E/CN.4/1996/72/Add.1 page 9 the regular law enforcement agencies; 6/ these events are not unrelated to the purpose of the mission. Other relevant situations are the conditions of detention for ordinary prisoners, whose uprisings have often been harshly put down and the disputes over land tenure, which often lead to massacres of peasants or Indians by militias in the pay of the landowners, or by pioneers. 7/ 24. Finally, the Special Rapporteur’s mission comes at just the right moment to update the information on Brazil available to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, since Brazil’s last periodic report was in 1986. II. RACISM AND RACIAL DISCRIMINATION THROUGH DENIAL 25. It is generally stated officially that there is no racism or racial discrimination in Brazil because the Constitution explicitly prohibits it and because miscegenation is a fundamental aspect of the Brazilian population and an essential component of the country’s multiracial democracy. A. Preliminary observations 26. The appearance of ethnic and racial cohesion in Brazil conceals substantial inequalities between Whites, Indians, people of mixed parentage and Blacks, which are a legacy of earlier times. The situation is exacerbated by the unequal distribution of wealth. Although biological and cultural intermingling can be seen as a factor conducive to integration and stability that has helped to curb social tensions, it is also a cause of social stratification and of ethnoregional imbalance. 27. With the advent of multiracial democracy, the Brazilian authorities appear to be resolved to tackle the ethnic and racial issue directly and to usher in a society based on the equal dignity of all of its members. The political will exists, and constitutional, legal and administrative steps have been taken to that end. B. The Constitution prohibits racism and racial discrimination 28. Officially, "Racism does not exist in Brazil. Brazil is the country with the second largest number of Blacks in the world, after Nigeria. Brazil is a multiracial country and a multiracial democracy; it is not like the United States, or like South Africa under apartheid; it has no tradition of racial hatred". However, it is acknowledged that there does exist "economic, and even social discrimination, against Blacks, Indians and people of mixed parentage: these people are not discriminated against because they are members of particular ethnic groups, but because they are poor". 29. "This is not discrimination; it is a result of Brazil’s history. Brazil shows no obvious signs of racial, ethnic, religious or ideological discrimination. This is why the Government emphasizes education for all, for the entire population and all the different social strata." It is also firmly pointed out that the Constitution prohibits and condemns racial discrimination in all its forms. Title I of the Constitution of 1988 8/ states that Brazil "constitutes a democratic State under the rule of law [which] is based [...]