Brazil's Indians appeal to Pope for help

SAO PAULO, May 11 (Reuters) Brazilian Indians complained in an open letter to Pope Benedict that the government threatened their livelihoods with big infrastructure projects and ignored their demands for a return of their ancestral lands.

''We want to transmit to your Holiness a little of our anguish and hope, counting on your friendship and solidarity in constructing a fair and harmonious continent the way our forefathers did during centuries,'' the Indians said yesterday in a letter to the Pope.

Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns was to deliver the letter to Pope Benedict, according to the Indian organisation Cimi.

The letter said Indians had suffered a ''process of genocide'' over centuries that included persecution, land invasions and the sterilisation of Indian women.

It said assassination of Indian leaders by people who invaded their land was still happening.

The government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was endangering the forests, communities and culture of the Indians with planned hydroelectric plants and roads, according to the letter signed by the Indian organisation APIB.

Brazil has between 450,000 and 750,000 Indians speaking 180 different languages. While a few inhabit large reserves in the vast Amazon forest, others are crowded in small reserves with few opportunities to make a living.

The letter said Brazil's Indians had been supported by the Church and numerous missionaries in their peaceful struggle for their historical rights.

Reuters JK SBA VP0412