“The Tacuara’i want to return home after being violently evicted from their ancestral territory” – 24 April 2019

A recently ended six-month occupation of a public square in central Asunción by the Tacuara'i community has brought attention to systemic violations of the land rights of indigenous peoples in Paraguay…since an estimated 290 members of the Tacuara’i community had set up camp in the square six months earlier. They had made the 400-kilometre journey to the capital after a violent eviction from what they claim to be their ancestral territory in the east of the country in October 2018. They had come in hope authorities would restore their land to them…In August 2018, descendants of the expelled families—children and grandchildren—made their way back to Tacuara’i to try to recover the lost territory, now in the hands of Brazilian soya farmers. A series of violent responses followed from the farmers, including the forced disappearance of a young man named Isidoro Barrios; members of the community claim that they saw him tortured and executed…On 28th October, gunmen stormed the newly re-established settlement, burning possessions and forcing the community out under threats. With nowhere else to turn, the indigenous group made the journey to Asunción in search of support from authorities, setting up camp in the Plaza de Armas, which sits within meters of the Legislative Palace—the building where both the Paraguayan Congress and Senate sit.