Indigenous Brazilians clamor to be heard ahead of soccer World Cup

Indigenous squatters have occupied the Museum of the Indian in Rio de Janeiro to make their voices heard amid preparations for the soccer World Cup. Asurini Indian Ivandro says it's a reaction to centuries of oppression.

For Ivandro, 42, the occupation of the former Museum of the Indian in Rio de Janeiro is the latest chapter in a struggle that began 500 years ago when the Portuguese colonized Brazil and began oppressing its native population.
"Our people is a people that was decimated. It was decimated by big capital and the landlords, by the business side. We were 15,000! Today, we are 1,000," says Ivandro, an Asurini Indian and one of the occupiers.
The crumbling former Museum of the Indian is situated right in front of the Maracana stadium, where the 2014 World Cup final is to be held. Indigenous protesters had been occupying the museum since 2006 before riot police went in on March 22. Rio's government had long been threatening eviction because they wanted to build a car park for the stadium.
And there was outright condemnation of the force applied during the invasion as police used tear gas, pepper spray and batons to clear the building - which had become known as the 'Aldeia Maracana,' or Maracana Village.

Ivandro has made Maracana Village his home

"All the police of Rio were here. All the police. There were three armored cars. You know what an armored car is?" says Ivandro.
"There was a lot of cruelty, a lot of police, a lot of bombs, gas, pepper spray …," says Marcia, a woman from the Guajajara tribe, also a squatter. Her three-year-old daughter was attacked in the face with pepper spray, she says.
Marcia had moved with her daughter from Maranhao state in north-eastern Brazil in January to join the occupation.

"It was near the eviction and more indigenous [people] were needed here to give strength, and I was called to come here as well, to help in the cause," she explains.
Street protests
But then, in the months that followed the eviction, a groundswell of street protests swept Brazil, culminating on June 20, when more than a million Brazilians took to the streets all over the country. In Rio alone, hundreds of thousands demonstrated. When trouble broke out, police cleared the entire city center using tear gas, stun bombs and rubber bullets.

Protests are continuing, although on a smaller scale. Rio governor Sergio Cabral backed down on a number of key issues raised by protesters - including a bus-fare rise and threats to knock down the museum, which was then put under protection as a historic landmark.
On August 5, the indigenous squatters reoccupied the Museum of the Indian. Around 80 of them are still there, living in tents dotted around the mansion's lower floor.

"Why did we enter here? Because the streets, the clamor of the streets, organized civil society, the social movements demanded us here," says Ivandro, who is also known by his nickname of Para after his home state in the Brazilian Amazon where he grew up. He moved first to Belem, the capital of Para, and later to Rio.
He says he left his tribe because his nation was being repressed.

"My people were being tortured. A lot of repression. Repression by the police. Repression by the government," he explains. "The national government does not like the indigenous people because it thinks we are [like] a stone in the shoe. Because we defend nature, we defend the forest. We neither sell our culture nor our identity."
Community spirit
Now the squatters live on donations and share the food they get. Marcia, her husband and her daughter share a small tent. The community cooks rice, beans and manioc communally on an open fire in a yard at the back of the building, which faces directly onto the brand new Maracana stadium.

Ivandro says he has not been to any of the club or international soccer games at the stadium and has no plans to do so.

Maracana stadium will host the Football World Cup final

"I like football but I don't feel good going to the Maracana. Because this is not a stadium for the people. This is a stadium for the rich. It's very expensive," he says.
Ivandro points out where - in the months after the squatters were evicted from the building - builders uprooted trees, covered up indigenous paintings on the walls, and ripped out an ornate old iron fence. They also painted over the sign that read: "Museum of the Indian."
For Ivandro, the struggle that he and indigenous rights activists are involved in - which recently saw indigenous groups protesting at the Congress in Brasilia over plans to change the demarcation of indigenous land - is part and parcel of the wider protests that Brazil has seen since June. Squatters from the former Indian Museum joined some 10,000 in a demonstration last week in Rio as part of a teachers strike - the protest later ended in conflict with police.
"In Europe," he asks, "when citizens pay their taxes, I believe they have a return in quality, don't they? More or less. Here in Brazil, you pay a lot of taxes and don't have a return in quality, and it is diverted to the election campaigns."

The Museum of the Indian is now a listed building

The squatters live a precarious existence. A ramshackle communications center consists of two laptops and another portable model. "We have our communication, because in spite of being indigenous we can't be disconnected from the world outside," says Ivandro. He said police could re-enter at any moment. "We are waiting for them."
Indigenous culture
The museum has, he says, long been connected to indigenous culture. In 1875, it became an indigenous research center. In 1910, it was made the headquarters of the government's Indian Protection Service (SPI), a forerunner of today's National Indian Foundation, (Funai), the government department in charge of indigenous affairs.
The SPI was set up, Ivandro notes, by Brazilian politician and military leader Marshall Candido Rondon - himself descended from Bororo Indians. From 1953 to 1978 it was the Museum of the Indian, until that moved to nearby Botofogo.
But this occupation, he said, is not about free housing. Instead the indigenous squatters want to found an indigenous university and have already started classes in the Tupi-Guarani language at weekends.
"We want a university. We already have language courses in Tupi-Guarani, painting, we want to have our identity," Ivandro says. "It's not for me. It's for my grandchildren, my child."

DW.DE

Fishing industry endangers harbor porpoises in Baltic Sea

The harbor porpoise in the Baltic Sea is facing possible extinction due to the effects of fishing. Conservationists are trying to put pressure on politicians to enforce maritime protected zones currently up for review.

They are dark grey, have rounded bodies, grow to two meters in length and weigh in at around 70 kilograms (154 pounds). For nature enthusiasts, the harbor porpoise is a rare, but delightful sight in European waters.
"I want people to know how amazing these creatures are and that they are not supposed to be in an aquarium or in shows," says Katrin Rudolph, a student volunteer working to help save the harbor porpoise population in the Baltic Sea. "They should be out in nature, that's the best thing for them."
However, at the moment, it's out in its natural habitat - the icy, cold waters surrounding Northern Europe - where this animal is most at risk. In fact, Germany's Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union, NABU, says that the number of harbor porpoises in the west of the Baltic, the area near Germany's coastline, has dropped by 60 percent in the last few years.
"There is definitely a concrete danger of extinction for this population," warns Fabian Ritter, Head of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation's (WDC) campaign to protect the seas.

Measuring under two meters, the harbor porpoise is one of the world's smallest marine mammals

An unintentional trap
Ritter says the main threat to the harbor porpoise is getting accidentally trapped in fishing nets that are intended to catch smaller fish. The type of net most commonly used is the gillnet, because of its effectiveness, ease of use and affordability, according to Claus Ubl with the Deutsche Fischerei Verband, Germany's fishing association.
Conservationists are encouraging the use of different types of nets. However, fishers - especially those with smaller fishing units - say the cost of using different netting could also cost them their livelihoods.
"The problems with using alternative gear, like trapnets, is that they don't work cost efficiently and are not economic," Ubl told DW. "The catchability is too low. Gillnets work most effectively."
Harbor porpoises, however, are often unable to detect gillnets until it's too late. And Ritter says that his organization is finding that the juveniles are actually more likely to get caught in the netting, which increases the likelihood of further depopulation.
Informing the public
Ritter, as well as other conservationists and scientists, believe that only by informing the public about these animals will they have a chance to save them. The WDC, along with other European and international organizations, like NABU, Oceancare, and ASOCOBANS, have teamed up in the effort.
The Static Acoustic Monitoring of the Baltic Sea Harbour Porpoise project (SAMBAH) spent two years capturing the sound of these creatures, and has developed distribution maps of harbor porpoises and identified areas where the animals are at risk of coming into contact, negatively, with human activity.

This harbor porpoise died when caught in a gillnet

"As long as the German public doesn't know and doesn't care about these little porpoises, the German government won't do anything to protect them," says Laura Doehring who is part of the communications team for the campaign.
One way that people can get to learn more about the intelligence of porpoises is by getting exposure to 'whalish,' the language of the closely-related whales. On a special website users can type out phrases in their own language and hear it translated into 'whalish,' to give them an idea of how the marine mammals sound.
Additionally, the WDC campaign has put out a call to artists and members of the public to design images of the harbor porpoise. The winning design will be presented at the German Environment Ministry in November, when conservation organizations hope to resume talks about enforcing protected zones in the Baltic.
German authorities under pressure

Don't call me a shark: the dorsal fin of a harbor porpoise surfaces above water

"In November 2012, there was an obligation for Germany to designate marine protected areas and to develop management plans for harbor porpoises," Ritter said. "This has to be done by November 2013, a very clear deadline set by the European Union. As far as we can see, Germany will miss that deadline."
In response, a spokesman for the German Environment ministry told DW that he was still hopeful that Germany would set up the legal framework for the marine protected areas in time. "It shouldn't be forgotten that a number of different interests need to considered here, including those of the fishing industry," the spokesman explained.
Still, environmental organizations resolve that they will continue to put pressure on the government to ban netting that puts harbor porpoises at risk. They also want restrictions on military activity and exploration in search of oil and gas in the protected zones.
After all, there is no time to lose, according to Ritter. "You could argue that every day counts because every day there may be more harbor porpoises entangled somewhere in the Baltic Sea," Ritter said.

DW.DE

Berlin led by caretaker cabinet until new government is formed

Even though a new government is still far off, Germany's newly elected parliament has met for its constituent assembly. The outgoing cabinet remains in office. It's all fine and normal until something critical happens.

According to Germany's constitution, parliament has a maximum of 30 days before it has to meet for the first time after a federal election. Once the constituent assembly meets, the term of the previous government ends.
But election winner Angela Merkel and her Christian Democrats have so far not agreed on a coalition yet. Exploratory talks with the Greens failed and coalition talks with the Social Democrats are still under way.
But this transition period does not result in a vacuum of power. "At the beginning, nothing really happens," Timo Grunden, political scientist at Giessen University told DW.
The German constitution provides precise rules for the current scenario. If there no new government is formed by the time parliament starts meeting, the outgoing cabinet acts as caretaker government.
Merkel continues

Angela Merkel remains Germany's Chancellor

Chancellor and ministers are obliged to continue doing their job. In the meantime, President Joachim Gauck assumes an important role in that he is supposed to help with negotiations between the possible coalition partners. Should the parties fail to form a government, Gauck can either appoint a minority government or call for new elections.
For the time being, things will maintain their set course. The caretaker government has the same rights and duties as a regular government. It represents Germany abroad and can field new bills. Yet that's not really democratic, says Grunden.
"They do not have a democratic mandate anymore. So the caretaker government is not lacking legality, but rather democratic legitimation."
Postponing decisions

The outgoing ministers stay in office until a new government is formed

The caretaker government is therefore expected to restrain itself on any crucial policy matters and not make decisions the new government would likely decide upon differently.
"In case of doubt, the caretaker government would not start a controversial initiative, because they do not know if they have a majority in the Bundestag," Grunden said. "If in doubt, parliament would remind the cabinet where its limits are."
It's in that light that Chancellor Merkel's move to avoid stricter carbon emission rules for cars in the EU has been heavily criticized. Yet Timo Grunden doesn't see this particular case as problematic. It is the right and the duty of a chancellor to advocate German interests, he says: "I am sure that every German government, even one led by the Social Democrats, would have applied such pressure in Brussels."
Not made for crisis
Caretaker governments are nothing unusual for the transition period between an election and the formation of a new government. And as long as there are no crucial decisions to be made, that's no cause for concern.
In 1998 though, the Kosovo crisis heated up just when Germany happened to find itself in one such transition period. The US proposed military intervention in Kosovo, but Helmut Kohl of the Christian Democrats had just lost the election and the new government under Social Democrat Gerhard Schröder had not yet been sworn in.
"The caretaker government under Kohl then met with the likely new government to discuss what to do," Grunden explained.
In theory, a caretaker government could stay in power indefinitely. "Belgium, for instance, had a caretaker government for more than a year," said Grunden. The two major ethnic groups - French-speaking Walloons and Dutch-speaking Flemish - failed to agree on a new government.
In Germany though, any such drawn-out scenario is not very probable. Should the parties fail to form a government, new elections would likely be the next step.

DW.DE