‘Ruralist’ police: disproportionate use of force against the Guarani and Kaiowá

Criticized by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, the police action was also condemned by Funai officials and members of the Missionary Council for Indigenous Peoples. Carrying out the operation without the Federal Police “was a serious conceptual mistake by the Military Police”, said Federal Prosecutor Marco Antônio Delfino from the Dourados Public Prosecutor’s Office. He argues that the Union is in charge of protecting Indians’ rights according to the Constitution.

“Using such a major police contingent was a disproportionate response”, says Crizantho Fialho, a FUNAI official who went to the community a few hours after the operation. It is not the first time that police actions are criticized for using excessive force against indigenous people in the area. The problem is expected to worsen as a result of escalating land conflicts between indigenous people and ranchers in the state, especially if presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro wins, says Joênia Wapichana (REDE-RR), the first indigenous congresswoman elected in the country. “His discourse makes it clear that he will favor those who are against the Indians.”

By promising to cancel demarcation of Indian lands, arm landowners and define land occupations as “terrorist acts”, the former army captain is about to throw a match at a barrel already filled with gunpowder.

This action was not isolated. A year earlier, residents of the Nhandeva indigenous community – located by the same highway that crosses Guapo’y – were visited by a group of at least 200 police officers and army soldiers. The action was coordinated by the Department of Justice and Public Security and also involved the Department of Border Operations and the Army, which flew to the community with one of its helicopters. They were looking for illegal weapons in Nhandeva, but only found – and seized – two toy guns. “Simulacra” – the police said in a statement released by the Department of Justice and Public Security.

“They didn’t come to search. They came to harass”, an Indigenous villager of Nhandeva criticizes. “They entered all the houses. They threw our pots on the floor and ripped our sacks of rice, but we don’t have any hidden firearms.”

This time, the problem was not just “disproportionate use of force”, but also lack of specific court orders to search residents’ homes, according to Funai’s Fialho. “The action in Nhandeva was illegal. It was a search and seizure operation without any evidence and conducted under generic [collective] search and seizure warrants. They went into everyone’s house there.”

Prosecutors, judges and even Federal Supreme Court Justices have long questioned the use of generic court orders – when a judicial authorization allows search and seizure operations in the homes of all residents of a particular community. The warrants used in Nhandeva served “to enter any home in the community, indiscriminately”, Federal Prosecutor Marco Antônio Delfino denounces.

Criticism of generic warrants has gained momentum this year due to the Brazilian Army’s intervention in Rio de Janeiro. “The law is clear. The Code of Criminal Procedure requires that search and seizure warrants contain, whenever possible, the place of the search”, said Senior Supreme Court Justice Celso de Mello in an interview with UOL this year. Acting on generic warrants is “an invasive, intrusive measure”, he said.

At the time, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office also criticized the command of the operation. The police and soldiers who searched the entire community were overseen by the Department of Justice and Public Security – a state agency. As underscored by the Federal Prosecutors’ Office, the Federal Police Department is supposed to be in charge of such operations.

In contrast, the same argument about federal jurisdiction is selectively used by the police – only when they are called on by the Indians, according to Lídia Oliveira, a Cimi missionary in Mato Grosso do Sul. “In these cases, the police say they cannot enter the communities, but that does not apply when ranchers call them.”

Asked about the police action in Mato Grosso do Sul, Lucio Damalia, president of the Dourados Rural Association – the largest and most important organization of landowners in the area – said: “The state is there for us when we need it”.

In 2016, another indigenous community in the area was targeted by a police operation that ended in violations. The police burned the Indians’ shacks and belongings. “It was too much police for a few people”, recalls Cristina de Souza, a missionary working with the Missionary Council for Indigenous Peoples who witnessed the eviction operation in the small indigenous community of Apikay. According to her, at least 65 soldiers were deployed to deal with only 20 Kaiowá and Guarani encamped in part of the São Fernando sugar-processing plant in Dourados. In a note sent to Repórter Brasil, the Department of Justice and Public Security said it was not aware that the fire had been caused by police officers.

The camp was an attempt to reclaim ancient Indian territory. “They didn’t lose everything because it rained and part of the fire was put out”, Souza recalls. Two years have gone by and the Apikay community was left with a narrow strip of dirt, with a few hovels that balance off the ravine between BR-463 and a sugar cane field. The highway is a constant threat. At least eight of the villagers have been killed in recent years.

Common crime or land conflict?

A few hours after the conflict with Guapo’y residents last August, the still-uniformed riot police were finishing an animated soccer match near the farmhouse. Part of the vegetation still burned, but the mood was relaxed. Police officers told Repórter Brasil that Federal Police should not be there anyway since it was a “common crime” – robbery – and therefore outside federal jurisdiction.

However, for Prosecutor Delfino, the argument “of common crime” used by the Police is wrong because the episode would have been driven by land issues. That would characterize it as a matter of “indigenous rights” and therefore, as Federal Government responsibility. In order to explain the land conflict view, Delfino pointed out that a few weeks before the incident the same community had been warned that it should leave the territory and were attacked by pistoleiros (hired gunmen).

“It is a worrying trend imposed by the landowners”, says anthropologist Spensy Pimentel, a professor at the Federal University of Southern Bahia who has been studying Guarani and Kaiowá communities for 17 years. For him, by criminalizing Indian claims as “common crimes”, the police can be a “force used indiscriminately” to defend big landowners.

Asked to comment on the conflict between state and federal jurisdictions in Guapo’y, the Mato Grosso do Sul Military Police – through the Department of Justice and Public Security – reaffirmed their view about the issue as “common crime”, saying that “the operation was not under Federal Police jurisdiction because it was not about evicting people from the area, but rather a matter of aggravated theft and unlawful imprisonment”.

Private Security or Gunmen?

It is not only the police that enter the villages bearing guns. On a daily basis, local indigenous people also face gunmen and private security guards from the farms that surround their lands. Hired by the ranchers, many private security company employees have close relationships with the Military Police. Some have been created by and employ former officers.

In the operation in Guapo’y, the unit commanded by Marcus Vinicíus Pollet only withdrew when eight private guards arrived at the farmhouse. They work for private security company Safety Assessoria. Its owner Marco Antônio Kobayashi is a former Caarapó Military Police commander and a friend of Colonel Pollet.

Kobayashi himself revealed in an interview with Repórter Brasil during the operation that the speed and magnitude of the state’s police response was due to the good connection of the farm’s owners with state authorities. The former military officer said he was hired to go to the farm by Tony Penteado, a member of the family that controls the company that owns the farm – Penteado Participações. Tony Penteado told Repórter Brasil that the family does not usually give interviews to the press.

At the farmhouse, Kobayashi complained about the “special treatment” given by Justice to the Indians: “Break an Indian’s leg and you’ll see what happens to you.” It should be different, Kobayashi complained: “Just keep in line; otherwise you’ll take a bullet”.

When asked about the best solution to the conflict between farmers and indigenous people in Mato Grosso do Sul, Kobayashi replied that the courts should decide – once and for all – who owns the lands. But he joked: “The problem is that if there is no conflict, we have no work”.

Security companies such as Kobayashi’s are not illegal, as explained by Federal Prosecutor Marco Antônio Delfino. “The problem is the lack of control over these companies” and the danger of becoming “gunmen disguised as security guards”.

An example is the case of Gaspem Segurança, a company founded by former police officer Aurelino Arce and closed in 2014 by a court decision. Police investigations connected the company to several crimes against the Indian population in southern Mato Grosso do Sul. Investigations mention murdered leaders, violent evictions and preventing distribution of medication and food. According to the lawsuit filed at the 1st Federal Court of Dourados, the company charged up to R$ 30,000 for each eviction. Gunmen provided these illegal services in at least five towns in the area.

“Combining rural producers plus police plus private security companies results in a very dangerous mix”, said the Federal Prosecutor Marco Antônio Delfino.

Another element is added to the explosive equation quoted by the prosecutor: the so-called ruralists – politicians who advocate big landowners’ agenda. In some cases, politicians and landowners are the same people. In Guyraroka, the place of the last meeting of Aty Guasu – the largest Kaiowá and Guarani political organization – indigenous people appointed State Deputy José Roberto Teixeira (DEM-MS) as one of the ranchers who sent their gunmen to Guyraroka.

In a personal meeting with a Kaiowá woman from Guyraroka, Deputy Zé Teixeira would have made it clear that “If I have to give land to you one day, I’ll make sure it’s nothing but sand”.

In a note to Repórter Brasil, Teixeira denies having private security guards and reaffirms that the land claimed by the Indians is his property. Read the full article here. The deputy was arrested on September 12, accused of corruption, and released a week later. The case was opened as a result of plea deals by JBS group businessmen.

As Teixeira, who was re-elected to the Mato Grosso do Sul Legislative Assembly (state parliament), two federal deputies who are rural owners and are members of the Parliamentary Agriculture Caucus were reelected. The disproportionate forces that also reach the legislative houses suggest an even more dangerous scenario for the Guarani and Kaiowá in the coming years.