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| Indigenous Guarani have been protesting at the Rio+20 UN summit |
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A Brazilian
prosecutor has requested that the government pay an indigenous tribe evicted
from its ancestral lands 170 million reais ($83m;£53m) in damages.
Prosecutor
Marco Antonio Delfino de Almeida argues that the Guyraroka community must be
compensated for moral and material damages.
"I
hope this suit will help governments to reconsider their actions," he
said.
The
Guyrarokas are part of the Guarani people in western Brazil.
According
to the Public Prosecution Office in Brazil, the tribe began to be expelled from
its ancestral lands, near the Paraguay border, in 1927.
The
authorities demarcated their lands only in 2009.
Mr Delfino,
a prosecutor for Mato Grosso do Sul state, said that the allowing them access
to their land was not enough after so many years.
"When
they go back, most of the land will have been cleared of its forests. The soil
will be exhausted by decades of intensive agriculture."
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| Prosecutor Marco Antonio Delfino says the government took too long to map out Guyraroka's lands |
He told
Agencia Brasil, the Brazilian government official news agency, that "the
Indians will need the financial resources they lack to make their land productive
and their environment sustainable again."
The law
suit against the Brazilian Federal Government and Funai - the national
indigenous agency - was filed in April but only made public now.
Mr Delfino
wants the compensation money to be used in policies that benefit Guarani
communities in Mato Grosso do Sul.
The Guarani
are Brazil's largest indigenous minority, with around 46,000 members living in
seven states.
Many others
live in neighbouring Paraguay, Bolivia and Argentina.
Last week,
a biofuels company set up in Brazil by Shell - Raizen - signed an agreement
last week with the Brazilian authorities giving up plans to buy sugar cane
sourced from indigenous lands, including those of the Guyrarokas.
The move
was announced after months of pressure by the Brazilian government.
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