At the People's Summit [2] being held on the sidelines of the Rio +20 [3] UN environmental summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil [4], leaders of the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of the Bolivian Oriente (CIDOB) denounced President Evo Morales for violating the rights of indigenous peoples in Bolivia [5]'s eastern lowlands. Announced CIDOB vice president Nelly Romero: "We have unmasked the double standard that [Morales] has in his discourse on the international level, making believe that he is a defender of indigenous peoples, of the rights of the indigenous peoples of Mother Earth, of the natural resources and the forest." Celso Padilla, president of the Continental Council of the Guaraní People, noted the death of two indigenous leaders in a traffic accident on the cross-country march now underway to oppose construction of a highway through the TIPNIS [6] indigenous reserve. "This wouldn't have happened if the president had not been infatuated with building the highway through the TIPNIS; the only one responsible is him." (Erbol [7], June 20)
The two Tsimané indigenous leaders, Silvia Cunay and Alejandro Cayuba, were killed June 19 when their truck slid off the highway near Yolosa in La Paz department. March leader Bertha Bejarano said the marchers had been welcomed by the residents of Yolosa, but admitted that most of the marchers are ill due to the rigors of the trek. (ANF [8], La Jornada [9], La Paz, June 20; Opinión [10], Cochabamba, June 19) (Recent news reports that Bejarano had been arrested on drug charges [6] in Brazil seem to have been referring to an earlier arrest.)
Brazil's Guarani [11] people meanwhile won a victory as Mato Grosso do Sul prosecutor Marco Antonio Delfino de Almeida requested that the government pay the Guyraroka Guarani community 170 million reais ($83 million) in restitution for usurped lands. According to the Public Prosecution Office in Brazil, the community was expelled from its ancestral lands, near the Paraguay border, starting in 1927. The suit was filed against the Brazilian indigenous affairs agency FUNAI in April. Negotiations for land recovery are still underway. Under pressure from the Brazilian government, Shell-Raizen has abandoned plans to produce sugar cane for "biofuels [12]" on lands usurped form the Guyraroka. (BBC News [13], June 20)
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