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From ICNDec. 13, 2010
Bishop Erwin Kräutler awarded 'Alternative Nobel Prize' Picture: Karl Gabor
Catholic Bishop Erwin Kräutler has accepted the Right Livelihood
Award, known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize”, for his work defending the rights
of Brazilian tribes.
He was honored “for a lifetime of work for the human and environmental rights
of indigenous peoples and for his tireless efforts to save the Amazon forest
from destruction”, at the awards ceremony held last Monday at the Swedish
parliament.
In a hard-hitting acceptance speech, Kräutler highlighted the Guarani Indians’
“pain, despair and insecurity” and said they are “confined to small areas, their
young people see no prospect for their future and the suicide rate among them is
alarmingly high…The current government is ignoring this cruel genocide in
progress before their eyes”.
Bishop Kräutler has long fought for the rights of the Indians of the Xingu
region of the Brazilian Amazon, who are now threatened by the Belo Monte
mega-dam.
The bishop described Belo Monte as “a project that never took into consideration
the legitimate rights and preoccupations of the population of the Xingu”. He
said that indigenous peoples “know very well that they will not survive if
Amazonia continues to be disrespected and razed. And they know that planet Earth
will suffer irreversible consequences by this cruel destruction. This will be
the true apocalypse.”
He stated that “the principal problem [in the Amazon] has to do with the
ownership and use of land”, and that “rural violence is linked to the
concentration of land ownership and the most shameful impunity with which the
criminals are honored. They kill and nothing happens!”
Survival International’s director, Stephen Corry, said: “Bishop Kräutler
routinely puts his life at risk by speaking out for Indians in Brazil. They need
friends like him, just as the churches too need more like him to carry forward
the tradition of working for the oppressed. His winning the alternative Nobel
prize is fantastic recognition for a great unsung hero.”
Bishop Kräutler is Bishop of the Xingu region and President of the Indigenist
Missionary Council (CIMI) of the Catholic Church in Brazil.
Previous winners of the Right Livelihood Award include Survival International
and the Bushman organization, the First People of the Kalahari. See more
at http://www.rightlivelihood.org/krautler.html
