Brazil Boycotts OAS Meeting Over Belo Monte Dam | Amazon Watch
Amazon Watch

Brazil Boycotts OAS Meeting Over Belo Monte Dam

Government refuses to meet affected community leaders at Human Rights Commission

October 26, 2011 | For Immediate Release


Amazon Watch, AIDA, Global Justice

For more information, contact:

presslist@amazonwatch.org or +1.510.281.9020

Sheyla Juruna, indigenous leader from Brazil, available for interviews in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C. – The government of Brazil refused to attend a closed hearing convened by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Organization of American States (OAS) today, taking a stance that threatens to set a chilling precedent for human rights and sustainable development throughout the Americas.

The meeting, scheduled for 2pm, was intended to foster dialogue toward resolving conflict and discuss failures in protecting the rights of indigenous peoples threatened by the proposed Belo Monte hydroelectric dam in the Amazon Basin’s Xingu region of Brazil. Plans for the Belo Monte Dam ignore international protections such as the right to free, prior and informed consent, and jeopardize the health, livelihood and ancestral lands of thousands of indigenous peoples.

“The government’s constant refusal to dialogue and its undiplomatic posturing shows its negligence as it sidesteps the law and ignores the rights of local peoples,” said Sheyla Juruna, a leader of the Juruna indigenous people who are affected by the proposed dam. She traveled for days from the Xingu region to express her concerns at the closed hearing. “I am appalled by the way in which we are treated in our own land without even the right to be consulted on this horrific project.”

Brazil’s refusal to attend today’s hearing is only its most recent rebuke to the IACHR, a bulwark of human rights protection in the Americas for more than 50 years. The government has not only ignored an IACHR request to halt the project in order to consult with affected communities, but also withheld its dues and recalled its ambassador to the OAS in protest of the IACHR, according to press reports. Brazil’s intransigence is similar to that of Peruvian strongman Alberto Fujimori’s regime, which took a similar stance against the OAS in 1999.

“This flies in the face of the image Brazil promotes of a regional leader and host of important international environmental events like Rio +20 next year,” said Attorney Jacob Kopas of the Inter-American Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA), a nonprofit environmental and human rights organizations representing affected communities.

“With this decision, the government is shooting itself in the foot,” said Andressa Caldas, Director of Global Justice. “Should Brazil be granted a permanent seat on the UN Security Council when it undermines human rights institutions like this?”

Organizations supporting communities affected by the dam, including the Xingu River Alive Forever Movement, AIDA, Amazon Watch, Global Justice and the Para Society for Human Rights, call on Brazil to comply with its international commitments and engage in a meaningful dialogue on human rights.

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