Belo Monte – Ethnozid-Vorwurf – Brief an Dilma Rousseff – Open Letter to Dilma Rousseff

Offener Brief an Brasiliens Präsidentin Rousseff fordert die Verweigerung der Betriebserlaubnis für Staudamm Belo Monte und warnt vor Ethnozid

Rund 200 WissenschaftlerInnen und AktivistInnen fordern von Dilma Rousseff, die Aufnahme des Betriebs für den Staudamm Belo Monte zu stoppen und so möglichen Ethnozid an der indigenen Bevölkerung in letzter Minute zu verhindern. Sie fordern, dem Betreiberkonsortium die noch fehlende letzte Betriebserlaubnis zu verweigern.

In ihrem Brief kritisieren sie die anhaltende Gewalt gegen die vom Staudammbau betroffenen indigenen Gruppen. Die UnterzeichnerInnen werfen den zuständigen staatlichen Stellen und dem Betreiberkonsortium vor, sich nicht ausreichend um die sozialen, kulturellen und ökologischen Auswirkungen des Staudammbaues zu kümmern.

In diesem Zusammenhang sprechen die UnterzeichnerInnen auch von einem Ethnozid an der indigenen Bevölkerung. Der Begriff bezeichnet die vorsätzliche Zerstörung von Sprachen, kulturell-sozialen Lebensformen oder Religionen.

Am Fluss Xingu im Amazonas baut ein Firmenkonsortium unter Leitung des Energieunternehmens Norte Energia den drittgrößten Staudamm der Welt, Belo Monte. Der Damm gefährdet das ökologische Gleichgewicht um den Xingu und auch die Lebensgrundlage und die Kultur vieler Indigener. Der Flusslauf wird verändert, an einigen Abschnitten unterbrochen und trocken gelegt. Über 3800 Familien sollen umgesiedelt werden.

Hintergrund: Finale Betriebserlaubnis

Für den endgültigen Betrieb des Staudammes fehlt noch die letzte Betriebserlaubnis. Diese ist an Auflagen geknüpft, die vom Betreiberkonsortium erfüllt werden müssen. Dabei handelt es sich um bauliche Auflagen, aber auch um Auflagen zur Entschädigung von Vertriebenen und zum Schutz der Umwelt. Ein Großteil der Auflagen ist bisher nicht erfüllt oder Teil juristischer Auseinandersetzungen.

Brief an Dilma Rousseff (Version in Englisch): www.hisam.com.br/p/carta-documento-publica-versao-em-ingles.html

Quelle: Aktionsgemeinschaft Solidarische Welt e.V.

Jetzt fordern Menschen aus aller Welt die brasilianische Präsidentin Dilma Rousseff in einem AVAAZ-Aufruf dazu auf, den Ethnozid (im Unterschied zum Genozid zielt der Begriff auf die Auslöschung von kulturell-sozialen Lebensformen von Ethnien und von deren Sprachen) und den Ökozid schnellstmöglich zu stoppen. Die langjährige ASW-Partnerin und Aktivistin Antônia Melo ist mit ihrer Familie selbst von der Umsiedlung betroffen und bittet um Unterstützung und Verbreitung des Aufrufs.
Unterzeichnen auch Sie die Petition

Leseempfehlung

Die Geschichte vom Todesurteil der Menschen an der großen Biegung des Xingu-Flusses: Die Lebensgrundlage Tausender Indigener, die vom Regenwald und dem Fluss abhängig sind, würde unwiederbringlich zerstört. Viele würden von dem angestammten Land ihrer Vorväter vertrieben.

Von dem Projekt sind bis zu 40 000 Menschen betroffen. 9000 Familien, darunter 600 indigene Familien müssen ihre Heimat verlassen und sollen umgesiedelt werden.

Zehntausende Arbeiter werden Tag für Tag zur Baustelle gebracht  – in einen der artenreichsten Regenwälder weltweit. Diese Folgen, die allein schon dadurch entstehen, sind ein Verbrechen an der Natur. Und wenn Sie gerade an die vielen Arbeitsplätze denken, so sei Ihnen mitgeteilt, dass diese Arbeiter teils unter unmenschlichen Bedingungen arbeiten müssen. Diese artenreiche Natur wird für immer zerstört – profitieren werden wieder BlackRock, Katar und viele andere geldgierige Konzerne, auch aus Deutschland – wie Allianz, Daimler, Siemens u.s.w. Lesen Sie hier: Belo Monte Staudamm – Euer Profit zerstört unser Leben

Belo Monte: modelo para aniquilar os povos tradicionais http://t.co/tKnY3EWy9N pic.twitter.com/7gp0Wg79lp

— Combate Racismo (@combateracismo) 31. Juli 2015

SAD NEWS: In Brazil, the Kayapo people are being evicted from their homes for the construction of the Belo Monte Dam? pic.twitter.com/OHg2cbWNHw — SAfrognews (@SAfrognews) 2. August 2015

#Brazil Kayapo Tribe’s Fight to Save Their Culture and Land — http://t.co/sHF8SPv4Da #BeloMonte #Fracking #Indigenous pic.twitter.com/DGM14kXRir

— Eye On Amazon Watch (@EyeOnAmazonWa) 27. Juli 2015

 Belo Monte – Open Letter to Dilma Rousseff

Your Excellencies

Dilma Rousseff
President of the Republic of Brazil

Izabella Teixeira
Minister of the Environment

Marilene de Oliveira Ramos Murias dos Santos
President of IBAMA

This Public Letter, originating from the Colloquium Concession to Violence: the Belo Monte Operating Licensei, held at the Federal University of Pará, is one more tenacious attempt in the search for dialogue with the government and the state technocracy in Brazil.

In this event, we have analyzed the decisions that result in the destruction of the social and cultural life of Peoples in the region of the Xingu River, including thousands of persons who depend on its territories and natural resources, whose ways of life are irreparably transformed by the construction of the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Complex.

Here we reiterate what has been exposed in numerous documents, books, articles, cycles of conferences, law suits and new socio-technical studies about the worsening of the social realities of Indigenous Peoples, fishermen, farmers, workers and city residents, and about the blind destruction of distinct natural environments.

These studies refer to inconsistencies and shortcomings observed since the the environmental impact study (EIA/RIMA) by specialists, social movements and federal public prosecutors from the state of Pará (MPF-PA), whose attentive action resulted in the introduction of legally-required conditions (for mitigation and compensation of impacts) since the issuing of the Preliminary License granted by IBAMA (2010).

The majority of required measures in the preliminary license were not met – instead, they were postponed for implementation after the Installation License. Now, the contractors are applying for the Operating License without these having been addressed. By abstaining from timely compliance, the consequences from this institutional, technical and political negligence and disregard are dragged forward.

Dozens of technical studies about the Belo Monte Complex have diligently scrutinized the forms of violence observed from the exclusion of Indigenous Peoples, Communities and groups from the decisions that concern them and, furthermore, the imposition of policies of resignation and neglect. Violence has been installed and has been exacerbated, making groups who are subjected to its effects devoid of present and future. This violence is attributable to the failure to uphold the Federal Constitution and International Conventions (ILO Convention 169 from 1989;Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development from 1992; the Kyoto Protocol from 2005).

The government ignores, constrains and violates the Federal Constitution, especially with regard to Indigenous Lands, Traditional Peoples and established rights. The government cunningly uses the imposition of a legal artifice, the “Security Suspension” (“Suspensão de Segurança”), seeking at all costs to undermine the political actions of social actors, which it has also sought to criminalize.

The Norte Energia consortium denies the social problems caused by Belo Monte. Among the most alarming are the displacement and so-called resettlement of residents from neighborhoods, islands, and villages, where not even minimal conditions for the reproduction of forms of social life and work of fishermen and farmers, both indigenous and non-indigenous, are respected.

The State’s bureaucracy, the politicians and the technicians are all involved in the production of a discourse of legitimization, the primary goal of which is to reduce technical uncertainties, minimize financial costs and produce delusions of grandeur.

The disruption on distinct natural environments of the Xingu River region continues rapidly and without measurement of the effects on each ecosystem and each resource. The Belo Monte Complex is being inserted into a region of extremely high biological importance. In the monitoring process, abrupt changes to fish populations in the Xingu River, which possesses centers of species diversification of unique biology and hydrology, are being disregarded.

Indigenous Lands continue to be invaded, such as the indigenous territories of Cachoeira Seca; Terrã Wãgã (Arara da Volta Grande) and Apyterewa, constituting all a flagrant failure to meet legally-required conditions of Belo Monte. The fishermen and their traditional fishing strategies are massively under threat. The impact resulting from the construction phase has not been properly assessed. For the operating period, the effects concerning biodiversity loss, the genetic impoverishment of populations, as well as the estimates related to certain species, which are already recognized as highly endangered and most important to the economy and local food systems (such as turtles and fish) are not being calculated.

These actions mark the destruction of territories and ecosystems, with their respective life stories forged in the course of historic and geologic time. The loss of innumerous species of terrestrial, aquatic and subterranean fauna, as well as the microbiota associated with the Xingu River basin, leads us to affirm that what is being pursed is ecocide.

In this process of transformation, there are also facts that highlight the situations of illegality and social convulsion resulting from the installation of the project. Against all warnings, the construction of the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Dam Project is contrary to the principles of human rights, and has pushed to the limit the lives of Indigenous Peoples, the river dwelling peoples, fishermen, farmers and workers of the Xingu. Despite their appeals and their attempts to engage with the government, as well as legal actions filed by state and federal public prosecutors, what is occurring, and with a high level of perversity, is the death of communities and cultures.

The scale of this destruction, with the physical and psychological pressures it exerts on Indigenous Peoples and groups that have been involuntarily expelled, compromising the transmission of knowledge between generations, leads us to characterize this process as genocide.

Today, Brazil, as a whole has become an accomplice to genocide,ethnocide and ecocide occurring in the Amazon. For the Indigenous Peoples from the Xingu, it is about their right to life, in the deepest sense of what that means. The only possibility, and therefore, non-negotiable, for the dignity of the Brazilian society is to honor the commitments written in their history and restore the citizenship rights that the State has the duty to preserve.

We present this denunciation and carry it forward with the conviction that this combination of genocide, ethnocide and ecocideis part of a global environmental conflict, and we invite all researchers and students, as well as all persons who do not condone violence, to express their repudiation for this type of project and, therefore, the granting of an operating license for the Belo Monte complex, positioning themselves in support of the Peoples of the Amazon, their Communities, cultures, territories and ecosystems.

Source Carta-Documento Pública (versão em Inglês)

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