By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, June 2 -- During the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York last month, the absence of Brazil's Azelene Kaingang was much noted. She was scheduled to speak on a panel as an advocate against that country's Belo Monte dam project. But she did not come.
On June 2, Inner City Press asked Brazil's Permanent Representative and Mission to the UN about Ms. Kaingang's abence and was told that she was not allowed to come as a government employee, but that she could have come if she had “taken vacation days.”
Brazil's Mission provided a vigorous defense of the dam, saying it would displace “only twelve thousand people” in a poor area “without electricity or running water... not indigenous land.” The defense included deriding those concerned about the displacement as “ladies from Stockholm and Mayfair who need to keep their NGOs going.” One of these NGOs, it should be noted, is Amnesty International.
More substantively, it was argued that after the nuclear power accident in Japan, and the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, hydro-power is the only way for Brazil to go. But what about the 12,000 people the government acknowledges it would displace? We will continue to follow this.
Footnote: during the Permanent Forum, Inner City Press was told of the existence of a blacklist administered by the UN, at the request of governments, of indigenous activists who are not to be allowed to attend in this or future years. This, we are looking into.
