Moção Belo Monte - Committe for Human Rights / American Anthropological Association

Conforme já foi divulgado neste blog, a Associação Brasileira de Antropologia publicou uma "moção" contra a forma como o licenciamento de grandes obras de engenharia (Ex. Belo Monte) está sendo realizado no Brasil. Recentemente, o Comitê de Direitos Humanos da "American Anthropological Association" expressou sua preocupação com a forma como o licenciamento do "Complexo Hidroelétrico Belo Monte" ocorreu (sem o consentimento informado das populações locais atingidas). Essa carta foi endereçada para o coordenador das Nações Unidas no Brasil e para a Diretora do Escritório da Organização Internacional do Trabalho (OIT) (entre outros). Este documento público vem reforçar as manifestações contrárias aos procedimentos inadequados (e inconstitucionais) do atual governo brasileiro no que se refere ao licenciamento das obras de desenvolvimento, reforçando ainda mais a moção da ABA e outros documentos semelhantes. Segue abaixo o respectivo documento para conhecimento de todos, pois acredito que devemos colocá-lo em circulação em nossas redes, fortalecendo ainda mais o movimento político de questionamento das ações governamentais relacionadas ao licenciamento de grandes obras públicas.

Moção - "Committee for Human Rights - American Anthropological Association" 

"Dear Sirs:


The AAA Committee for Human Rights is a permanent committee of the American Anthropological Association, the largest professional association of anthropologists worldwide. Its purpose is to stimulate informed involvement in the area of human rights among professional anthropologists and to conduct and bring before the Association leadership responsible information on selected, anthropologically relevant cases of potential human rights abuse. It is in this last role that the Committee writes this letter.

Recently, the case of the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Project in the northeastern state of Para, Brazil, has been brought to our attentions. We are concerned that the processes associated with approval of the hydroelectric dam, which would become the third largest in the world, have been unduly hastened and marked by irregularities that may seriously undermine minorities, particularly indigenous peoples. At least three injunctions against the construction of the dam, sought and obtained by court order, raise questions of environmental licensing, extent of social and environmental impacts, and the viability of the project. In addition, full and proper consultation with the communities to be affected has not met the standards for free, prior, and informed consent of the affected populations as stipulated by Brazilian national law and international treaties and conventions to which Brazil is signatory.

We note that the area to be affected, the Xingu tributary of the Amazon River, is home to twenty-four indigenous societies, whose lands have been demarcated and registered (homologado) under Brazilian law and whose rights to the lands and waterways they traditionally occupy are recognized as original (National Constitution of Brazil, Art. 231); it therefore being incumbent upon the Union to demarcate, protect, and ensure them against encroachment and harm.

We remind the entities involved of the human rights of these communities, as protected by the 1988 Charter of the Brazilian Constitution (Art 231), the 1989 Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization of the U.N., and the 2007 U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. With the inalienability of these rights in mind, we urge the Brazilian government to revisit these decisions.

Sincerely,

Robin Root e Deborah Poole
Co-Chairs - AAA Committee on Human Rights