An Indian woman who says she was captured in the jungle and sold into forced labor as a girl became a member of Paraguay's Cabinet on Monday, pledging to improve life for the South American nation's indigenous population.
Path-breaking President Fernando Lugo formally named Margarita Mbywangi minister of indigenous affairs as the former Roman Catholic bishop began setting up his government following his inauguration on Friday, which ended 61 years of rule by the Colorado Party.
The 46-year-old Ache chief, a mother of three who is studying for her high school diploma, becomes the first indigenous person to oversee Indian affairs in Paraguay following a career as an activist defending the lands of her people, a group of several hundred who until recently were nearly all hunter-gatherers.
"When I was a girl, 4 years old, the whites kidnapped me in the jungle and I was sold several times to families of hacienda owners. They sent me to school, so I can read and write," she told local Channel 2 television.
She said her masters told her that she was an Indian and began to seek her origins "until I found my people in the community of Chupapou," she said.
The strongest opposition to Mbywangi has come from other Indian leaders who say they fear she will side with her own people in disputes over land or will be manipulated by non-Indian advisers.
Mbywangi promised to meet with those who opposed her appointment to ease their concerns.
"We are immediately going to help colleagues from different communities who are experiencing a difficult situation due to lack of potable water, food and clothing," she told the television station.
She said she also would begin to work on legalizing Indian titles to lands that sometimes have been claimed by outsiders, as well as to conserve the forests. "For the Indian, the forest is his mother, his life, his present and future," she said.
Roughly 90,000 Paraguayans say they belong to one of the country's approximately 400 Indian communities, according to government figures.
Indigenous cultural influence runs deep in the impoverished country of 6.2 million people, where the Guarani tongue is widely spoken.
