Many of the farmers say that the Caiuá were encouraged to occupy their lands by white people in the neighbouring town of Iguatemí — but offer no cogent reason for this. Some add that the Indians have been stealing their livestock and selling it across the border in Paraguay, to buy automatic weapons (these have not been in evidence, but the police are investigating). Violent conflict over Indian lands is not unusual. According to the Conselho Indigenista Missionário (Cimi), last year 25 Indians were killed in such confrontations — almost a third of all fatalities in land-related disputes throughout the country. There are some 345,000 rural Indians in Brazil, about 0.2% of the population. Because most are hunter-gatherers, their territories are large: the officially recognised ones cover 1m square kilometres, or almost 12% of Brazil's land mass.
BRAZIL-ARGENTINA | Security Council partnership. Brazil will be incorporating an Argentine diplomat into its team when it becomes a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in 2004-05. This unprecedented partnership may last only one year, if as expected Argentina is elected a non-permanent member of the Security Council next year. However, if this is the case, Argentina will incorporate a Brazilian to its team in 2006. This joint diplomatic endeavour is part of the policy of `strategic partnership' with Argentina announced last year by President Lula da Silva.
BRAZIL | Defence accord with India. Trade and economic cooperation were not the only items on the agenda when President Lula da Silva visited India in late January. He also discussed with Indian defence minister George Fernandes possible cooperation in the field of defence, including co-production of defence equipment. India has placed orders for five Embraer jets for its air force's communications squadron and for its border security forces.
PARAGUAY | President's life `threatened'. In late January the Asunción media reported news of a plot to assassinate President Nicanor Duarte. Allegedly a group of six hitmen had entered Paraguay from Brazil for that purpose. This was later partly confirmed by the President's staff and Duarte himself, though there was some confusion regarding who had warned Duarte about this; Brazilian intelligence or the US ambassador. Opposition politicians sounded a very sceptical note about the plot, claiming that the Brazilian foreign ministry had claimed to have no knowledge of any warning. Moreover, they noted that at the time of the alleged warning, Duarte was actually in Brazil, closer at hand to any would-be Brazilian hitmen.
Duarte's personal secretary, José María Ibáñez, spoke about a plot by `groups of mafiosos'. The President has certainly discomfited many in Paraguay's firmly entrenched smuggling community and among members of the judiciary and the police who have been targeted in his anticorruption drive. There have been threats against the chief of police and an investigating magistrate, but so far none of these have been pinned on anyone.
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