No to Violence. No to Genocide. Land Demarcation Now!
THE FIGHT NEVER STOPPED.
Brasília, Brazil – Indigenous people and organizations from every part of the country will be uniting at events and demonstrations in the defense of their rights and their land, in Brasilia, this coming week. The activities will take place from Monday, May 26 until Thursday, May 29. On Thursday at 9:00am, a public hearing in the auditorium Ramos Nereus, the House of Representatives will take place.
Protests are taking place because of a widespread attack on indigenous rights, especially land rights, on the part of various government sectors and a set of political and economic acts, led by the ruralist caucus in Congress.
One of the principle objectives of mobilizing this coming week is to prevent the adoption of a series of projects against indigenous rights pending in Parliament, like the Proposed Constitutional Amendment (PEC) 215, which aims to transfer the approval of the allocation of the demarcation of indigenous’ lands (Tis) to lawmakers; Bill (PLP) 227, designed to open these areas to economic exploitation; and PL 1.610, regulating mining on indigenous lands, among several others. The amendment of the demarcation of indigenous lands by Justice Minister, José Eduardo Cardozo, and Ordinance 303 of the Attorney General (AGU) are also targets of the protests, among other measures of the government, which aim to generalize all TIs and the constraints defined by the Raposa Serra do Sol (RR), against the decision of the Federal Supreme Court (STF). In practice, all of the proposals from the Executive and Legislative branches intend to definitely paralyze the demarcation process, which are already suspended by the government.
Meanwhile, the processing of major projects to strengthen indigenous rights, which are flags of the indigenous movement, as the Statute of Indigenous Peoples and the National Council of Indigenous Policy (NCIP), is paralyzed for years in the corridors of Congress, without any progress. The National Indigenous Mobilization also defends its approval of these two demands.
“We experienced no visible pact of state powers and the representatives from the capital against indigenous rights. There is an ongoing vicious campaign of criminalization, de-legitimization, discrimination, racism and extermination of indigenous peoples,” said Sônia Guajajara, of the Executive Coordination of the Association of Indigenous People of Brazil (APIB). She highlights, with examples of this campaign, arbitrary arrests of members of Kaingang people in Southern Brazil, the five Tenharim in Humaita (AM) and, in Bahia, the Babau Tupinambá Chief.
As part of the mobilization, we are relaunching the site A República dos Ruralistas, which maps the key members of the bench that are largely agribusiness owners in Congress. The page has undergone an update, with the addition of new profiles of congressmen and senators.
The National Indigenous Mobilization is promoted by APIB, with the help of the Center of Indigenous Work (CTI), Indigenous Missionary Council (Cimi), Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA), Greenpeace, Institute of Education of Brazil (IIEB), among other indigenous organizations.
