Two of the world’s largest agricultural producers are caught up in another scandal involving soy grown on illegally seized Indigenous land in the Brazilian Amazon. Both Cargill and Bunge source some of their soy products, including chicken feed and pet food, from land where Indigenous communities have suffered violence and displacement, according to a new […]
More than 50 years after the Krenak Indigenous people were subjected to torture, arbitrary confinement, beatings and forced labor in military-run concentration camps, a federal judge has ruled for reparations and an official apology.
‘Throw them overboard’: Brazil mine disaster victims bullied over compensation
by Alice Maciel on 6 May 2021
Communities awaiting compensation from the worst environmental disaster in Brazilian history say they’re being stymied by a convoluted legal process that favors those responsible.
Compensation for the 2015 Mariana tailings dam disaster, which killed 19 people and polluted a river basin the size of Portugal, is being administered by a foundation set up by the mining companies.
State and federal prosecutors and public defenders allege collusion between the foundation and the judge overseeing the process; they also call the compensation being offered “ridiculously low.”
In a recording of a meeting this past January, a lawyer for the foundation can be heard berating community members and demanding that they apologize for staging a peaceful protest, or risk the payments being stopped.