summary of three articles by Sabrina Craide (2) and Isabela Villela

Reporters Agência Brasil
Brasília and Rio de Janeiro – On Wednesday, April 14, a federal judge in Altamira, Pará, issued an injunction halting the auction scheduled for April 20 to award construction contracts for the Belo Monte dam and power plant. The judge also revoked the environmental license that was issued by the Environmental Protection Institute (Ibama).
Yesterday, the institute’s licensing director, Pedro Alberto Bignelli, declared that the construction will not have a direct impact on indigenous peoples in the region, contrary to what the judge, Antonio Carlos Almeida Campelo, said in his ruling. Bignelli and Campelo are disputing whether or not Belo Monte infringes article 176 of the Brazilian constitution, which states that each time water resources in indigenous lands are used, specific legislation is required. The judge, Campelo, says article 176 is pertinent. Bignelli says it is irrelevant as there is no “direct impact on indigenous peoples,” only indirect impacts that are exactly what the license deals with by establishing the need for 40 environmentally-friendly preparatory tasks before the actual construction begins.
Meanwhile, the government legal office (Advocacia Geral da União – AGU) has already filed a countersuit seeking to annul the injunction that suspended the auction and license.
At the same time, a former president of the National Indian Foundation (Funai), Mércio Gomes, has gone public attacking Belo Monte. According to Gomes, the project for the dam is a mess and will “profoundly” affect around a thousand Indians in the Arara, Juruna and Xikrin ethnic groups, not to mention riverside inhabitants. Gomes explained that during the dry season the dam will reduce the flow of the river to the point where it will make boat traffic impossible. Lower river levels will also result in the proliferation of algae that will mean fewer fish and more diseases, such as malaria. “The ecology of the whole region will be deeply affected,” declared Gomes, who is now a professor of anthropology at a federal university in Rio de Janeiro. 

Allen Bennett – translator/editor The News in English