São Paulo, Brazil – During his third inauguration as president of Brazil on January 1, 2023, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was joined at the Palácio do Planalto in Brasília, the official workplace of the president, by a host of leaders meant to symbolize a cross-section of Society Brazilian.
Among them was Chief Raoni Metuktire, the world-renowned protector of the Amazon rainforest and leader of the Kayapo indigenous people who inhabit the lands spanning the northern states of Pará and Mato Grosso.
The message about his presence was clear: the years of neglect and aggression suffered by Brazil’s indigenous communities under former right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro were over. Lula’s return to power was a sign of hope that the government would provide better protections and more rights for Brazil’s 1.7 million indigenous people.
A year and nine months after the chief joined Lula on stage at the inauguration, however, the situation for indigenous people in Brazil remains grim, and violence against them has even increased.
(Ricardo Stuckert/President of Brazil)
According to a July report by the Council of Indigenous Missionaries (Cimi), 208 indigenous people were killed in 2023, up 15% from the 180 killed in 2022. Many of the killings occurred in regions facing land disputes between indigenous communities and farmers, miners or loggers who were encouraged by Bolsonaro’s government to encroach and exploit the land.
Despite the Lula government’s efforts to remove land grabbers from indigenous territory, its creation of the first Ministry of Indigenous Peoples’ Country and its efforts to strengthen government agencies aimed at protecting indigenous peoples—such as the National Indigenous Foundation (Funai ) which was all but destroyed by Bolsonaro – it has failed to curb violence against this population and according to interviews with indigenous leaders, little has actually changed on the ground.
Violence against locals
In June 2022, Brazil’s Javar Valley Indigenous Territory, a patch of rainforest the size of Portugal located on its northern border with Peru, made international headlines when Guardian reporter Dom Phillips and activist Bruno Pereira were shot and killed while reporting from the region.
Two years later and security in the territory remains uncertain.
Eliesio Marubo, a respected indigenous leader and a legal adviser to the Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javar Valley (Univaja) – the same organization Pereira worked for – said Brazil reports that little has changed since Lula took office.
“We have been repeating the same answers to the same questions since 2022,” Marubo said. “Unfortunately, we also have protection problems, we have different mistakes from different sectors of the government, which are nothing but chatter. We have little to no effectiveness at this point and it’s not going to get better.”
The Javar Valley is located at the intersection of important drug trafficking routes from Peru and Colombia to Brazil. Some experts attribute an increase in violence in the region to its increased use by drug gangs. Federal police have said that criminal organizations are using rivers in the region to transport drugs further into Brazil.
(Courtesy of Univaja)
“There are places where the situation is worse than during the Bolsonaro government, which at least said it didn’t like indigenous people,” Marubo complained.
In northeastern Brazil, in the coastal state of Bahia, land disputes between agricultural interests and indigenous communities have intensified in recent years. In many parts of the state, indigenous peoples are locked in multi-year legal battles to determine their territory.
Demarcation is the process of guaranteeing ownership of lands and use of their natural resources to indigenous tribes living on the lands. In force since the country’s 1988 Constitution, new land demarcations were completely halted under Bolsonaro.
(courtesy of Chief Arua)
In Bahia, the Pataxó and Tupinambá people have inhabited the land since before the Portuguese explorer Pedro Alvares Cabral first landed there in 1500. Surprisingly, more than five centuries later, much of their land is not demarcated. An example is the territory of Tupinambá de Olivença, where the demarcation process has dragged on for more than 15 years. Meanwhile, the Pataxó are still waiting for the demarcation of the Comexatibá and Barra Velha do Monte Pascoal lands. In some cases, legal disputes raised by landowners have stalled the demarcation process.
Kâhu Pataxó, president of the Federation of Indigenous Nations of Southern Bahia (FINPAT), said Brazil reports“We have lived in this territory long before it was called the Brazilian state. We existed before the Brazilian state existed. This land is ours and has been for much longer than that since 1500.”
He said the indigenous war in Brazil is similar to ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.
“Our situation is very similar to what happens in the Middle East, where land disputes fuel wars. They attack us with bombs and firearms. We are living in a constant state of civil war,” Kahu said.
As the demarcation process stalls, more violence is erupting in the region.
In January of last year, two young Pataxó, aged 16 and 21, were shot and killed in an ambush on land disputed by Pataxó and local farmers. Twelve days later, a police officer suspected of securing a local landowner was arrested for the crimes.
A month earlier, Pataxó Hã-hã-hãe chief Lucas Kariri-Sapuyá was killed by gunmen who ambushed him on a street in the same area. The attack on the tribal leader was blamed on rural farmers.
The ‘time frame’ law and the failure of land demarcation
Much of the violence that afflicts indigenous people centers around the issue of land use. When lands are formally designated by the government, it is easier to commit resources to protect the territories from land grabbers and provide basic services to the indigenous peoples within the territory.
The country currently has just over 500 demarcated territories, while many more remain in various stages of the demarcation process. Last year, Lula’s government announced eight new land demarcations after a complete moratorium during the Bolsonaro administration.
Read more: Brazil steps up environmental conservation efforts, signs new indigenous land demarcations
“Demarcation guarantees indigenous peoples permanent ownership of their territories, preventing non-indigenous individuals from using the land for large-scale economic activities such as livestock, agriculture or resource extraction,” Dinamam Tuxá, executive coordinator of the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil. (Apib), a group of rights, said Brazil reports.
Tuxá stressed that there is even more urgency for the federal government to work out demarcation issues after Congress passed a controversial “time frame” law in January, which is currently under review by the Supreme Court.
(Courtesy of Brazilian Ministry of Health)
Proposed by conservatives in Congress, the law requires indigenous communities to prove they were occupying the land in 1988, when the new constitution that returned Brazil to democracy after 20 years of military dictatorship took effect. The challenge, however, is that under military rule, indigenous peoples were persecuted and forcibly displaced from their lands, making it difficult for some of them to meet the time frame requirement. Critics say the law is intended to “delegitimize” indigenous land claims, according to Mongabay.
Furthermore, the law allows the government to prioritize national defense over indigenous land rights, even in designated areas. This means that military bases or other infrastructure can be established without consulting the affected communities or Funai.
“People need to understand that we are human, that we have rights and that we are different,” said Tuxá. “I think the federal government needs to be more committed to curbing this wave of violence, as well as concrete positions on demarcation, monitoring and curbing violence against indigenous peoples.”
The Supreme Court has held a series of conciliation hearings to hear from interested parties involved in five lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the time frame law.
These discussions include representatives from the federal government, indigenous leaders, civil society organizations, Congress, as well as representatives from agribusiness interests.
Luís Roberto Barroso, president of the Supreme Court, said in August that, “Reconciliation, whenever possible, is better than conflict.” He added that all parties expect “a sincere effort to find a negotiated solution”.
However, Neidinha Suruí, a veteran indigenous activist who has helped defend the rights of the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau people in the Amazon for more than 50 years, calls the hearings “traps.”
“Why didn’t the government ever call for reconciliation when it came to the removal of farmers who occupied indigenous lands? But now, when the rights of indigenous people are at risk, they set up these traps,” she said Brazil reports.
Suruí asked President Lula to take personal responsibility for protecting indigenous rights, just as he has defended economic reforms in Congress. “Lula must keep the promises he made during his campaign,” she said.
