Indian chief killed by armed men in western Brazil
18 November 2011
Native children of the Guarani tribe play around their "oca" (house) north of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2008.
Armed men burst into a Guarani Indian camp in Brazil's western Mato Grosso do Sul state and killed the local chief early Friday, the government agency for Indigenous people (FUNAI) said.
It said 42 heavily armed, hooded men attacked the Kaiowa Guarani community in the village of Amambai, near the border with Paraguay, and shot the 59-year-old chief, Nisio Gomes. FUNAI said other Indians might have been killed or kidnapped.
"They came to kill our chief," said one Indian who witnessed the attack and requested anonymity for security reasons. He added that Gomes' son tried to prevent the killing, but the tribal chief was shot in the head, the chest, the arms and the legs. Most of the community's 60 residents fled the camp to seek refuge in the forest.
The incident marked the latest violence linked to land disputes in Brazil, where one percent of the population controls 46 percent of the cultivated land. Guarani have been trying to recover a small portion of their original territories, but face violent resistance from wealthy ranchers and soya and sugar cane plantation owners.
Source: Breitbart.
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