Jorge Basilago*
17th September 2024
Moving stealthily through the region, courteous and distant, for a little over a century, the Mennonites arrived preceded by their faith and their reputation as peaceful, hard-working foreigners who were averse to violence. But the impacts they collectively generated have not been as insubstantial as their personal behavior might suggest: this religious congregation, internationally famous for its traditional practices, has not been as traditional or as peaceful when occupying large areas of land in Latin America. The Mennonite faithful know (or have learned) how to ignore the rules to obtain plots in protected areas; they appeal to arguments or various kinds to change the use of forested land to agriculture; they deforest and use agrochemicals despite prohibitions; and are as successful commercially as they are in avoiding the legal consequences of their actions.
Nor has their coexistence with the Latin American Indigenous Peoples who often inhabit part of the territories occupied or claimed by Mennonites, always been peaceful. Almost without losing their studied friendly gesture, the settlers tend to persist until they achieve their objectives: displacing, assimilating or using the labor force of their Indigenous neighbors as an instrument for their own expansion.
In a report published by the Peruvian publication Ojo Público, Elva Cruz Nunta – a leader of the Shipibo-Konibo community of Caimito, in the country’s Amazon region– points out that the Mennonite communities “are destroying the forests, medicinal plants, and also the animals.” “Things can’t go on like this”, he adds. But perhaps the most serious thing about the Mennonites’ commercial strategies, both in the acquisition and the use of land, is that they can also generate impacts on Indigenous Peoples in Isolation and Initial Contact (PIACI). Examples include the case of the Ayoreo of the Paraguayan-Bolivian Gran Chaco, whose territory has been subjected to continuous incursions by groups of farmers, including the Mennonites. “They arrive with a semi-traditional image and use religion to anesthetize the communities, but they immediately apply capitalist practices such as the use of cutting-edge technology, machinery and drones to control their lands,” explains Tagüide Picanerai, a leader of the Ayoreo-Totobiegosode People in Paraguay.
A peaceful but damaging expansion
The Mennonite movement originated in the sixteenth century, with the Dutch priest Menno Simons, as a conservative, pacifist version of Anabaptist Christianity. Very soon, religious persecution and political restrictions prompted the Mennonites to migrate to different parts of Europe, from where they left for the Americas a few centuries later: their first rural colony was established in Argentina, in 1877. However, it was not until the beginning of the 20th century that they began the more serious and sustained regional expansion that continues to the present day.
Although their migratory mobility makes it difficult to identify the total Mennonite population in the region, recent research has indicated it could reach some 200 thousand people, distributed in 214 colonies in nine countries (Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay). Mennonites are, however, also present outside their rural communities, as less conservative groups settled in the urban areas of each country.
The total amount of territory occupied by these Mennonite communities throughout Latin America, is estimated to be in the order of 3.9 million hectares, although without absolute certainty: “This estimate does not reflect the land owned individually by Mennonites outside the colonies, “which in some places, such as the Paraguayan Chaco, represent another several hundred thousand hectares,” explains the team responsible for the study “Pious Pioneers: The Expansion of Mennonite Colonies in Latin America”, published by McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
In fact, “Many Latin American countries invited, facilitated and even financed (Mexico, for example) the arrival of contingents of Mennonites who would clear ‘virgin’ or ‘unused’ lands, generally forests that were given to them as property, among other privileges previously agreed to” noted the Peruvian academic and agronomist and forestry engineer Marc Dourojeanni in the above mentioned essay. Among other features, agreements guaranteed the settlers a large amount of autonomy such as: the possibility of educating their children outside the official system; maintaining their own language and religion in the settlements; and exempting young people – even those born in their adoptive countries – from military service. And when local governments modified these conditions, settlers would look for new areas in which to settle.
In fact, “Many Latin American countries invited, facilitated and even financed (Mexico, for example) the arrival of contingents of Mennonites who would clear ‘virgin’ or ‘unused’ lands, generally forests that were given to them as property, among other privileges previously agreed to” noted the Peruvian academic and agronomist and forestry engineer Marc Dourojeanni in the above mentioned essay. Among other features, agreements guaranteed the settlers a large amount of autonomy such as: the possibility of educating their children outside the official system; maintaining their own language and religion in the settlements; and exempting young people – even those born in their adoptive countries – from military service. And when local governments modified these conditions, settlers would look for new areas in which to settle.
“Many Latin American countries invited, facilitated and even financed (Mexico, for example) the arrival of contingents of Mennonites who would clear ‘virgin’ or ‘unused’ lands, generally forests that were given to them as property, among other privileges previously agreed to”
And most of those privileges have never been removed. In fact, with time, experience, specialized advice, and a notable lack of scruples, the Mennonites have managed to increase them. One of the strategies used to “seduce” the authorities in that regard, was a result of their presence in areas far from urban centers and lacking almost all basic services: wealthy Mennonites built roads, bridges, landing strips for small planes, and many other works that, while concealing the absence of the State for their neighbors, also allowed them to “relax” the controls and supervision of their own activities. “The Mennonites’ knowledge of national legislation is nothing new. Always surrounded by advisors, they position their actions within the gaps and opportunities offered by different countries,” stressed Peruvian journalist Iván Brehaut, in one of his reports on the subject.
The settlers have also learned to take advantage of corruption within the various public institutions, as a way to obtain land through abbreviated procedures and the use of front men, and have cut down large swathes of forest in conservation areas without being subjected to significant fines or litigation. “It is well known that regional governments have used rural land titles to ‘clean up’ State property that had primary forests,” states researcher Yvette Sierra Praeli. Language, religious, and cultural barriers have also allowed them to feign ignorance of the limitations on operating heavy machinery, sowing genetically modified seeds, or applying chemical fertilizers to their crops.
On the other hand, it is true that the main phase of Mennonite expansion in Latin America (1920-1960) partially coincided with the rise of Latin American developmentalism. And in this context, the transforming “unproductive” lands (even if they were virgin forests) into agricultural or livestock enclaves was not only deemed desirable by governments, but also a practice well regarded by the societies of the time.
Traditionalists, and obstinate with regard to changes that could affect their profits, the Anabaptist communities have maintained that perspective until today. “They are convinced their actions in the forests are in line with what God asks of human beings: it’s about faith in the word of God. It is the way they understand the Genesis diktat to ‘dominate the earth’, and they interpret it literally,” said Laura Vargas, coordinator of the Peruvian chapter of the Interreligious Initiative for Tropical Forests (IRI).
As a consequence, the amount of damage they cause is extensive and profound, and continues without pause despite the absence of any apparent conflict. Above and beyond the history of non-transparent maneuvers to acquire land or change land, the Mennonites have left at least several hundred thousand hectares deforested throughout the region, as well as a still undetermined number of other environmental impacts.
Threatening neighbors
For a number of reasons, for example their aggressive and utilitarian use of the environment, Mennonites have been at constant risk of conflict with the Indigenous Peoples of the Latin American country where they have settled. This is true not only because the link between Indigenous communities and nature is clearly different, but also because both groups vary in their understanding of coexistence, work, and the commercial exchanges that take place in their shared space.
At the end of 2022, a journalistic investigation denounced that in the Bolivian department of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, the agricultural expansion of the Mennonite congregation had “cornered” the Community Territories of Origin (TCO) of Lomerío, inhabited by the Monkoxi nation. According to local community member Marco Vera “There are risks because San Antonio de Lomerío is Indigenous territory, and is protected by law. In Lomerío our territory was taken care of for years, and there is fear around the arrival of Mennonites. Some of the risks are deforestation and arson fires,”
A little further north, in the Amazon region of Peru, since mid-2023 the Shipibo-Konibo, Ashaninkas and Asheninkas peoples have suffered a number of Mennonite intrusions into their territory without state authorities showing interest in stopping them. One even had support from the police and the Ucayali Regional Directorate of Agriculture (DRAU). Apparently, these actions were a response to demands the Indigenous People presented to the Peruvian government in the so-called Masisea Declaration, calling for an end to “deforestation, the murder of Indigenous leaders and for the recognition of Indigenous Ecological Areas.”
“The land grab in the Peruvian Amazon by this foreign community is out of control. Seven years after the first families of this religious group began to irregularly occupy our ancestral territories; the Mennonites have cut down at least 4,000 hectares of jungle without authorization,” stated the Amazonian Peoples of Peru in another statement.
During Colombia’s internal armed conflict, many Sikuani Indigenous People were also forced to abandon their ancestral lands in the department of Meta. When they tried to return, they found the region in the hands of other owners, including a Mennonite colony. The litigation they launched in order to recover their land, with the support of the National Commission of Indigenous Territories, has recently seen some progress. An announcement made by the Colombian Ministry of the Interior in September 2023, stated: “[…] it was possible for the lawyers representing the Mennonite Community to open up the possibility of offering the lands for sale the land necessary to overcome the situation that currently exists on the properties that are the subject of the controversy”.
However, in April 2024 the Sikuani were still facing restricted access to the disputed area (around 58 thousand hectares, distributed in four communities: Barrulia, Tsabilonia, Iwitsulibo and San Rafael-Guarrojo), including ceremonial sites where the remains of their ancestors are buried. “Two years ago the Mennonites began to enter little by little. “We couldn’t say anything to them because there are people behind them,” Alexander Álvarez, governor of the Iwitsulibo community, which comprises 80 families, told the EFE agency.
“In the final analysis, the Ayoreo People do not need the Mennonites or the government of Paraguay to ‘protect’ their territories,” said Brian Keane, director of the indigenous rights organization Land is Life. “The Ayoreo are the only ones who protect their ancestral lands, what they need is for their rights to self-determination, to land and resources, to be recognized and respected.”
The Ayoreo: a classic case…
Of all the relationships the Mennonites maintain with Indigenous Peoples in Latin America, perhaps the most illustrative case is that of the Ayoreo People of the Gran Chaco of Paraguay, above all due to the diversity of tactics applied during almost seven decades of Mennonite presence in the area. Tactics which included the production of printed and audiovisual content as an alleged “endorsement” of their perspective. But the initial contacts were more violent: between the 1940s and 1950s, the first contacts between both groups led to confrontations, with several deaths on both sides.
“That moment of contact, which in reality is a long process, is something extremely traumatic. It is forced by the missionaries who prohibited continuing to remember the territories and also prohibited returning to the territories. They tried to prohibit rituals and the cultivation of our own spirituality,” stated Benno Glauser, member of the Amotocodie Initiative, an organization that works to defend the human, cultural and territorial rights of Ayoreo groups in voluntary isolation.
The minutes of the Regional Seminar on Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation and Initial Contact in the Amazon, show that even in 2006 missionary and evangelizing activity was, “a threat: […] Despite the fact that the act was approved by the State Attorney General’s Office, the idea still persists among Mennonite settlers that it is necessary to contact and evangelize isolated groups. […]it is also evident that the active presence of these missionaries constitutes a threat to the delicate situation and the rights of self-determination of the Ayoreo groups in initial contact.”
The Mennonite territorial advance has not slowed, and today the congregation controls approximately 1.8 million hectares throughout Paraguay, mostly destined for intensive agriculture and livestock farming. While the Paraguayan Government has not openly promoted this expansionist and environmentally damaging policy, the forced sedentarization of several thousand Ayoreo, forced to live in religious reductions in miserable conditions, was functional in other ways: the construction of “development” projects. The construction of the Bioceanic route, whose objective is to facilitate the extraction of the Chaco’s natural resources, would not otherwise have been possible.
Due to indiscriminate logging, the use of agrochemicals and other environmentally harmful practices, biodiversity loss, loss of water sources and increasingly brutal and rapid cycles of drought and floods have been seen. But, despite everything, the Ayoreo in isolation refused to abandon their territories: currently, at least six groups live in the immensity of the Chaco and reject contact with Western civilization. Since 1993, with the support of some Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), the Ayoreo-Totobiegosode in initial contact launched a territorial demand for 550 thousand hectares.
That process received a positive ruling at the end of the decade, but in 2013, the numerous violations of the established limits led the Indigenous People to request the intervention of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). “the Paraguayan government is now being very careful with this case, because its past history has been negative in all the processes reported to the IACHR and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (CoIDH)”, said Tagüide Picanerai, adding that his community has strong points such as the preservation of its native language, and having “little contact with the Mennonites,” unlike other ancestral peoples such as the Nivaclé or the Guaraní, who exchange goods and services with the missionaries.
The Indigenous leader also warned that the Mennonites have learned to weave political networks, a fact that in practice guarantees them a clear advantage over the Indigenous Peoples in any negotiation mediated by public authorities: “Over the last 20 or 30 years, the Mennonites have familiarized themselves with the structure of the State and today have representatives in both legislative chambers. There are not many of them, but by uniting with other blocks on the Paraguayan right, the non-Indigenous interests form a majority,” described Picanerai.
A latent threat, in this sense, is the proposed legislation that would place the Ayoreo lands in a ‘trust’; one of the signatories is Senator Orlando Penner, of Mennonite extraction. Although the argument is that this will contribute to the “protection and preservation” of these areas, Indigenous organizations suspect the existence of other less congenial intentions, such as the discriminatory and fallacious notion about the inability of Indigenous Peoples to put their territories to “good use” territory.
“It was the missionaries who made it impossible for us keep living in our territory. […] It is as if the missionaries had cleansed the territory that belonged to the Ayoreo people with their evangelization. “So it was easy for cattle ranchers to buy almost all of our territory and some powerful whites just grabbed our land,” said Mateo Sobode Chiquenoi, president of the Union of Ayoreo Natives of Paraguay (UNAP) in an investigation carried out by the Amotocodie Initiative. But, despite all the assaults, the Ayoreo remain, between denial and harassment, in defense of what has always been their home.
* Jorge Basilago is a journalist and writer. He has published in various media outlets in Latin America, and is Co-author of the books “On the shore of silence (Life and work of Osiris Rodríguez Castillos-2015)” and “Grillo constant (History and validity of the musicalized poetry of Mario Benedetti-2018)”.
Translation: Gerard Coffey
Photos: Unsplash, Land is Life, WRI/Global Forest Watch.
This report was produced with the suport of Land is Life https://www.landislife.org/
