Mestizos excluded from all the proposals of the Charter of the Amazon to Rio+20

All proposals referring to Mestizos were excluded from the Charter of the Amazon in the last day of the Meeting of Sustainable Development of the Amazon to Rio +20, held in Manaus (AM), from May 30 to June 1.

Although, according to the organization of the event, on the last day only should go to a vote in plenary proposals that had not reached consensus on the thematic working groups, two proposals for Mestizos – one that recognized their original rights and one that recognized the Mestizos as native – who had been adopted by consensus in the working group, were brought to a vote by the organization, without the Mestizo movement’s representatives have been informed and against any agreement with the methodology would be adopted in approving proposals .

The general coordinator of the State Center for Climate Change (CECLIMA) of the Department of Environment and Sustainable Development of the State of Amazonas (SDS) and coordinator of the Greenpeace Climate Campaign (second report on 2010 in the site of this organization based in the Netherlands), João Talocchi, who ran the Plenary, accepted the demand of delegate linked to the Negro movement and –  against the decision of the Plenary itself – also put to the vote the exclusion of references to Mestizos in all proposals already approved in the working groups. By 50 votes to 48 against, Mestizo ethnicity, the most numerous of the Amazon region, was excluded from the Charter that will be delivered to the Rio +20.

The present Mestizo organizations withdrew support to any document produced at the meeting and want to report the action of the administration of the event to human rights institutions and the public prosecutor to investigate possible practice of racism and to Rio +20, to which the letter is addressed.

On Monday (4), the chairman of the Mestizo Nation and president of the Municipal Council of Human Rights in Manaus (CMDH), Helderli Castro, and others Mestizo movement activists went to SDS, but were not received by the secretary Nadia Ferreira.