Indigenous people from the Chaco Region report invasion of major corporations

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, April 21, 2006

Indigenous people from the Chaco Region, shared by Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia reported a new, Taxi Heathrow Airport intense invasion of their lands by major corporations and charged that their governments do nothing to stop it.

For this, they demanded that their lands be regulated and that they be given definitive land titles, that their culture and dignity be respected and that national laws be effectively applied that recognize their territorial rights and that the three governments “detain the major business corporations that product contamination and ecological disaster.”

Indigenous people from the Chaco said that they have become intruders on their own lands and that many communities have been evicted and are living on the peripheries and that the situation is unsustainable.

Some 50 indigenous leaders from communities in northern Argentina and southern Bolivia and Paraguay including the Wichí, Toba Gom, Moqoit, Pilagá, Guaraní, Ava guaraní, Sanapaná  and Enxet sur, are lobbying presidents from the three nations to meet their demands.

The indigenous leaders met April 19 – 20 in the Evangelical Theological Studies Institute (ISEDET) and in Caritas in Buenos Aires, with the support of the Church World Service. They were accompanied by representatives from the National Aboriginal Pastoral Team (ENDEPA), the United Missions Board (JUM) and Development in Justice and peace Foundation (FUNDAPAZ) of Argentina. There were also leaders from the Regional Studies Center of Tarija (CER – DET) of Bolivia and the Church Committee for Emergency Aid (CIPAE) of Paraguay.

The region, according to the indigenous leaders, has been the object of an economic model that “plunders and exploits natural resources, with an extractive character” and which has permitted the application of inappropriate production techniques for the ecosystem “without considering the practices that indigenous people have to manage and take advantage of natural resources.”

They accused the governments of tricking them with promises of titles that “never were delivered” while their lands continue to be sold to major corporations and they “threaten to evict us.”

“Our rights are being forgotten, overlooked, ignored, and violated by governments and individuals. Our cultures are being submitted, discriminated and excluded. Our communities and territories continue to be tyrannized, ransacked and destroyed by major companies that invest a great deal of money and take much more,” said the declaration.

The indigenous people revealed that private companies in the region dedicated to soy and sugar “burn our forests, the mills take the wood and the oil companies take the oil and gas.”

The environmental disaster in the region, described by the indigenous people, includes oil contamination, contamination because of agro-chemical substances sprayed from planes and mining waste. “The rivers no longer have fish and they are overflowing due to the waste, provoking major floods like those in Tartagal and other regions of the Chaco,” they said.