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Brazil tags US$270 million for Amazon Indian reservations

Brazil will spend US$270 million over the next three years to create new Indian reservations and bring water and electricity to remote Amazon communities, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Friday.

Speaking to tribes in the remote western Amazon town of Sao Gabriel da Cachoeira, Lula said that military engineering units would do the work if private companies wouldn't.

"The whole world looks at the Amazon with envy, because it's Brazilian, and discusses the question of climate based on the Brazilian rain forest that we have preserved," he said. "Instead of coveting our jungle, it would be better for the developed world to start planting trees that they have destroyed for centuries."

In a speech released by the presidential palace, Lula said he decided to make the announcement on National Tree Day and in the poor western Amazon to "redress a debt the Brazilian state has with Indians."

The funds will come from the office of Indian Affairs and the National Health Foundation, the statement said.

Those offices will set the boundaries of 127 Indian territories and pay 9,000 families of rural workers occupying those lands.

Brazil today has 615 recognized Indian reservations, covering 12.5 percent of the country's area.

Lula urged native communities and authorities to "keep alert" and make sure the work is concluded, because private companies aren't interested in benefiting remote communities.

"If no construction company wants to do it, our armed forces will do this work," Lula said. "Nobody will blackmail us."

Brazil has some 730,000 Indians, according to the most recent census, belonging to about 220 different ethnic groups that speak 180 languages.
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