This 1972 photo shows the forced capture and relocation of the Aché people in Paraguay. Photo © A. Kohmann/Cultural Survival

The National Aché Federation, an organization that represents the Aché people, has filed a lawsuit against the government of Paraguay.

In the 1970s, the Aché were forcibly removed from their homelands and placed on a farm where many were beaten, sexually assaulted and sold into slavery. Many others died -- estimates range from 38 percent to 68 percent of the pre-contact population.

“We’re asking for justice – there was torture, rape, beatings," Ceferino Kreigi, an Aché representative, said in a Survival International press release. "We can no longer bear the pain we have suffered.”

A German anthropologist named Mark Münzel and Survival International published reports that detailed the treatment the Aché received. But the Paraguayan government denied that genocide occurred.

The lawsuit was filed in Argentina under the theory that the Aché people cannot receive justice in their own country.

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South American tribe sues over historic genocide (Survival International 7/2)