Court: Brazil On The Brink Of Civil War

Violence Between Indian Tribes And Rice Farmers Escalates In Amazon

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/08/04/world/main4320602.shtml

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, Aug. 4, 2008

In this photo, settlers protest against their eviction from the Raposa Serra do Sol reservation in remote Roraima state, Brazil on April 3, 2008. Brazil's 1988 constitution declared that all Indian ancestral lands be turned over to tribes within five years. That process is not complete. (AP PHOTO)

 Deep in the northernmost reaches of the Amazon jungle, a land conflict between rice farmers and a handful of Indian tribes has turned so violent that the country's Supreme Court warns it could escalate into civil war. 

The court is expected to decide in August if the government can keep evicting rice farmers from a 4.2 million acre Indian reservation decreed by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in 2005. The evictions were stopped in April when rice farmers started burning bridges and blockading roads, and justices said they feared a "veritable civil war."