2008-05-06 23:43:00 -

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) - Brazil sent its justice minister and police to a remote Amazon reservation Tuesday to defuse a conflict between indigenous settlers and a rice farmer that has injured 10 people.
Armed guards working for the owner of a rice plantation opened fire on Indians building homes on the Raposa Serra

do Sol Indian reservation. One of 10 people injured by the shooting remains in serious condition, said Dionito de Souza, a Macuxi Indian chief and coordinator of the Roraima Indigenous Council.
«They were building houses on land close to the farm and the gunmen just came shooting,» Souza said in telephone interview.
Farm owner Paulo Cesar Quartiero said his men fired in self-defense after the indigenous settlers refused to leave his property and attacked them with clubs and arrows.
Amateur video footage aired on Globo TV showed hooded gunmen shooting and throwing things that the network described as «homemade bombs» at the Indians.
Justice Minister Tarso Genro flew to the region Tuesday to try to prevent more bloodshed.
About 140 officers from Brazil's elite national security force are already in the region, and additional police will be sent, Federal police spokeswoman Flavia Diniz said. She did not know how many police were en route.

Brazil's government officially recognized the reservation in 2005 _ requiring outsiders to leave.
But owners of six, big rice farms and other settlers have blocked their ouster with violent protests and in court. In April, the Supreme Court ordered the government to suspend an operation to remove settlers until justices could study the issue.