SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters):
FEDERAL POLICE moved to evict about 200 Indians from land in Brazil's Mato Grosso do Sul state yesterday, carrying out a court order obtained by ranchers, police said.
Indian rights groups say the expansion of agricultural business in the region has caused hunger and starvation in their groups as planting and hunting grounds shrink.
The Guarani-Kaiowa tribes were spread across 3,212 acres 1,300 hectares of land near the Paraguay border that sits within a larger contested tract of 22,980 acres 9,300 hectares, said a spokesman for the Missionary Indian Council, a Catholic charity that works to protect Indian lands.
There were no reports of violence during the raid by 150 federal and state police.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had signed a decree in March expanding the size of the tribes' reservation after a number of Indian children died of starvation in the region.
But ranchers obtained a temporary ruling on Wednesday to ban Indian occupation of the area until all members of the Federal Supreme Court have a chance to rule on its validity, the court said in a statement.
Mato Grosso do Sul is Brazil's biggest cattle-producing state and the country has the world's largest commercial cattle herd.
