POLICE, JUDGES – REPRESSION

They have to recognize that all people deserve a dignified life, physical security, food, health, education. We can not rely the high-representatives, the ignorant, cruel colonels who continue to atack our families. Even though we know they are atacking our common good, our life.

Source: http://www.indiosonline.net/povo-tupinamba-esta-sofrendo-muitas-ameacas/

The main repressive approach of the police and judges to the Tupinambá people is the criminalization of the leaders, who are constantly accused, prosecuted and imprisoned for reasons linked to their political activities. Several Tupinambá leaders have been arrested or suffer criminal proceedings. This is a strategy used by the police and judicial apparatus to try to prevent the leaders to participate in important processes for Tupinambá fight, as the ‘retomadas’ (retake). After all, once a leader has a criminal charge, their recurrence means much more severe penalties. But not only them suffer with judicial and police repression, because the ‘retomadas’ are often interpreted and classified by justice as “invasions”, and all the participants of these actions, in many cases, suffer from the police violence that finds support in the decisions of justice.

There are many examples of violent action by the police in the region. A particular case marked deeply the Tupinambá. As a result of police action to suppress the movement, an Indian that was returning from the fishery was approached by police who shot his legs without the slightest chance of escape or defence, taking forever from his life the walks toward the sea rocks, or anywhere else.

In addition to the cases of violence explicitly linked to repression of the movement, there are many cases of murder in the Indigenous territory of Olivença that remain unexplained. The number is so large that the Indians themselves find it difficult to account the deaths, which are usually “solved” by the police as crimes of passion or related to alcoholism. But the brutality of these killings contradict these explanations.

Some Relationships

MOVEMENT CRIMINALIZATION RETOMADA (RETAKE) MASSACRE RESISTENCE: “BRAZILIAN WAY” WOMEN WARRIORS