By IANS
Brasilia : Brazil’s indigenous Cinta-Larga community has set free a UN official and four others they had kidnapped earlier to press the community’s demand for compensation for lands acquired for a proposed dam, and lifted a blockade that trapped some 350 construction workers, Spanish news agency EFE reported Wednesday.
The group freed David Martin Castro, a Spanish citizen who works for the Geneva-based UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Rondonia state Attorney General Reginaldo Pereira da Trindade, his girlfriend, and two officials of the Brazilian National Indian Foundation (Funai), ending the hostage crisis.
The captors freed the five officials after “difficult negotiations” conducted by the Funai president Marcio Meira.
The indigenous tribal group also cleared the blockades the protestors set up four days ago around the area where five hydro-electric dams were under construction, allowing some 350 construction workers to go.
The company responsible for the construction had offered $2.4 million as compensation to 11 members of the Cintra-Larga community who lost their livelihoods due to the project. But they have rejected that plan.