The Aripuana Park and the Polonoroeste Programme

The Polonoroeste programme is a World Bank-funded colonisation project in central Brazil. This document looks at the indigenous peoples of the Aripuana Park which lies in the path of the development plan. The authors, anthropologists who have lived with the Cinta Larga and Surui Indians of the Park for many years, argue that the Programme is contributing to and exacerbating a situation which already exists in Brazil as a whole. The inefficient bureaucratic state machinery together with a society riddled with injustice to indigenous peoples, is working through the world Bank to futher demoralise and destroy the Indians.