Hundreds of tribal peoples demonstrated in Brasilia on Tuesday to protest a bill restricting their land’s demarcation, on the eve of a Supreme Court ruling considered crucial for tribal people.
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“They want to deprive us of our constitutional rights and lands and invade our lands,” Jailda Teixeira Braga, from the Barata/Livramento indigenous land in northern Roraima state, told AFP.
“We can’t allow that,” added the 56-year-old woman, who wore a feathered crown as she strolled along Brasilia’s famous Esplanade des Ministries.
The judges of the Federal Court of Justice resume the trial of this crucial process for the indigenous people on Wednesday. They must confirm or reject the “time frame” advocated by the agribusiness lobby, a thesis that only recognizes as ancestral land the land inhabited by natives when the constitution was promulgated in 1988.
Indigenous peoples believe that the Magna Carta recognizes their rights without setting a “timeframe” and claim that they have been expelled from their territories on numerous occasions, particularly during the military dictatorship (1964-1985), making it impossible to establish theirs Attendance in 1988.
According to the NGO Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA), almost a third of the more than 700 already demarcated indigenous reserves in Brazil could be affected, precisely those that are the subject of disputes.
Indigenous people from various ethnic groups in the country, some with their skin painted and wearing traditional costumes, arrowheads and feather headdresses, marched to the Supreme Court (STF).
Some waved banners against the “Death Frame” or called on the “STF to save the peoples of the Amazon”.
Minister for Indigenous Peoples Sonia Guajajara and other members of the left-wing government Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who have vowed to prioritize defending indigenous peoples, joined the procession on part of its route.
Many scientists believe that indigenous reserves play an essential role in the fight against global warming, as a bulwark against deforestation, which has increased sharply under the mandate of far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022).
Walter de Oliveira, leader of the Macuxi people in the Raposa Serra do Sol indigenous reserve in Roraima, believes that while the “time frame” thesis prevails, “the invasions of loggers, garimpeiros (men who work in illegal gold mines), land thieves and farmers .” ” will proliferate on indigenous lands, including those that have already been demarcated.