Paraguay: Intl. backing for indigenous land claims

After 20 years of fighting for their ancestral lands in Paraguay's northwestern Chaco region, the Xákmok Kásek indigenous community's case has reached the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The impoverished community made up of 65 families of the Sanapaná people–one of 20 indigenous groups in this land-locked South American country - live in harsh conditions on 1,000 hectares of land granted by the state. The authorities promised to restore to them the 10,700 hectares they claim in the province of Presidente Hayes, which has one of the highest concentrations of Amerindians in the country. But in the face of the non-fulfillment of that promise, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) brought the case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on Jul. 3. The IACHR, which received the first complaint filed in the case in 2001, asked the Inter-American Court to order the state to grant land to the Xákmok Kásek indigenous community, and to provide them with healthcare and nutritional and educational services. The Commission also asked the Court to order the state to pay the community reparations "for material and immaterial damages," and to pay the legal costs and expenses incurred by the victims in bringing the case to court in Paraguay and in the inter-American human rights system.