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Judi Lynn

(160,076 posts)
Wed Oct 8, 2014, 11:05 PM Oct 2014

Paraguay’s Supreme Court issues ‘historic’ land ruling

Paraguay’s Supreme Court issues ‘historic’ land ruling

Cattle-ranchers’ legal action versus expropriation of 1,000s of hectares in favour of the indigenous Enxet people is rejected

Posted by
David Hill

Tuesday 7 October 2014 08.13 EDT
theguardian.com

Imagine being forced to leave your home to make way for cattle-ranching and live alongside a highway for years and years, dreaming, say, of one day returning to cultivate your grandparents’ garden plot, or remembering all the animals you raised there, or having to sneak back in to bury your dead. That’s been the experience for the indigenous Enxet people, from a community called Sawhoyamaxa in Paraguay’s Chaco forest, since the 1990s.

Last Thursday, though, the Enxet received some sensational news. The Supreme Court of Justice unanimously rejected ranchers’ claims that a landmark government decision made earlier this year to expropriate 14,404 hectares and give them back to Sawhoyamaxa was “unconstitutional.”

“We’re very happy to be able to recover our territories,” Sawhoyamaxa’s vice-leader Leonardo González told the Guardian. “We’ve been victims of the government and ranchers.”

“Justice has been done,” said Basilio Garcia, another community member, in a statement released by Paraguayan NGO Tierraviva, which supports the Enxet and calls the ruling “historic.” “We want to live better after so many years of suffering.”

“This demonstrates that Paraguayan justice is starting to compensate Paraguay’s historic debt to indigenous peoples, whose rights have always been violated,” said Eriberto Ayala, another Enxet man, in the same statement.

More:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/andes-to-the-amazon/2014/oct/07/paraguay-supreme-court-historic-land-ruling

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