Thousands of indigenous people have descended on Brazil’s capital Brasília to protest against a widespread assault on indigenous rights and territories by the government of the far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro.
Up to 4,000 indigenous people from all over the country are expected to join the annual demonstration, which organizers say has taken on new significance after Bolsonaro – who has repeatedly called into question the existence of indigenous reserves – took power in January.
“We are defenders of the land, we are defenders of the Amazon, of the forest. The white man is our finishing off our planet and we want to defend it,” said Alessandra Munduruku, a representative from the Munduruku tribe who had travelled from the Amazonian state of Pará to join the “Free Land” protest camp near Brazil’s congress.
Elected with the help of powerful agribusiness and evangelical lobbies, Bolsonaro has vowed to freeze demarcations of new indigenous reserves, revoke the protected status of others, and free up commercial farming and mining on others such as the landmark Yanomami territory.
The Yanomami reserve is Brazil’s biggest and has long suffered from the presence of illegal goldminers, known as garimpeiros, whose interests Bolsonaro has also promised to protect.
Bolsonaro and his agriculture minister, Ricardo Salles, have both publicly attacked Brazil’s environmental protection agencies and what they call “an industry” of environmental fines.
Indigenous leaders are incensed by the Bolsonaro government’s decision to transfer responsibility for demarcation of indigenous reserves to Brazil’s agriculture ministry, which is controlled by members of a powerful farming lobby that has long opposed indigenous land rights. They also object to a decision to hand control of Brazil’s cash-strapped indigenous agency Funai to a new ministry of women, family and human rights presided over by a conservative evangelical pastor.
“This is a moment for us to stress our discontent with the policies of this government,” said Dinamam Tuxá, an indigenous activist and one of the event’s organisers.
In a recent Facebook live event, Bolsonaro scorned what he called this week’s “big indigenous meeting” and claimed taxpayers would pay for it, a charge rebutted by organisers who said they pay all costs themselves.
Ramping up the tension, Bolsonaro’s justice minister, Sérgio Moro, last week authorised the national force – Brazil’s national guard – to take control of the area where the three-day indigenous event is being held, stirring fears of possible clashes with protesters.
“We do not want confrontation. We want this camp to be very peaceful and friendly,” Tuxá said.
Sarah Shenker, a campaigner from the non-profit group Survival International who is attending the event, said there had been a recent increase in invasions of indigenous lands – such as the Uru-eu-wau-wau reserve in the Amazon state of Rondônia – by land-grabbers, logger and farmers who felt emboldened by Bolsonaro’s rhetoric.
“That has exacerbated the feeling of resistance and anger,” she said.
Under Brazil’s constitution, indigenous people are not allowed to practise commercial farming and mining is only permitted with congress’s approval. Bolsonaro has threatened to change this, recently appearing in a Facebook live broadcast with five indigenous people who said they wanted to be able to commercially develop their territories.
Indigenous activists rubbished Bolsonaro’s apparent attempt to suggest Brazil’s indigenous communities supported his plans. “We thought it was ridiculous,” said Ivo Macuxi, a lawyer from the Indigenous Council of Roraima, another Amazonian state.
Paulo Tupiniquim, an indigenous activist who had travelled to the meeting from the south-eastern state of Espírito Santo, said he did not oppose developing indigenous reserves, citing collective cattle farming by indigenous people in Roraima.
But he was against mechanised production and renting land to farmers.
“This is not the relationship of indigenous peoples with their land. The relation is sacred, like a child with its mother,” he said. “I don’t take care of my mother by selling her.”
On Wednesday evening indigenous protesters plan to hold a vigil outside Brazil’s supreme court, which is due to rule on several indigenous cases in late June.
“We are here to defend what is our right,” said Paulo Tupiniquim.
