NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #20/NN_1992_20.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/6536

Text File | 1992-09-14 | 5.9 KB | 125 lines

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Path: sparky!uunet!gumby!wupost!mont!pencil.cs.missouri.edu!rich
From: [e-mail] (Rich Winkel)
Subject: Brazil rainforest leader framed
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Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 22:53:41 GMT
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/** gen.nativenet: 329.0 **/
** Topic: BRAZIL CHIEF PAIAKAN FRAMED? **
** Written  8:28 pm  Sep 13, 1992 by camguys in cdp:gen.nativenet **

BRAZIL CHIEF FRAMED?

An article published in the Los Angeles Times by Alexander
Cockburn reveals new information about the rape case of Paulinho
Paikakan,  famed rain forest campaigner recently charged with
assaulting an 18 year old school girl. Cockburn says there is
evidence  indicating a political frame up with millions of acres
of rain forest at stake.

The following is the  text of the article that appeared in the Los
Angeles Times  Wed. Sept. 9. 1992.

A CRIME IN BENEFIT OF LAND GRABBERS  by Alexander Cockburn

Rape charges against a Brazilian Indian leader smell of political
frame-up.

The fight to save the world's tropical rain forests has spawned
its heroes and its martyrs, none more renowned than Chico Mendes,
the leader of the rubber tappers who was gunned down in the
western Amazon four years ago.

Since Mendes' murder, the man who has perhaps come best to
symbolize the struggle to save the Amazon is an Indian chief named
Paulinho Paiakan of the Kayapo tribe who live on a tributary of
the Xingu river. Paiakan led the fight in the late 1980s to beat
back a scheme, partially financed by the World Bank, to submerge
millions of acres of rain forest in a network of dams. He has been
instrumental in securing the rights of tribes to control their
natural resources - timber and minerals - eyed hungrily by
Brazilians Chafing at Indian assertion of ancestral rights.
Paiakan has become a familiar figure far beyond the borders of
Brazil. He has toured the world raising money for the Kayapo
cause. Hollywood is interested in his life story.

But now Paiakan's stature as an environmentalist and indigenous
leader is threatening to crumble. And if his career ends in
disgrace and maybe a prison cell, the rain forest movement will
itself have sustained a serious blow. Already Brazil's powerful
timber, mining, and ranching lobbies are clamoring for an end to
restrictions on exploitation of native reserves. Some
environmental groups are starting to shun Paiakan, leaving the
Kayapo without international support.

Paiakan's potential downfall stems from charges of rape.  Previous
supporters have divided violently on the issue. Paiakan's allies
charge racism abetting a frame up, exemplified by the cover of a
mass-circulation magazine, Veja, that featured a cover photo of
Paiakan with the words, "The Savage" splashed across it. Many
Brazilian liberals see Paiakan as an uppity Indian getting his
comeuppance.

The case against Paiakan at first seems overwhelming. On the last
Sunday in May, th Kayapo chief took his wife, Irekran, his little
girl, Maia, and some relatives to a campground he owned outside
Redencao, a town on the edge of the Kayapo lands. He also invited
along a non Indian young woman of 18, Leticia Ferreira.

At the end of the day, after a fair amount of beer drinking,
Paiakan set off for Redencao with Irekran and Maia in the front
seat of his white Chevette and Ferreira in the back. As Veja
reported Ferreira's version, Paiakan stopped the car on the empty,
dark road, turned off the lights and locked both doors. He and
Irekran jumped over the seat and began to beat up Ferreria. Veja
quoted Redencao police chief Jose Barbosa as saying that the car
was so bloodied it looked as if an animal had been butchered
inside. Doctors, said the magazine, confirmed that Ferreira had
been raped.

The truth may be physically less violent and politically more
complex. Here are some of the facts omitted by Paiakan's accusers:
The couple to whose house Ferreira made her way immediately after
the incident say that she was calm and without the major injuries
later asserted in the account in Veja. Scott Wallace, an American
free-lance journalist to whom the couple spoke, also established
that there were no blood stains in the Chevette.

Ferreira's charges were relayed by her uncle, who is running for
Mayor of Redencao on an anti-Indian platform. This uncle
immediately enlisted the services of the legal assistant to the
governor of the state of Para, a man under unremitting political
pressure to erode Indian autonomy. Paiakan claims a "confession"
was concocted by adroit videotape editing. The police chief told
Wallace he was misquoted. The first doctor to examine Ferreira was
being sued by Paiakan for allegedly performing a tubal ligation on
Irekran without permission. Ferreira's uncle contacted Veja with
the story before she went to the police.

Paiakan denies either raping or beating Ferreira. Irekran, who
speaks only Kayapo, last week told anthropologist Darrell Posey,
who has known the couple for years, that Ferreira invited herself
to then picnic, got drunk and in the car on the way home, fondled
Paiakan. Irekran said she told Paiakan to stop the car and then
attacked Ferreira. "I can remember the blood under my
fingernails," Irekran said, adding that she would do it again. She
said Paiakan held her back while Ferreira escaped.

The case awaits trial amid much wrangling over the legal status of
a Kayapo under Brazilian law. There are those, like Veja, who say
that Paiakan's guilt is clear. But a strong case can be made for a
political frame-up, where opponents of the Kayapo, explicitly
citing the Mike Tyson rape case, have organized a trial-by-media
to punish the Green lobby and the Indians who dare assert
ownership of lands on which they have lived for centuries.
** End of text from cdp:gen.nativenet **