FIAN Condemns Human Rights Violations of Indigenous Sawhoyamaxa
The indigenous community of Sawhoyamaxa has lived for over 20 years in a very precarious situation, forced to live outside of their traditional lands, which are owned by two companies, controlled by a German citizen and investor.
Although the community succeeded in 2006 in achieving a ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) against the Paraguayan state which demanded the return of the lands to the Sawhoyamaxa, the deadlines for this land restitution have expired and the demands have not been met. Several members of the community do not have access to adequate food and are suffering from hunger due to lack of access to basic resources.
Given the extremely precarious situation of hunger, systematic human rights violations, and the failure of the Paraguayan authorities to comply with the judgment of the Court, on March 22 the native Sawhoyamaxa re-entered the land in an effort to re-claim it. According to our information, the individual who holds the title to the property has filed a complaint against the Sawhoyamaxa for trespassing.
In the attached international statement, FIAN expresses deep concern about the ongoing and systematic violation of human rights of the indigenous community of Sawhoyamaxa, and urgently calls upon stakeholders including the state institutions to immediately act to prevent more violence and to restore the land to the Sawhoyamaxa as ordered by the IACHR.
Read the entire statement below (in Spanish)