The history: by the end of the 80’s, the Pro Indian Commission
of Acre (CPI) and the Amazon’s Workers Center (CTA) had a weekly schedule
in the Radio Difusora, where they had a program called " Radio Floresta
" (forest radio). The program sent messages, informed the news and played
Brazilian and Acre popular music specifically to the indigenous villages and
rubber tapper settlements. Soon the repression began: the federal police suspected
on the messages transmitted in indigenous languages (would they be guerrilla's
codes?). In a day of 1987 the indigenous leader Siã Kaxinawa interviewed
the rubber tapper leader Chico Mendes, his friend since the creation of the
Forest People Alliance. Jorge Nazaré, always stuck in these things, was
recording the interview. Today, Siã is president of the Kaxinawa’s
rubber tappers Association of Rio Jordão, Chico is in heaven and Jorge
still keeps the tape.
SIÃ KAXINAUWA – Chico, in your
organization, how do you see the extractive reserve, the Xapuri’s Union
organization and these conflicts that are always happening? You have always
been struggling on this. Why do these things happen, and nothing, but nothing
works, and how are your feelings about this? What will you do?
Chico Mendes – Well, we crossed the initial stage in
the process of the rubber tappers’s first struggles to defend the forest,
to defend their land. Mainly in the 70’s, when we didn’t know which
way to go, nobody had an idea of how we would fight to defend the forest. And
for a long time that was how we struggled, without a defined direction. But
this struggle was worthwhile because in that whole process we gained maturity
and finally, with the organization and strengthening of the Xapuri Union, we
got to the point of thinking about the realization of a Rubber Tapper National
Meeting. It was successfully accomplished in 1985, and from this meeting we
created the Rubber Tapper National Council, which, in my point of view, was
the greatest advance in the history of the rubber tappers’ struggles.
It is even more important because it brought to the minds of the rubber tappers
workers, the possibility of thinking about an alliance with the true owners
of those forests, the Indians, who had been our enemies for so long. The creation
of the Rubber Tapper National Council, together with your organization, also
increased the idea that Indians and rubber tappers are not enemies. And today,
for instance, in spite of the defeats that we have suffered, of the pressure
from the big landowners, of a careless government that neglects rubber tappers,
Indians and workers, and strategically helps the big landowners to obstruct
our organizations, even so, today the rubber tappers, the people of the Amazon
forest, are taking care of a very important space, with the proposals of the
forest people alliance and the creation of extractive reserves. I think that
today, the extractive reserve waives as the most important banner of the forest
people’s struggle in the last times, because it is the way through which
the rubber tappers and the Indians will conquer their true freedom. For us,
the extractive reserve is like the agrarian reform of the rubber tapper, it
is a way of opposing to the violent policy of great land estates. Now, on the
other hand, as we get organized to conquer the first extractive reserves, the
big ranchers join and create the UDR (Ruralist Democratic Union) to fight against
our organization. Therefore, I think that today, more than ever, it is important
to strengthen the movement of the rubber tappers and Indians, and to strengthen
the unions that are in great part dominated by the " pelegos " (political
traitors) - but I think it is a matter of time. Today, we have to be much more
organized. We won the first extractive reserve here in Xapuri, in the Seringal
Cachoeira, where the government authorities refused to make the expropriation,
but ended up doing it after being compelled by the rubber tappers and their
organization. That was the first and greatest conquest of the rubber tappers,
because I think the extractive reserve has a much more positive character when
conquered through their strength and organization. So, in spite of the countless
obstacles we have ahead, I am very optimistic because once the rubber tappers
movements are becoming strong through the union, through the Rubber Tapper National
Council, through an alliance proposal with the Indians, forming one single struggle
for the defense of the forest people, I think we will have a more hopeful future.
Now, that future will depend much on our courage and commitment in fighting
for the organization, for the forest people alliance and for the strengthening
of our entities.
SIÃ KAXINAUWA - Do you think this extractive reserve
will bring benefits for the people that are here in this land, the rubber tappers,
will their life conditions improve?
Chico Mendes – I think the extractive reserve not only
improves the life conditions of the rubber tappers, the Indians and all the
people that live in the forest, but it will also make possible a better life
condition for the city people. Because the extractive reserve proposal is a
way defended by the rubber tappers and Indians of protecting the Amazon, avoiding
its devastation. To avoid the Amazon to become a desert in benefit of a half
dozen landowners and, on the other hand, to defend the Amazon, is to make it
an economically viable region, not only for us that live in the forest, but
for the city workers, for the country and for the whole world. Because the Amazon,
as we known, is an area that concerns and is important to the entire humanity.
And we want to transform it in an economically viable area. Because, you see,
there is the rubber that still is the main economical base of our region, the
Brazilian chestnut, which is also a very important product. And today, on the
other hand, it was not given priority to the industrialization of so many other
extractive products existent inside of the forest. If you think about the tucumã
oil, the patoá oil, if you think on the açaí, the bacaba,
the copaíba, and several other species of medicinal trees that exist
in the forest, only known today by the Indians, because until today there has
not been any research by the white people. The Universities for instance, that
should play an important role in the work of researching the Amazon, to find
out more of its resources, have not done it until today. We have many hidden
resources. Listen, what we need is the government to take it seriously, the
government to believe in the rubber tappers proposal, because we can affirm
with no doubt that, in a period of 10 years, we will prove the Amazon to be
a strategically economical area, improving the rubber tappers life conditions,
stimulating an increase of the extractive production and showing how important
it will be for the whole Brazilian society and for the world.
SIÃ KAXINAUWA - Why are you in favor of the extractive
reserves? Until today, the seringais (rubber tapper settlements), the “patrões”
(the owners of the seringais), have not benefited the rubber tappers. Why is
that you want this extractive reserve?
Chico Mendes - But the extractive reserve is just what we want,
it is exactly a way of also getting free of the “patrões”,
besides avoiding the landowners and the ranchers to extinguish our forests. And,
on the other hand, the extractive reserve will make possible for the rubber
tappers to get rid of the “patrões” domination, because,
in Xapuri for instance, we have today autonomous rubber tappers who are still
in the “marreteiros”(middle men) hands. But, even so, they sell
to whom they want. In other places, in other “seringais”, as in
Vale Juruá and other places of the Amazon, the rubber tappers remained
in the extractive reserves, and as they gradually gain their freedom, they will
get rid of the “patrões”, and this will certainty improve
their life conditions. So, I think that the extractive reserve defended by us
is the agrarian reform of the rubber tappers that will really guarantee our
future and respect our tradition, our habits, our way of living in this forest.
*Text/interview published in the Magazine
n'ativa n.4 of December 1995
video
photographs
print