The process, which has been resumed and postponed several times in recent years, will decide whether the “time frame” thesis is confirmed or rejected. This only recognizes as indigenous areas those areas that they occupied when the constitution was promulgated in 1988.
This Wednesday, Judge André Mendonca added a position in favor of the provisional framework, leaving the partial result at two votes in favor and two against.
Rejecting this thesis on land demarcation “is a solution whose degree of uncertainty precludes any possibility of justice,” he said.
Deliberations to vote for the remaining seven STF judges will continue on Thursday.
“The time frame ignores our original right to ancestral territories recognized in the Constitution, endangers already demarcated areas and makes new demarcations unfeasible,” indigenous lawyer Dinamam Tuxá, coordinator of the Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (Apib), previously told the Process.
About 800 indigenous peoples, including Tuxá, marched this Wednesday in Brasilia to the STF, where they installed a huge screen to follow what they call the “trial of the century” because of the possible impact on their communities.
Chief Raoni Metuktire, an internationally recognized activist for the rights of indigenous peoples, was also in Brasilia and entered the court to accompany the session.
Indigenous associations and activists reject the time frame, arguing that many indigenous peoples have been displaced from their ancestral territories throughout history, particularly during the military dictatorship (1964-1985).
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) warned in a statement published on Wednesday that the eventual legitimization of this theory “would constitute a serious setback for the rights of indigenous peoples in Brazil and would be at odds with international human rights standards.” the Office for Human Rights in South America.
The court will specifically rule on a case affecting the Ibirama-Laklano area in Santa Catarina (South), but the ruling will have general implications and could affect many other disputed areas.
One of the justices who voted against the 1988 deadline suggested that the state should compensate those rural producers who occupied and acquired land “regularly and in good faith.”
The indigenous population fears that this will be supported by other judges as they see it as a “reward for the invaders”, according to APIB.
They are also protesting against the introduction of a bill in the National Congress that sets the time frame as the criterion for demarcation and, according to its critics, would open the door to economic exploitation of their country.
Brazil’s indigenous population is nearly 1.7 million people, according to the census, accounting for 0.83% of Brazil’s 203 million population.