Recording in Chief

Lest he be called a liar chief Mário Juruna never
talked to a politician without taping the conversation

The former Xavante chief and ex-federal representative Mário Juruna, 62, died on July 16 in Brasília from renal complications caused by diabetes and high blood pressure. A vigil over the body of the ex-indigenous leader was held at the Black Hall of the Chamber of Representatives and he was buried at the Namunkurá village, located in the municipality of Barra do Garças, state of Mato Grosso. He married three times and had 14 children.

Juruna was one of the most important personalities of the Brazilian indigenous movement in the last three decades. He became very popular in Brazil for recording all the conversations he had with governmental authorities and later on accusing them of making false promises. In March 1980, after overturning a judicial prohibition to leave the country, he presided over the IV Bertrand Russell Tribunal for Human Rights in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands.

In 1982, he was elected federal representative for the Democratic Labor Party (PDT) of Rio de Janeiro, becoming the first indigenous person to hold a seat in the National Congress. In response to the then minister of Aeronautics, Délio Jardim de Mattos, who criticized the population of Rio de Janeiro for having voted for "the loincloth of an uncultured and exotic man," Juruna wrote a letter in which he said he had been elected with 80,000 votes and asked the brigadier with how many votes he had been elected minister. "I would like to know whether your ministry has the competency to decide on or issue opinions about the political and civil rights of indigenous people," he questioned, finishing the letter saying that he had been elected to "bother you"—that is, people in high places.

His career as a member of parliament was brilliant and marked by controversy. He was the first chairman of the Committee for Indigenous Affairs of the Chamber of Representatives. In April 1983, he delivered a document to the then minister of Interior, colonel Mário Andreazza, accusing Funai (Fundação Nacional do Índio—National Indian Foundation) of jeopardizing the interests of indigenous peoples based on the testimony of 360 indigenes and missionaries. In a speech he delivered in September of that year in defense of the Pataxó Hã-Hã-Hãe people, he referred to the then president of the Republic, general João Batista Figueiredo, and his ministers as "corrupt men and thieves." As a result of that speech, he almost lost his seat in parliament for offense against decorum.

He supported the so-called Dante de Oliveira amendment proposing direct elections for President of the Republic and accused businessman Calim Eid of trying to bribe him to vote for the candidate of the military regime, Paulo Maluf, in the Electoral College. In April 1985, he voted for the opposition candidate, Tancredo Neves.

After the end of his term in Congress, he unsuccessfully tried to reelect himself three times and ended up becoming an advisor to PDT leaders in the Chamber of Representatives. Very sick and bound to a wheelchair, he lived the last years of his life in Guará, a satellite city in Brazil's Federal District.

According to Cimi's executive secretary, Egon Heck, his death "silenced one of the most important figures of the indigenous movement in Brazil. It also silenced his legendary tape recorder, which we will miss very much."

This report was originally published by the Indigenist Missionary Council (CIMI).

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