South America
Brazil Indians release U.N. official, other hostages
By Reuters
Dec 11, 2007, 23:08

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazilian Indians released a United Nations official and four other people they were holding hostage on Tuesday after meeting with the head of the country's indigenous affairs agency, a government spokesman said.

A group of Cinta Larga Indians seized the hostages on Saturday on the remote Roosevelt reservation in western Brazil to demand the eviction of wildcat diamond miners from their lands and an end to what they say is police harassment.

The hostages included Spanish citizen David Martins Castro, a U.N. human rights official, a federal prosecutor, his wife, the regional administrator of the Indian affairs agency Funai, and their driver.

Martins Castro was visiting the area to write a report on the Indians' situation.

A Funai spokesman said the hostages were released late Tuesday after the agency's president, Marcio Meira, met with tribal leaders in the region. The spokesman could not immediately say if an agreement had been reached to meet the Indians' demands.

The vast region in western Brazil is home to about 2,000 Cinta Larga and is a hotbed of confrontation between Indians and wildcat diamond miners. In 2004, Cinta Larga Indians killed 29 miners, known as garimpeiros in Portuguese, in a clash.

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