The 19th Acampamento Terra Livre [Free Land Camp] (ATL) ended on April 26th with a series of major achievements for the indigenous peoples in Brazil. On the last day of the event, attended by more than 6,000 indigenous people from all over the country, President Lula together with the Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sonia Guajajara, announced the approval of several important policies, including: the ratification of six new indigenous lands, totaling more than 1.5 million hectares; the creation of a new federal agency to protect indigenous lands and resources; and the allocation of $1 billion in funding for indigenous health and education.

The government of the state of Bahia confirmed that two indigenous Pataxó individuals were killed yesterday (17) in the extreme south of the state. According to preliminary information from the Civil Police, Samuel Cristiano do Amor Divino, 25, and Nawir Brito de Jesus, 17, were shot yesterday afternoon in Itabela. The region is home to the Barra Velha indigenous land, which is the site of intense conflicts with ranchers.

After the crime, the Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sônia Guajajara, said she requested the Ministry of Justice and Public Safety to send the National Force to the location. “Yesterday, we lost two young Pataxó due to conflict over land and struggle for demarcation. My first agenda of the day will be with indigenous leaders in the extreme south of Bahia. I will follow closely what has been happening in the region and I will request immediate action from the State,” he wrote.

In the last days of 2022, on December 27, another village in the same Indigenous Land, the Quero Ver, in the municipality of Prado, had been invaded by armed men. According to Brasil de Fato, the atmosphere in the region is of fear and mourning, but giving up is not an option for the community.

Sônia Guajajara became the first minister at the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples on Wednesday (11). She is also the first indigenous woman to occupy a ministry. The ceremony took place at the Planalto Palace, in Brasília. According to TV Cultura, the auditorium was packed to watch the event, with the presence of president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and other members of the government. 

Guajajara presented the ministry’s team, formed by Eloy Terena, Executive Secretary; Jozi Kaigang, Chief of Staff; Eunice Kerexu, Secretary of Environmental and Territorial Rights; Ceiça Pitaguary, Secretary of Environmental and Indigenous Territorial Management; Juma Xipaia, Secretary of Articulation and Promotion of Indigenous Rights; and Marcos Xucuru, Special Advisor to the MPI.

“I cannot fail to remember the relatives who were removed from our coexistence by the speech of the fascism that reigned in Brazil in recent years spilling without shame, much indigenous blood. Let us remember the strength of those who fell in the struggle like Paulino Guajajara Ivanilde, Janildo, Jael and Antônio Guajajara ali Uruê Auau, Daiane Gaingang, Estela Vera Guarani Carilar, Wellingto Ariane Oliveira and the girl Raissa. And so many other relatives victimized by illegal mining, by invasions of their territories. And by so many other actions and omissions of the State. Furthermore, I need to highlight the strength of Bruno Pereira and memories that all of our allies and allied defenders of the environment and human rights this brutal murder cannot remain unpunished”.

“If, before, demarcations were focused mainly on the preservation of our culture, new studies have been demonstrating that the maintenance of these areas has an even more comprehensive importance, being fundamental to the stability of ecosystems across the planet, ensuring quality of life, including in large cities. Hence the importance of recognizing the original rights of Indigenous Peoples over the lands where they live,” said Guajajara.

For Guajajara, the protection of biomes, resulting from the preservation of indigenous lands, conservation units and territories inhabited by traditional communities, is “essential” for any agricultural production. “It guarantees water, the presence of pollinating agents and many other factors without which nothing can be produced. Indigenous lands are important allies in the fight against global warming and fundamental for the preservation of our biodiversity,” he said.

The minister recalled that the Paris Agreement and the New York Declaration for Tropical Forests of the United Nations recognized the knowledge of traditional peoples and communities as scientific knowledge and as one of the “last alternatives to contain the climate crisis”. “It is necessary that this knowledge goes beyond international treaties, and be valued in practice, throughout the national territory, through local policies, considering the diversity of peoples, cultures, and territories,” she pointed out.

Minister Anielle Franco, of Racial Equality, also took office on Wednesday. The joint ceremony had several symbolic moments, marked by the sound of African culture and indigenous music. The National Anthem was sung partly in the Tikuna language by Djuena Tikuna, and partly in Portuguese by Marina Íris. The Terena people performed the Dança da Ema, or dança do Bate-pau, a ritualistic manifestation that consecrates great warriors.

According to Sônia Guajajara, one of the first measures she will take in charge of the ministry will be to move forward with the process of ratifying 13 indigenous lands that were already in the final stages of being recognized.Jota made a profile of all 37 ministers that are part of Lula’s government.

According to an analysis by the Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), municipalities with presence of illegal miners have worse living conditions than the average of the region. The average Social Progress Index (SPI) of the municipalities affected by mining is 4% lower than the Amazon average and 20% lower than the national average.

“This dismantles the narrative of the miners and the illegal groups, who say that the activity brings economic return, with job generation and benefits for the town. We see that it is exactly the opposite. If there is a financial benefit, this resource is not staying in the town. It goes somewhere, and in the municipality only the environmental impact and the need for the public authorities to spend money to repair the damage remain” says Antonio Oviedo, ISA’s advisor, and author of the study, along with Victor da Silva Araújo.

Throughout the Legal Amazon, about 6 million people, spread over at least 216 municipalities, suffer from the effects of illegal mining. Deforestation, loss of biodiversity, contamination by mercury and an increase in violence and diseases are some of the main problems caused by the activity.

Decree 11.226, signed by Jair Bolsonaro (PL), excluded FUNAI’S (Brazilian Indigenous peoples agency) the Regional Committees and their instances such as the Ethnoenvironmental Protection Fronts and Local Technical Coordinations, provided for in the 2017 Statute.

Civil society organizations and indigenous rights advocates showed concern and warned that “the new statute and changes in the staff of the National Indian Foundation should make the demarcation of indigenous lands unviable and reduce the agency’s autonomy in the construction and application of public policies.”

“Bolsonaro promised to give Funai a whack, remember? First he cut the members, and now, with this decree, he cuts off the head of the institution. It practically ends with the institution,” said Antonio Eduardo Cerqueira de Oliveira, executive secretary of the Indigenous Missionary Council (Cimi), to InfoAmazônia.

In the August 31st edition of Brazil’s Official Gazette, the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA, Brazil’s Land Agency) published Normative Ruling 128, which, in practice, makes the process of demarcation and titling of quilombola [Afro-Brazilian traditional communities] territories more difficult.

The National Coordination of the Articulation of Rural Black Quilombola Communities (CONAQ) denounces that the measure “makes it unfeasible to enforce” the quilombola constitutional right to their territories by bureaucratizing the expropriation of properties in ancestral territories.

For the organization, Normative Ruling 128 is one more among a serie of attacks by the Bolsonaro administration against the quilombola population: “While still a candidate, the then-president promised to withdraw rights from the quilombola populations and has been fulfilling his promise since the first days of his term.”

The businessman Luis Felipe Belmonte, an ally of Jair Bolsonaro, gave money to people in the president’s close circle while lobbying for the approval of laws that allow for mining on indigenous lands, according to messages intercepted by the Federal Police (PF). The information is from the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo. The messages were obtained by the Federal Police as part of an operation aimed at investigating the financing of antidemocratic acts in April 2020.

More than 2 million reais were distributed by Belmonte between Jair Renan, Bolsonaro’s son (R$10,000), the lawyer Karina Kufa, that represents the president (R$634,000), and the marketers Sergio Lima and Walter Bifulco, responsible for his reelection campaign (R$1.5 million). In one of the messages, when asked by his wife, Representative Paula Belmonte, about the expenses, the businessman said that “the goal was to come closer to the palace and make the ‘indigenous project’ viable,” says the report.

“You can rest assured,” said Marcelo Xavier, president of FUNAI, the Brazilian indigenous people agency, to Jussielson da Silva, who replied, “You are my support. Knowing you’re with me makes happy”. At the time, Silva was the head of FUNAI in Ribeirão da Cascalheira (MT). Today, the former Marine, sworn in during Bolsonaro’s government, is in jail for collecting bribes to illegally rent pastures in the Marãiwatséd indigenous reserve.

Silva, and two former police officers, are being investigated for embezzlement and criminal association. The Federal Police investigations found 70,000 head of cattle in 42 locations in the reserve. A Federal Police report forwarded to a Federal Court states that “it is possible to conclude that the president of the agency, Marcelo, is aware of what is going on and that it is possible that he is supporting the illegal activity under investigation (leasing on indigenous land)”.

A new ruling by the Federal Court ordered the National Indigenous Agency (FUNAI) to protect the Ituna-Itatá Indigenous Land (TI), maintaining the previous decision, but this time ordering the Union to remove the invaders and allocate a permanent team to the TI.

The area was under restriction of use since 2011, when Indigenous peoples in volunteer isolation were seen in the region, in the state of Pará. In 2021, however, FUNAI let the restriction expire. The decision keeps the Indigenous protected territory status for another three years. The territory is considered one of the most deforested in the last 10 years.

A new annual report by the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) points to the increase in violence against indigenous people in Brazil, associated with the dismantling of inspection and assistance bodies for the native population. In 2021, there was a 180% increase in cases of invasion, illegal exploitation and damage to the patrimony of Indigenous Lands in the country compared to 2018, reported the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo. There were 305 episodes, against 109 recorded in 2018.

Regarding cases of violence against the person, the number jumps to 355 in 2021, the highest since 2013, when the organization changed the methodology used for counting cases.

The publication “Violence Against the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil – 2021” highlights how the advance of crimes against the indigenous population has a close relationship with the socio-environmental policies of the federal government. “FUNAI, the official indigenous agency, has become a regulatory agency for criminal businesses in demarcated or demarcated territories. land grabbing and the subdivision of Union lands – after all, indigenous lands are assets of the Union […]”, says an excerpt from the article by Lucia Helena Rangel, CIMI Anthropological Advisor, and Roberto Antonio Liebgott, missionary and Coordinator of CIMI’s Regional South, in the document.

The Federal Public Prosecution Office (MPF) has filed a complaint with the Federal Court against the president of the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), Marcelo Augusto Xavier da Silva, for the crime of  slandering the FUNAI’s employees.

Xavier accused in a police investigation several employees of the agency, members of the Waimiri Atroari Association and legal entities of the crimes of influence peddling and perverting the course of justice. After the inquiry was closed, “the president of FUNAI, in revenge, represented himself criminally against the public prosecutor Igor Spíndola, responsible for the closure order. The representation, made to the Attorney General of the Republic, presented three conducts that do not characterize any crime, without evidence or indications of any irregularity,” stated the MPF.

The criminal action filed by the MPF calls for the double conviction of Xavier for the crime of slandering, with a prison sentence of two to eight years and a fine, reparation for the moral damage caused to the victims and to society, with the payment of compensation of R$ 100,000, in addition to the loss of public office.

After the Federal Police confirmed the murder of indigenous activist Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips, protests by employees of the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) took the country by storm. Of the 52 units of the agency, 42 hosted demonstrations during the national strike of the category. The group demands the resignation of the president of FUNAI, Marcelo Xavier, the deepening of the investigation into the death of Bruno and Dom, and more security in the Javari Valley (AM), where the crime occurred.

On the same day and in alliance with the movement of public employees, the indigenous movement occupied the streets of São Paulo and Brasília in protest against the postponement by the Federal Supreme Court (STF) of the vote of the “Marco Temporal” [Temporal Landmark], a trial that could define the future of indigenous lands demarcation. The trial was scheduled to resume on the 2nd, but Minister Luiz Fux, president of the STF, announced its postponement indefinitely.

The Supreme Court (STF) has again postponed the continuation of the trial on the “Marco Temporal” [time frame thesis], which will define the future of the demarcation of indigenous lands in Brazil. The trial was scheduled to return to the plenary session on June 23. Voting began in August 2021 and has since been suspended on two occasions.

The trial is about the Extraordinary Appeal 1017365, which asks for a resolution of the Ibirama-Laklãnõ Indigenous Land case, filed by the government of Santa Catarina against the Xokleng people, which has the “thesis” of the “time frame” as a premise. The thesis postulates that which indigenous people can only claim lands that were under effective occupation at the time of the enactment of the Constitution of 1988. The STF’s decision on the case will have general repercussion, that is, it should be followed by the justice system in  similar cases.

So far, the score is tied at 1-1. Justice Edson Fachin, the rapporteur, voted against the Marco Temporal and defended the original right of indigenous peoples over the lands they traditionally occupy. The minister Nunes Marques, nominated by Jair Bolsonaro, declared his vote in favor, stating that it is the proposal “that best reconciles the interests at stake”. The president has said in statements that he will not respect the decision of the STF if it is unfavorable to the agribusiness thesis.

A new report by the Hutukara Associação Yanomami (HAY) provides an overview of the devastation and violence caused by the advance of illegal gold digging in the Yanomami Indigenous Territory (TIY), located between the states of Roraima and Amazonas.

The report “Yanomami Under Attack: Illegal Gold Digging in the Yanomami Indigenous Land and Proposals to Combat it” points out that there was a record growth in destruction caused by mining activity in the TIY in 2021. Compared to 2020, it grew 46%, the highest rate since 2018, when the organization began monitoring. Between 2016 and 2021, the illegal mining grew 3350%.

The report also indicates a vertiginous growth in cases of malaria and child malnutrition among the residents of the territory, as highlighted by InfoAmazônia, which heard Junior Hekurari, president of the District Indigenous Health Council (CONDISI).

After two years of happening online due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Acampamento Terra Livre 2022 (Free Land Camp) begun in Brasilia. The camp will last until April 14th. The Indigenous People of Brazil Network (Apib), one of the organizers, estimates that the meeting will gather about 8,000 indigenous people, with representatives of more than 150 different ethnic groups of Brazil.

The focus of the mobilization is on confronting the anti-indigenous agenda of the Bolsonaro government and the “death projects” in Congress. Among the priority agendas are the fight against the bill 191/2020, which authorizes the exploitation of indigenous lands, bill 6.299/2002, known as the “poison package”, which makes more flexible the use of pesticides in the country, bill 2.633/2020 and bill 510/2021, on the regularization of illegal land occupations, and bill 3.729/2004, which changes the rules for environmental licensing of enterprises in Brazil.

On Apib’s website it is possible to check the full schedule of the meeting, and contribute with donations.

Indigenous members of the Macuxi and Wapichana ethnic groups claim that they “were never consulted” about the construction of the Serra da Lua coal-fired power plant complex, inaugurated this week by the administration of Roraima state, governor Antonio Denarium. The project is located at the limits of the Tabalascada, Malacacheta and Canaunim Indigenous Lands, where 16 communities and 3 thousand indigenous people live.

The project, which has been called the “power plant of death” by the indigenous people, received tax incentives from Denarium’s administration. The plants were auctioned in May 2019, in the first energy auction promoted by Bolsonaro, and are controlled by OXE Energia.

Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPF) once again requested the renewal of the ordinance by the National Indian Foundation (Funai) which provides for the restriction of use and protects the Piripkura Indigenous Land, located in the municipalities of Colniza and Rondolândia, in Mato Grosso. Expired in September 2021, the measure was extended for only six months, until March 17, 2022.

Under threat from mining, illegal occupation and agribusiness, the territory is home to two of the last three Piripkura indigenous people, survivors of the near extermination of the ethnic group in the 1980s, perpetrated by illegal loggers.

Six Brazilian civil society organizations presented to the international community a denunciation of the risks involved in the bill 191/2020, which authorizes the economic exploitation of indigenous lands.

In the speech read at a meeting at the United Nations by Gustavo Huppes, from the NGO Conectas, also representing the Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), the Maíra Institute, Kowit and the Climate Observatory, the group stated that the proposal “is a direct attack on indigenous peoples and an outright violation of the constitutional right to their territories and the international obligations assumed by Brazil, such as ILO Convention 169.”

Bill 191 had its urgency regime approved by the House of Representatives on March 9 and it might go to a vote without going through the House committees, in the first half of April.

The inactive member of the Navy, Jussielson Gonçalves Silva, regional coordinator of the National Indian Foundation (Funai) in Ribeirão Cascalheira (MT), was arrested by the Federal Police. He was accused of aiding the sale of indigenous lands of the Xavante people to local farmers. Appointed by the Bolsonaro administration Silva had held the position since March 18, 2020. 

The official received payments from landowners in the region for 15 “properties” within the Marãiwatsédé Indigenous Land (TI), located in the municipalities of Alto Boa Vista, São Félix do Araguaia, and Bom Jesus do Araguaia, in Mato Grosso. The amounts he received reached R$ 900,000 reais per month, about US$ 180,000 dollars.

The arrest is the result of Operation Res Capta, carried out by the Federal Police in alliance with the Federal Public Attonery (MPF) to dismantle a scheme involving employees of Funai, ranchers, and a leader of the indigenous territory Marãiwatsédé.

Young indigenous man Vitor Braz de Souza, 22, was murdered i after complaining about loud music coming from a illegal party on the beach of Ponta Grande, inside the Pataxó village Novo Guerreiros, in Porto Seguro, Bahia state, where he lived. The noise was disturbing his newborn son from sleeping.

Called Sigilo Fest, the event took place in a territory claimed by the Pataxó, but not yet approved by Funai, according to an article published by Folha de S. Paulo.

The Police identified the person who fired the shot, a non-indigenous man, based on the statements of witnesses, but the suspect is still at large.