Brazil: new onslaught against Indigenous groups

23 July, 2024

The CIMI ¹⁾CIMI, Conselho Indigenista Misionario, linked to the National Bishops’ Conference, has for 50 years supported Indigenous peoples across Brazil and reported annually on the violence and other human rights violations inflicted on them report on violence against Indigenous peoples, published on Monday, shows that among Indigenous peoples in Brazil, assassinations, suicides, and avoidable deaths from lack of medical assistance have risen to the second-highest level in 10 years. Coinciding with the report’s publication, three Indigenous groups were attacked in recent days.

Indigenous leaders blame the rise in violence on the failure of the Lula government to demarcate more Indigenous territories, and the attempt by congress to vote into law Lei 14701/23 in defiance of the Supreme Court’s decision that the thesis of the so called marco temporal (time limitation rule) is unconstitutional. The marco temporal would limit demarcations to those who occupied the land they claim in October 1988, the date of Brazil’s last constitution, ignoring the fact that during the dictatorship (1964-85), many Indigenous peoples were driven off or removed from their land to make way for roads and dams.

The Ava Guaraní of Paraná, the Guaraní Kaiowá of Mato Grosso do Sul and the Kaingang of Rio Grande do Sul were attacked by gunmen on 19-20 July. Several were shot and injured and some of their homes were set on fire. Even when the forces of law and order appeared on the scene, the attackers were not intimidated, revealing that they have protection from those in power. In Mato Grosso do Sul, before the attacks, drones had flown over the area and dozens of pickup trucks containing armed men surrounded the Indigenous camp.

The aim of the attacks is to expel Indigenous groups who have carried out retomadas – that is, retaking land they claim as traditionally theirs before it was either invaded or handed out by previous governments to landowners. By setting fire not only to homes but to the areas around the makeshift villages, they want to make occupation unviable, because planting crops will not be possible. Firemen had to be called to put out the fire which spread all around the settlement of the Guaraní Kaiowá.

Agents of Funai, the Indigenous Affairs Foundation, have made frequent trips to the areas under attack, taking the wounded to hospital and listening to demands. But they are impotent against the hooded gunmen who carry out the attacks.

Everyone agrees that only more decisive action by the federal government can put a stop to the attacks, and once Congress has passed the marco temporal law, the landowners will feel even more empowered to expel the Indigenous groups who are reclaiming their territory. Before the attacks, representatives from the Indigenous People’s Ministry had been to the areas and attempted to negotiate with local landowners and politicians, without success.

In Rio Grande do Sul, the Kaingang of the Fag Nor community are trying to reclaim the land from which they were expelled in 2014. CIMI said ‘Landowners in the region, organised by lawmakers from the extremist parties PP, Republicanos, and PL, do not accept the right of Indigenous peoples to live on their own lands’. Even though they were squatting on the roadside, not inside the territory they claim, they were attacked at night, with shots being fired at their tents.

The Fag Nor community has asked Funai to reinitiate studies to identify and demarcate their territory. 

In Paraná, the attack was against Indigenous families of the Ava Guaraní community in the Terra Indígena Tekoha Guasu Guavira, and followed the decision by judge João Paulo Nery dos Passos Martins to authorize  the expulsion of the Ava Guaraní from their retomadas, in favour of the landowners who brought the case. Shooting and arson attacks left one person injured and three people missing, two children, aged eight and 10, and an adult.

At the same time the judge banned the Itaipu Binational Dam company from negotiating with landowners who were interested in selling their land, to be used for territorial reparations.

Facing violence from landowners, hostility from local judges and lawmakers, and impotence from the federal government which had promised to support them, it is not surprising that Brazil’s Indigenous peoples feel abandoned and helpless.