Indians Vow To Die Before Leaving Ranch

Fri., May 17, 1996

Compiled From Wire Services

Some 250 Brazilian Indians with a tribal history of suicide are threatening to fight to the death or kill themselves if they’re forced from a ranch in the western brushlands.

Dozens of families of Kaiowa-Guarani Indians have lived on the 1,230-acre ranch, 800 miles west of Brasilia, since it was expropriated and turned into a reservation several years ago.

Earlier this year President Fernando Henrique Cardoso signed a decree allowing such expropriations to be contested in court, and former owner Miguel de Oliveira sued successfully. A judge ordered the Indians off by next Wednesday.

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Indians Vow To Die Before Leaving Ranch

Jesse Tinsley

Jim Meehan

Molly Quinn

Rob Curley

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