Don Quixote of the jungle (part 3)

On August 29, 1995, Raimunda's father was murdered by indians. He wasn't the last victim, nor was he the first. At the FUNAI office in Atalaya del Norte, we are given more facts so as to understand this war between indians and settlers a bit better.

For years the indigenous peoples have died defending their lands, and for the first time, this genocide has been documented before the Office of the Public Prosecutor.

The Javarí River Valley is the site of an all-out war in which the indigenous peoples inhabiting the valley have lost land and many lives. In the last 30 years, the indians have had to surrender to the hundreds of settlers blinded by the riches of their forest, and even to the prospecting of the state petroleum company Petrobras, which in 1984 forced them to scatter into isolated and fugitive groups.

The indians defend what is theirs, and the white men covet what belongs to others. Until 1996, many logging, fishing, and hunting families invaded and made themselves at home in this indigenous land, killing the Indians that got in their way.

That year, Sydney Possuelo turned the situation around altogether. He succeeded in delimiting the indian territories and expelled hundreds of settlers who now hate him more than they do the Indians.

The white man was forced to abandon the territory he had robbed from the indians, but it was not they who expelled him, but rather one of his own. A fact he found not only incomprehensible, but also humiliating.