Paraguay's Guarani Indians are killing themselves at an alarming rate, 25 times more frequently than the rest of the rural population. Most suicides have been reported in a cluster of Guarani communities near the Brazilian border. In one town, nine suicides were reported among 450 residents last year; in another, with a population of only 115, seven Guarani killed themselves in the same period. Four suicides occurred in May 1994 in three other communities.

The deaths in Paraguay are part of a wave of suicides in Guarani communities throughout South America's southern cone. The Consehlo Indigenista Missionario, a Brazilian Catholic relief agency, reports high rates of suicide among Guarani in Brazil as well. In 1995 alone, 56 suicides occurred among the 21,000 Guarani and closely related Kaiowa near the Paraguayan borden Suicide rates in these communities have increased sixfold, from a yearly average of 5.3 in the 1980s to 33 in the 1990s. Today, the annual rate of suicide among all Guarani is over 1.5 per 1000. In contrast, the rate among non-Indians is one in 25,000.

The suicides follow a clear pattern. Most occur among young people; almost half the suicides reported were adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18. Two-thirds of the deaths were young men and women between 12 and 24. The rate declined with age, with adults over 36 accounting for only a tenth of the deaths. Almost three-quarters of the Guarani and Kaiowa killed themselves by hanging. The majority of the remaining deaths were accomplished by ingesting poison, primarily herbicides and pesticides used in commercial agriculture.

What is causing this devastating plague of self-annihilation among indigenous people? The clearest reason behind the deaths is the grinding poverty and alienation suffered by the Guarani and Kaiowa, caused in turn by land loss and deforestation.

The 50,000 Guarani live on small plots scattered throughout the border regions of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina. At the time of the Iberian conquest, over a million Guarani dominated the forests from the Atlantic coast to the Parana River; however, European disease soon decimated the Guarani population. Military campaigns reduced the population even further. In the last decades, the area's forests have been cleared for the burgeoning agricultural economy. Agrobusinesses expanded across the Parana plateau in the 1980s, clearing Guarani land for cattle pasture and soybeans for the thriving export economy. The privatization of land forced hundreds of small Guarani hamlets onto the few parcels that remained.

The Paraguayan government attempted to find land for indigenous communities, but reservations were invariably too small and infertile for traditional production. National law gives all indigenous families rights to at least 20 hectares, but the amount of land actually acquired rarely meets this ideal. The small acreages force Guarani out of hunting and subsistence production into intensive and unsustainable commercial agriculture. Moreover, the land they receive has usually been cleared and abandoned by loggers or farmers. Shorn of its wealth, the soil produces little.

Guarani in Brazil fare even worse. The government there has recognized only 12 of the 61 Guarani communities in Brazil and, in total, the 25,000 Guarani and Kaiowa of that country control only 44,000 hectares. This leaves the average family less than two hectares for houses, crops and domestic animals, far less than the 50 hectares needed for farming.

As Guarani communities lose their land, they become dependent on a market economy over which they have little power. Guarani who previously supplemented their farming with hunting and fishing are forced to cultivate cotton and tobacco in the tired soil. When profits are insufficient, they turn to labor on nearby ranches and cane farms; men work as field hands, women as prostitutes. They work for whatever employers will offer and pay the high prices charged by company stores.

This pattern of employment disrupts Guarani communities. Migrant workers abandon their families to seek work, while indigenous leaders lose influence over their communities to non-Indian employers. Individuals and families are pulled away from reservations to live tenuously on the edges of nearby towns.

Social disruption of Guarani communities is at the root of the high suicide rates. Anomie manifests itself in a chain of drinking, fighting, homicide and suicide in any of the small market towns where Guarani collect their wages. Alcohol may be limited, even rare, on cash-poor Guarani reservations, but before returning to their communities laborers get drunk on the rough cane liquor that is often a portion of their pay. Problems are never far behind. On the Dourados reservation, a young man named Andre Paulo got drunk with his friends one night and complained about how hard life was without a job. He was found hanging from a tree the next morning.

In addition to the social problems created by poverty, political and religious groups disrupt Guarani communities. In a series of oral histories of Guarani in Dourados, Bom Meihy points out that in addition to land, indigenous groups need social and political space to manage their own affairs. Government bureaucrats and rural police interfere in the community, undermining the indigenous institutions that give Guarani life structure and meaning.

Evangelical missionaries may be another cause of suicide. Missionaries purchase land badly needed by Guarani groups, then exhort the residents with claims that indigenous beliefs are demonic. Austrian anthropologist Georg Grunberg notes that missionaries have a strong presence in three of the four Paraguayan Guarani communities with the highest rates of suicide. Grunberg reports, 'These missionaries know that the disorder caused by the presence of Christians increases alcoholism and suicide, but consider it the price to be paid for salvation."

Newspaper and government reports imply that Guarani suicide is a unique, quasi-religious phenomenon. For example, an article in London's The Guardian a few years ago was entitled, "Guarani Die to Keep Faith with the Great Father." In fact, the demographics of Guarani suicide suggest a pattern similar to suicide epidemics in other areas of the world, including American suburban society. Psychologists point out that suicide seems to have a contagious quality among teens. The suicide of one frustrated, fearful and impulsive young person sets off a chain reaction among others. As already noted, Guarani suicides strike adolescents and young adults most severely, with the average victim between the ages of 16 and 23. These youths are suffering the difficulties and anxieties of finding their way in the world. Their task is made more difficult by the bleak situation of most Guarani communities.

After world attention focused on the Guarani suicide rate in 1995, the international community and the Brazilian government moved quickly to define the problem. The Interamerican Human Rights Commission of the Organization of American States (OAS) paid a highly publicized visit to the Guarani along the Paraguay-Brazil border. In addition, the Brazilian Indian agency FUNI began an intensive survey of health and welfare among the five Guarani communities in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul.

The Paraguayan government has shown less concern for the suicides and has done little to improve conditions for the Guarani. The national office of indigenous affairs, the Instituto Nacional del Indigena (INDI), has neither studied the situation nor made an effort to secure additional land in the most affected areas. The lack of response can be attributed at least in part to the nation's current political situation. The Paraguayan government is fraught by internecine warfare and beset by growing conflicts over land redistribution.

Paraguay's government has been in crisis since it enacted a new democratic constitution in 1992. Former President Juan Carlos Wasmosy, who left office in 1998, was besieged by an unruly Congress and dissension within his own Colorado Party. He survived the most serious threat to civilian rule in April 1997, when army commander General Lino Oviedo defied a constitutional ban on military involvement in civilian government to challenge his authority. Wasmosy survived the showdown by rallying the other branches of the military to jail the dissident general. His successor, Raul Cubas, freed Oviedo, but was forced to resign after the assassination of the country's vice president in March 1999.

Guarani needs for new land are overshadowed by increasing demands from Paraguay's growing mass of landless peasants. When longtime dictator Alfredo Stroessner was ousted in 1989, the new government was quick to offer land to all who would work it. Over half a million hectares of land were purchased from large landholders, but only a tenth went to the landless. In 1992, 250,000 peasant families remained without land, and most others were working small, worn-out plots.

By 1995, the Wasmosy government had switched its rhetoric from land reform to an emphasis on landholders' rights. Peasant frustration quickly turned into violence. Conflict between peasants and the government erupted as land shortages were accompanied by falling cotton prices. Peasants marched on Asuncion, Paraguay's capital city, while in rural areas violent confrontations occurred between squatters and police sent to dislodge them. Local political bosses also entered into violent clashes with squatters who got in their way.

As the federal government drags its feet on redistributing land, peasants and Guarani will inevitably come into conflict over the few remaining parcels. Squatters have invaded many of Paraguay's reservations looking for a small patch of forest to clear and farm. In one well-documented case in 1994, the Guarani denounced 30 peasant families inside the Guyrapare reservation. The campesinos in turn requested that the Instituto de Bienestar Rural expropriate the parcel for their colony. By 1995, peasants had built 200 houses on the land. The struggle continues.

Outsiders' responses to Guarani suicide often draw on common stereotypes of indigenous peoples. The larger world tends to believe that Indians are fatalistic and acquiesce quietly to their disenfranchisement. Few Guarani, however, resign themselves passively to their fate; in fact, many Guarani communities have taken direct action to reclaim their lands. In several recent cases, their struggle has been successful.

In 1992, the closing of the floodgates of the Itaipu Dam on the Parana River inundated the lands of adjacent Guarani communities. In response to Guarani complaints, the binational corporation that owns the dam provided the 60 families with a mere 240 hectares, without potable water. In June 1995, the community lost patience with the endless negotiations and occupied an additional 623 hectares. The Brazilian director of the power plant finally promised to provide 1,500 hectares suitable for the establishment of a community, as well as farm land and drinking water until the new land is cleared. The Guarani are hopeful, but cautious. Previous promises have gone unfulfilled.

In a second recent case, a Guarani community in southern Brazil occupied 2,850 hectares owned by the Zaffari corporation, a major marketing firm. The Guarani of Barro do Ouro were evicted from their land earlier in this century, although the corporation never legitimized its claim to the area. That didn't stop Zaffari from expelling Guarani residents with threats and violence. Without land, the Guarani of Barro do Ouro were forced to live precariously in urban areas. In 1988, the Office of the Attorney General and the Human Rights Commission of the state of Rio Grande do Sul took up the case, but eight years of negotiation failed to resolve it. In November 1996, Guarani calling themselves Nemboaty Guassu (The Great Gathering) began a highly publicized occupation of the territory. They surveyed its borders, opened new trails and planted crops. According to the group's leader, Manoel Wera, this was the only way to ensure their tenure to the land. "Since FUNAI and the government have not demarcated the area, we're going to do it," he explained.

Guarani throughout the region continue to occupy disputed land, often at great personal risk. In one recent case in Paraguay, 136 Mbya-Guarani families chose to return to their traditional lands in the Department of Caaguazu, despite the fact that a latifundista held title to the 34,340 hectares in question. The communities requested recognition by INDI, but as their petition foundered in the national bureaucracy the titleholders responded brutally. The Guarani were threatened, their houses were burned, their goods stolen and their men beaten. They still await INDI's decision.

In another case in May 1997, Amnesty International reported that the Guarani community of Jarara won rights to its land after a decade of litigation. Soon after, however, the Brazilian government reversed the court decision and ordered the residents to cede the land to a cattle rancher. One Guarani leader responded in a voice that speaks for indigenous people throughout this conflicted region: "The government's decision could lead to conflict, mortal violence, or suicide of those who choose to die rather than leave their primordial lands."

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Guarani youths in Rincon Uno, Paraguay. Young people account for most suicides in Guarani communities. Photos courtesy of Tammy Bowers.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Guarani communities that lose their land are forced into a market economy in which they have little power. Here, a woman rolls cigars as part of a church-sponsored microenterprise project.

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By Richard Reed

Richard Reed is an associate professor of sociology and anthropology at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.