Rio Grande do Sul.
According to him, as a domino-effect of the practice of the agro-business imperialists, the situation of the Guarani-Kaiowá here in Brazil will be the situation of tomorrow for the Guarani-Awá that live in Paraguay, where the soy is already advancing on as well. "Up to 1978, there were no land problems for the Guarani in Mato Grosso do Sul. Then the soy arrived, and later the sugarcane, and the shelter spaces were disappearing and the villages of the Guarani started to swell. An historical process which I classify as confinement caused by agrobusiness."
In Brazil
According to research done by the National Foundation of Health and Cimi, there are 40 thousand Guarani (80% of the total that lives in Brazil), living in Mato Grosso do Sul - divided into 38 villages, in 17 municipals - and another 10 thousand living on their traditional lands in the states Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Paraná, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and in a reservation in the state of Pará.
Brand explains that the Guarani had been divided by the invader into three great groups (before their arrival these categories did not make any sensee): the Kaiowá (predominantly present in Mato Grosso do Sul and Paraguay), the Mbyá (who occupied the complete Southeast of Brazil and, today are present in São Paulo, Espirito Santo, Argentina and Paraguay), and the Awá (spreaded in Paraná and Santa Catarina). According to the numbers of Funai (the government institution on indigenous issues) there exist in Brazil today about 225 different etnias that speaks 180 different languages.
At the end of the meeting in Caarapó, the participants had divulged a document in which they ask to respect the priests (who have been forgotten due to the entrance of religious institutions in the villages and who today are only looked for, according to themselves, when there is a lack of basic foodbaskets, or when the teacher does not get his salary, or when the health agent does not succeed to cure a sick person with traditional medicins).
Besides this point, the text of the document asks the State to create mechanisms to guarantee the ample participation of the indigenous community in the elaboration of projects and decisions; that the controling agencies verify the irregularities of the indigenous people working in the factories; and that there will be justice in the cases of murder of the indigenous leaders.
And one other point of action is to translate into Guarani language the UN Declaration On the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples, approved on the 13th of September 2007.
