Report>> Indigenous Communities • Brazil
Times were always difficult for the Brazilian Indians of South America’s largest democracy. A report detailing atrocities committed against indigenous tribes during Brazil’s military dictatorship in the 1940s, 50s and 60s has resurfaced—45 years after it was mysteriously destroyed in a fire.
The 7,000-page report, commissioned by the Minister of the Interior of the time Albuquerque Lima, details mass murder, torture, enslavement, rape, and land theft and neglect. The report was rediscovered in Brazil’s Museum of the Indian and will be considered by the country’s National Truth Commission, which is investigating human rights violations that occurred between 1947 and 1988.
When the report was first published in 1967, it caused an international outcry, leading to the foundation of tribal rights organisation Survival International. The Brazil government, however, failed to jail a single person despite initial charges against 134 officials alleged to be involved in more than 1,000 crimes.
Survival International director Stephen Corry says, “The report makes gruesome reading, but in one way, nothing has changed: when it comes to the murder of Indians, impunity reigns.”
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