Day 251 - 17 May 96 - Page 25


     
     1        Latin words?
     2        A.  I mean, if you are talking about indigenous conflict, I
     3        went to a ranch near San Miguel, the Araguaia, which
     4        belongs to one of the main banks, Bodesco, in Brazil, and I
     5        spent a few days with the remnants, the last remaining
     6        members, of an Indian tribe called Avacanaweros.  I
     7        subsequently discovered when I went there they had
     8        contracted 'flu, they had actually been rounded up by the
     9        ranch and were being held virtual prisoners in a shack.
    10
    11   Q.   Where was that?
    12        A.  This was in a ranch near San Miguel do Araguaia owned
    13        by the biggest private bank in Brazil.  But this was in the
    14        early...  This was in 1974 or 5.
    15
    16   Q.   The mid 1970s?
    17        A.  In the mid 1970s there were remnants of Indians who
    18        were being driven back to make way for the cattle
    19        ranchers.
    20
    21   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Perhaps someone could help me.  My
    22        recollection, it may be completely wrong, we do have a
    23        scale on the map, that is right?  40 kilometres to a
    24        centimetre.
    25
    26   MS. STEEL:   On the River Araguaia there is a place called
    27        Aruana and a bit below it a place called Britania.  Have
    28        you visited those places?
    29
    30   MR. MORRIS:  They are just north of Jucara?
    31        A.  I can remember the names.  Aruana, I think Aruana, I
    32        remember going through but I cannot actually remember it in
    33        any great detail.
    34
    35   MS. STEEL:   But that would have been an area of tropical
    36        forest?
    37
    38   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Sorry, no.  It does not help.
    39
    40   MR. MORRIS:  It is all part of that basin.
    41
    42   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Try and ask it in a none-leading way.
    43
    44   MS. STEEL:   I mean, it is basically what she has said already.
    45
    46   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It may be, but, you see, if there is a
    47        challenge to this evidence it makes a difference to, or may
    48        make a difference to, the way it comes out.
    49
    50   MS. STEEL:   When you were talking about the width of the forest 
    51        going from Jucara to Japara de Bemavara(?), if you go 
    52        further north, would the width of that band of forest be 
    53        the same or would it be narrower or wider, or what, if you
    54        went up to, say, between Jucara and San Miguel do Araguaia?
    55        A.  Yes.
    56
    57   MR. MORRIS:  Is that band, the forest, the same as you go
    58        further north?  That is what is being asked up to?
    59        A.  It is not really a band of forest, it is basically in
    60        the early 1970s this region was part of the Amazon forest

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