Brazil's Guarani Indian tribe, one of South America's most ancient tribes, is currently in the midst of a genocide stemming from mercenaries hired by land owners and an increase in suicides, according to the Daily Mail. Over the years, the tribe's numbers in Brazil have dwindled from 400,000 to the 50,000 that remain today, according to a study published by Conselho Indigenista Missionário. Although the tribe has populations in Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia, their numbers are also decreasing in these areas.
Since the 1950s, when the fight for land began, the suicide rate for the Guarani Indian tribe has gone up to 34 times the national average. Young tribe members commit most of the suicides, typically by hanging, according to The Guardian.
"The principle reason is their lack of land," said Michael Nolan, a U.S. human rights lawyer. "The Guarani people think their relationship with the universe is broken when they are separated from their land. They feel they are a broken people."
Tonico Benites, a Guarani ethnologist, echoes these sentiments.
"With no land to maintain their ancient cultures, the Guarani-Kaiowá feel ashamed and humiliated. Many feel sad, insecure, unstable, scared, hungry and miserable," he said. "They have lost their crops and their hope for a better life. They are exploited and enslaved by sugar cane production for alcohol. These conditions of despair and misery cause the epidemic of violence and suicide among the young."
As one of the Brazil World Cup's main sponsors, Coca-Cola has been implicated as a part of the landgrabbing scandal that has led to the "silent genocide," according to Survival International.
"We ask Coca-Cola to consider our suffering," the Guarani tribe wrote in a letter to the company. "We want Coca-Cola to stand beside us and feel our pain and suffering, because the sugar cane is destroying any hope of a future for our children. We ask Coca-Cola to stop buying sugar from Bunge."
