Sunday, November 27, 2011

An Ominous Sign in Brazil’s Simmering Land Battles: Dom Phillips

The Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, near the Paraguay border, is one of Brazil’s biggest agricultural producers. It's also home to one of the largest populations of indigenous Brazilians, many of whom live in settlements on farms where they claim land rights. Last week, these two facts collided violently.

A British NGO called Survival had the story:


"Gunmen surrounded Nisio Gomes, ordering members of his community to lie on the ground. Witnesses say he was shot in the head, chest, arms and legs. The 59-year-old’s body was then driven away."

Gomes was a Guarani Indian chief who was leading his tribe’s reoccupation of ancestral land in Mato Grosso do Sul. Survival, which has documented a number of attacks on Guarani over the years, added that there were reports of other murders and kidnappings as part of the same incident.

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