16/Jun/2021
(FUNAI is the National Foundation responsible for developing public policies regarding indigenous peoples and territories. This institution should provide the appropriate conditions for a peaceful and fulfilling life for brazilian indigenous people, including safety and protection against any threat or violence)
We, indigenous peoples gathered at the Rise for the Earth Camp, in Brasília, have been mobilized for more than 10 days against the anti-indigenous agenda that is currently under appreciation by the Executive, Legislative and Judiciary Powers. This agenda includes legal innovations that put all indigenous lives at risk.
Still under the restrictions of the pandemic, with most of us vaccinated – vaccination that only happened due to a lot of struggle from the indigenous movement, we brought together more than 1,000 indigenous people from all regions of Brazil to state: the police chief Marcelo Xavier is no longer the president for FUNAI!
This is the worst term in the Foundation’s history, which failed to fulfill the function of protecting and promoting the rights of indigenous peoples, in order to negotiate our lives and use them for the benefit of shady and private interests from agribusiness, illegal mining and so many other threats that put our existence at risk.
A police chief who has turned Funai into the “Foundation for the Indigenous People Intimidation”, an institution that is currently closer to a political police service, that persecutes and criminalizes indigeneous leaderships. It institutes anti-indigenous administrative acts, such as Normative Instruction No. 09 and others; negotiates measures in the National Congress, such as the position he expressed in favor of indigenous peoples’ enemies before the National Assembly Commission for the Constitution and Justice (CCJ), bizarrely asking for the approval of 490 bill.
In practice, this bill terminates the policy of demarcating indigenous lands in the country, and still opens up the possibility of revising previously demarcated lands.
Enough of nonsense!
Dump Marcelo Xavier!
14/Jun/2021
The Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), along with all its fellow organizations, demands that Bill 490/2007 be definitively pulled from the voting agenda of the Commission of Constitution and Justice (CCJ) of the Chamber of Deputies.
In practical terms, this project represents a new genocide against Indigenous Peoples. The Bill is unconstitutional and could end the demarcation of Indigenous Lands in Brazil, allowing for the opening of territories for predatory exploitation. In addition to Bill 490, other anti-indigenous proposals that pose risks to the environment are on the agenda in Congress.
Indigenous lives matter, and in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, our lives have become the target of attacks, persecution and extermination. In this sense, we underscore the following demands:
- Definitive removal of Bill 490/2007 from the CCJ voting agenda, which opens up Indigenous lands to predatory economic exploitation and would essentially make new demarcations of indigenous territories impossible. This bill would allow the government to open Indigenous lands to extractive industries like mining, enable the legalization of hundreds of illegal mining sites, and force contact with isolated Indigenous peoples;
- Shelving of Bill 2633/2020, known as “PL da Grilagem” [Land grabber’s Bill], from the voting agenda of the National Congress. Bill 2633, the successor to Provisional Measure 910, deals with the regularization of private occupations on public lands. If approved, could legalize thousands of claims to recently deforested land;
- Shelving of Bill 984/2019, which aims to build roads on the Iguaçu National Park and other Conservation Units;
- Shelving of Bill 177/2021, that would authorize the President of the Republic to withdraw support to Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO);
- Shelving of Bill 191/2020, authorizing exploration on indigenous lands for major infrastructure and mining projects. Bill 191/20 intends to transform indigenous lands into a new frontier of destruction, opening them, without due care or respect to the will of indigenous peoples, to some of the most impacting economic activities existent, such as mining, oil exploration, construction of large hydroelectric plants and small-scale artisanal mining;
These projects, which we have repeatedly denounced as genocidal and ecocidal, found in the Covid-19 pandemic the ideal excuse to “run the cattle herd” [changing all the rules and simplifying standards], which has led to a spike in violence and conflicts, including among relatives. These conflicts are inflamed by the Brazilian government leaders in the ongoing battle to defend and guarantee the respect for basic rights.
In a sick world, and faced with a project for extermination, our struggle is still for life, and against all the viruses that kill us!
For the life and historical continuity of our peoples, “Tell the people to move forward.”
APIB – Articulação dos Indígenas do Brasil
Organizações regionais de base da APIB:
APOINME – Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Nordeste, Minas Gerais e Espírito Santo
ARPIN SUDESTE – Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Sudeste
ARPINSUL – Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Sul
ATY GUASU – Grande Assembléia do povo Guarani
Comissão Guarani Yvyrupa
Conselho do Povo Terena
COIAB – Coordenação das Organizações Indígenas da Amazônia Brasileira
28/May/2021
All our Munduruku people are outraged with the cancellation of the Federal Police operation in our region. The operation cannot end now, when the invaders are attacking the leaders. We are unable to understand how the operation leaves our territory at this moment of so much danger to us. We’re screaming for help!
We demand that this operation against illegal mining be continued and that the security forces return to expel all the miners that are still within our area and ensure the safety of our people. The mines have not been closed and our villages and leaders continue to be attacked and threatened. On the 26th May, Fazenda Tapajós village was invaded by these criminals with gunshots and the houses were set on fire.
Other villages and leaders are being threatened. If they do not arrest who is threatening us, we will die and it will be the fault of the federal government and everyone who encouraged the violence. We are dying poisoned by mercury and in danger of being murdered by the miners.
The miners protested and attacked the National Security Forces and after that the operation was withdrawn, leaving our region. The operation that was supposed to end illegal mining ended up obeying the invaders who work illegally and stopped the police operation. In the meantime, we leaders who protect our territory are living in constant fear that the worst will happen. We no longer have peace for our families within our own land and in our homes.
With the operation stalled and the security forces that promised to protect us have left, we are now left on our own in the middle of the conflict. The pariwat (white people) continue to set us against each other, without respecting our territory, our culture, our life and the future of our children. The government once again makes a premeditated move to kill us in our own land. A farce announced to protect criminals, which did not close mines within Munduruku Indigenous Land and did not manage to contain and prevent the attack on our leaderships, leaving the territory after being pressured by criminals, legitimizing all these illegal practices and giving strength to the invaders. We no longer want this type of inefficient operation, which leaves us even more unprotected. We want the lasting and effective presence of the State, fulfilling its constitutional duty to protect indigenous lands, complying with court decisions and the recommendations of the MPF to remove illegal mining from our lands and protect the lives of our people.
17/May/2021
YANOMAMI ALERT
The Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (Apib) comes out to the public to express extreme indignation and concern at the escalation of violence committed by landgrabbers against indigenous communities in the Yanomami Indigenous Land, in Roraima, and the negligence with which the situation has been treated by the public authorities. We are facing the risk of another massacre.
To get a sense of the seriousness of the facts, since May 10, the Hutukara Yanomami Association reports a terror routine with intimidation and shooting attacks on the Palimiu community. The most recent occurred around 11 pm on Wednesday (12), when miners divided into 40 boats fired heavily on the village. Daily, miners travel the rivers of the region, whose control was taken by them, displaying and transporting ostentatious weaponry as a threat.
Unfortunately, there’s nothing new about the situation in the Yanomami Indigenous Land. The report “Massacres no campo”, by the Pastoral da Terra Commission, records attacks by landgrabbers against Yanomamis since the 1980s. In 1987, 7 indigenous people were murdered and 47 injured after the invasion of 150 landgrabbers in the Serra de Couto Magalhães. In April of the following year, 1988, 8 Yanomami were killed after fighting in the Paapiú region. In 1993, the village Haximu, on the border with Venezuela, was surprised by an attack by heavily armed miners, resulting in a bloody massacre that killed 5 children and 5 adults, including women and elderly. The novelty of this wave of attacks is evidence of the participation of criminal organizations linked to drug trafficking in gold mining activities, especially in regions with greater gold extraction.
Another form of violence committed is the conflicts caused by langrabbers between the Yanomami communities themselves. In 2013, an armed confrontation between Yanomami resulted in 5 indigenous people killed and 7 injured in the Alto Alegre region. At the time, there were reports that langrabbers were arming Yanomami in exchange for permission to illegally mine gold in the territory. Other attacks and threats in February and April this year had also been reported by the Hutukara Yanomami Association.
It is necessary to highlight that the langrabbers activity aggravates the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic in the territory, since they are vectors of the disease, and its presence implies tension, conflicts and psychological damage. In addition, outbreaks of malaria, lack of health care and food insecurity weigh on the lives of communities in the Yanomami indigenous land. The landgrabbers took a strategic point on the Uraricoera and Parima rivers by assault, charging tolls and making it difficult for indigenous people to access and circulate within their territory.
Predatory exploitation of natural resources has always been a problem on our land. In the name of profit, they destroy, pollute, rape and kill the environment and native peoples. Public authorities should have taken steps to safeguard indigenous lives. However, today, we are forced to warn again about the imminent possibility of a new massacre.
Apib filed a request with the Federal Supreme Court, on May 11, through ADPF 709 to demand the removal of invaders from Yanomami indigenous land. The Brazilian State is aware of the worsening tensions and its choices will say what the institutions’ priorities are: to neglect the situation and, therefore, not to fight illegal mining or to protect the right to life of the indigenous peoples of the Yanomami Indigenous Land.
Thus, we sympathize and endorse the complaints made by the organizations Hutukara Yanomami Association and Wanassedume Ye’kwana Association. We reiterate that we will not rest while our peoples are under attack.
May 13, 2021,
APIB – Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil
COIAB – Coordination of Indigenous Organizations in the Brazilian Amazon
Regional grassroots organizations:
APOINME – Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of the Northeast, Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo
SOUTHEAST ARPIN – Articulation of Indigenous Peoples in the Southeast
ARPINSUL – Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of the South
ATY GUASU – Great Assembly of the Guarani people
Guarani Yvyrupa Commission
Terena People’s Council
06/May/2021
APIB denounces to the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court and to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) political persecution of the Bolsonaro government against indigenous peoples
The Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (Apib) filed a report yesterday, 5, at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and at the Federal Supreme Court (STF) about the Federal Government’s political persecutions against Apib and Sonia Guajajara, one of the executive coordinators of the organization.
On April 26, during the month of the largest indigenous mobilization in Brazil and in the week following the Climate Summit meeting, the Federal Police (PF) summoned Sonia to testify in an open police investigation by the National Indian Foundation (Funai). The governmental agency, whose institutional mission is to protect and promote the rights of the peoples of Brazil, accuses Apib of defaming the Federal Government with the web series “Maracá” (http://bit.ly/SerieMaraca), which denounces right violations committed against indigenous peoples in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We alert the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to the escalation of authoritarianism underway in Brazil. The democratic environment is at risk. In no republican and democratic state can the state apparatus be used under the discretion of its rulers. The free expression of thought and freedom of expression, supported by constitutional, conventional and legal principles, cannot be criminalized ”, reinforces Apib’s legal coordinator, Luiz Eloy Terena, in the report sent to the IACHR.
All violations of rights against indigenous peoples during the Covid-19 pandemic exposed by Apib in the Maracá series were presented to the STF in 2020, in the Fundamental Precept Failure Statement (ADPF) No. 709. On that occasion, the main court of the country acknowledged the complaints presented and determined that the Federal Government should adopt measures to protect the indigenous peoples. So far, the STF’s decision has been partially accepted by the government.
“The inquiry opened by the PF is a clear attempt to limit freedom to be critical, whether against the government or against its political agents, even if this is also part of the Democratic Rule of Law and that matters of public and social interest are under the tutelage of the constitutional cloak of the right to information ”, reinforced Eloy Terena in an excerpt from the complaint presented to the STF minister Roberto Barroso, who is the rapporteur for ADPF 709.
Inquiry suspended
On the same day of the denunciations made to the STF and IACHR, the Federal Court of the Federal District determined last night (5), at the request of Apib, to close the investigation opened by the Federal Police. Apib filed a lawsuit on May 3 to annul the investigation, which is an action of political persecution.
“It is also worth mentioning that the clear mention in FUNAI’s letter about alleged slanderous conduct against the President of the Republic suggests that the whole situation narrated has the main purpose of silencing political manifestations disclosed by an entity that stands against the present Federal Government”, federal judge Frederico Botelho argued in his decision.
30/Apr/2021
The Federal Government once again tries to criminalize the indigenous movement, intimidate the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (Apib), our network of grassroots organizations, and one of Apib’s executive coordinators, the leadership Sonia Guajajara, in an act of political and racist persecution.
During the month of the largest indigenous mobilization in Brazil and the week following the ‘Climate Summit’ meeting, the Federal Police summoned Sonia, on April 26, to testify in an investigation provoked by the National Indian Foundation (Funai). The body, whose institutional mission is to protect and promote the rights of the peoples of Brazil, accuses Apib of defaming the Federal Government with the web-series “Maracá” (http://bit.ly/SerieMaraca), which denounces violations of rights committed against indigenous peoples in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. These complaints have already been recognized by the Supreme Federal Court (STF) through ADPF 709.
The racist and hateful speeches of the Federal Government stimulate violations against our communities and paralyze the State actions that should promote assistance, protection and guarantees of rights. And now, the Government seeks to intimidate indigenous peoples in a clear attempt to retrench our freedom of expression, which is the most important tool for denouncing human rights violations. Currently, more than half of the indigenous peoples have been directly affected by Covid-19, with more than 53 thousand confirmed cases and 1059 dead.
They will not trap our bodies and they will never silence our voices. We will continue to fight for the defense of the fundamental rights of indigenous peoples and for life!
Follow today, April 30, at 3:00 pm (Brasília time), the closure of the Terra Livre Camp with the positioning of Apib and its regional indigenous organizations on the case, which will be transmitted at apiboficial.org/atl2021
Indigenous blood, not a single drop more!
19/Apr/2021
In respect of the Democratic Rule of Law and the protection of the fundamental rights of indigenous peoples.
The Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil – APIB, in the midst of the health and humanitarian crisis caused by Covid-19, worsened by the worst virus in our country’s political and democratic history – the Government of Jair Bolsonaro – holds the 17th Camp Terra Livre (ATL) ), the greatest indigenous mobilization that, even in a virtual way, echoes with the national and international society, the serious violations to the fundamental rights of our peoples committed by the invaders of yesterday and today, and which, at the current political moment, are encouraged by government agencies, public agents and the President of the Republic himself.
APIB warns the Brazilian people and the world about the risks that hover over our indigenous peoples, as a death project is underway, which in the name of predatory economic growth and development, undertakes an offensive against us through different means: administrative, legal and legislative, aiming to suppress our rights ensured by the 1988 Federal Constitution, with emphasis on our right to the exclusive possession and enjoyment of our lands, to specific and differentiated policies that concern us, in short, to our right to exist as original peoples, with our own ways of life.
Diante dessa tragédia desenhada, que reedita a invasão colonial do ano de 1500, anunciamos, em primeiro lugar, que não desistiremos de resistir e lutar como já o fizeram os nossos ancestrais e líderes que nos antecederam. E com essa disposição, de inclusive dar a vida pela nossa mãe terra, pelas nossas atuais e futuras gerações, exortamos aos setores solidários da sociedade nacional e internacional a somarem conosco, não apenas para proteger os nossos direitos, mas também para fortalecer a nossa luta geracional a nossa contribuição histórica e atual ao bem viver da humanidade inteira, assim como pelo equilíbrio climático e a restauração de uma sociedade justa, plural, realmente democrática e respeitosa dos direitos humanos e do Estado Democrático de Direito. Nesse sentido desde essa perspectiva manifestamos:
Faced with this produced tragedy, which reissues the colonial invasion of the year 1500, we announce, first of all, that we will not give up on resisting and fighting as our ancestors and leaders who preceded us have already done. And with this willingness to even give our lives for our mother earth, for our current and future generations, we urge the solidarity of national and international society to join us, not only to protect our rights, but also to strengthen our generational struggle, our historical and current contribution to the good life of the whole humanity, as well as to the climatic balance and the restoration of a just, plural, truly democratic and respectful society of human rights and the Democratic Rule of Law. In this sense, from this perspective, we manifest:
To the Legislative Power
- We radically oppose to any initiatives that intend to reverse and suppress our rights guaranteed by Articles 231 and 232 of the Major Law and other articles that extend to our condition as Brazilian citizens, in fact, the first, since we were already here in these lands when Europeans outraged them and wiped out more than millions of our relatives, burying diverse cultures and multiple native languages.
- We repudiate the intention of transferring to the National Congress the responsibility to demarcate our lands, a trick aimed at serving only the interests of the latifundio, the advance of agricultural frontiers and their ecocidal sequels on our territories, due to the indiscriminate use of pesticides, against our multiple forms of traditional production, our cultural and spiritual bond with Mother Nature.
- We flatly reject constitutional amendments, such as PEC 215, and Draft Laws such as 191/2020 that try to make our territories available to mining or legalize illicit activities such as gold mining, now under the control of real criminal organizations, disregarding the constitutional precept that requires the existence of a complementary law, as well as the right to free prior and informed consultation guaranteed by Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO), and the principle of exceptionality that preserves our territories from these types of enterprises.
- We do claim from the National Congress measures that reiterate or reaffirm the multi-ethnic and pluricultural character of the Brazilian State recognized by the Federal Constitution and the archiving of any legislative initiatives designed, under the command of private, national or international interests, to usurp our original rights to our lands and to deconstruct our existence of ethnically and culturally differentiated collectivity.
To the Judiciary
- We salute and recognize as historical the latest decisions, mainly from the Supreme Court, which on one hand reaffirms the legality and legitimacy of our own social organization established by our Major Law. On the other hand, it enshrines the right of access to justice for our peoples and communities.
- To the greatest responsible for the protection of constitutional rights, we express our confidence in the subsequent decisions of the Supreme Federal Court (STF) aiming at the full protection of the fundamental rights of our peoples, especially the original, congenital, innate right to the lands that we traditionally occupy.
- We require the STF to pay special attention and perception to sneaky judicial maneuvers that are being processed or will be processed within the scope of the Judiciary, which aim solely and exclusively to usurp our rights as indigenous peoples, as well as trying to delegitimize our indigenous leaders and organizations, historically recognized and defenders of our peoples and territories.
To the Executive
- We demand from the transitional Bolsonaro government to give up its death project, its vile genocidal plan, its undermined or explicit intentions to exterminate us. That if he did not do so during his more than 28 years of parliamentary life, that he read and obey the Federal Constitution, especially the articles that guarantee our rights.
- We demand that the government respect the majority position among our peoples of not allowing the availability of our territories for predatory exploitation resulting from mining, logging, hydroelectric projects and any other infrastructure works, which imply the destruction of our surroundings, our forests, rivers, lakes, sacred places, and biodiversity that we have helped to preserve for millennia.
- We demand an end to the incentive to invasions and illicit acts committed by criminal organizations that in the administration of this government have intensified: land grabbing, mining, illegal logging, illegal fishing, drug trafficking and the enticement of indigenous leaders.
- We repudiate and demand an end to the fratricidal war fueled by this government, which fuels divisionism, conflict and confrontation among indigenous people, by promoting the co-option of some indigenous people to legitimize the opening and availability of our territories to the interests of agribusiness and mining, among other ventures.
- Finally, we demand respect not only for the Federal Constitution, but also for the International Treaties signed by Brazil that protect our rights, the respect for Human Rights, the end of cynicism and denialism in the face of the health crisis that plagues our country and the preservation of the Democratic state.
Brasília – DF, April 19, 2021.
Articulation of Indigenous Peoples in Brazil – APIB
06/Apr/2021
Nearly 200 Brazilian organizations warn American President about risks of a closed-doors negotiation with the Brazilian ruler.
A group of 199 Brazilian civil society organizations released today (6th) a letter to the American government, warning that a forthcoming cooperation deal between the United States and the Bolsonaro administration could bring a risk for the environment, human rights, and democracy.
The Joe Biden administration has been negotiating for several weeks, behind closed doors, an environmental agreement with the government of Jair Bolsonaro. Such deal is to be announced in the climate summit convened by the US President for the 22nd and 23rd of April. Sources close to the talks say the agreement shall involve money transfers to Brazil. In the campaign trail, Biden talked about raising US$ 20 billion to save the Amazon.
According to the letter, the negotiations with Bolsonaro – a denier of the Covid pandemic who has dismantled Brazil’s longstanding environmental policy and who was sued by indigenous peoples in the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity – put to test Biden’s inaugural speech: the American President promised then to fight the pandemic, structural racism and climate change, and to reclaim America’s place in the world through “the power of its example”. “President Biden needs to choose between being true to his speech and lending political prestige and money to Bolsonaro. He can’t have both.”
The text also states that any dealings with Brazil about the Amazon must involve civil society, subnational governments, academia and the private sector. And no talks should move forward until Brazil has slashed deforestation rates to the level required by the national climate change law and until the string of bill proposals sent do Congress containing environmental setbacks is withdrawn.
“Any deal that fails to respect those premises would be an endorsement do the humanitarian tragedy and to the environmental and civilizational setback imposed by Bolsonaro”, the NGOs say. “It is not sensible to expect any solutions for the Amazon to stem from closed-door meetings with its worst enemy.”
“The Bolsonaro government strives to legalize the exploitation of the Amazon, bringing irreversible damage to our territories, to our peoples and to life in this planet. We are united to harness all support we can get that may strengthen the fight for our lives and for Mother Earth. We remain mobilized against the genocidal project that has been trying to eliminate us for more than 520 years in Brazil and which also destroys our biodiversity. That is why we insist: indigenous blood, not one drop more”, says Alberto Terena, executive coordinator of Apib (Brazilian Indigenous Peoples’ Articulation).
“When the Cerrado, the Amazon or the Pantanal burn, our people burn. The Bolsonaro government strikes bilateral deals that go against our Constitution and destroy nature; he does not respect our territories and he’s making no effort to demarcate them. Even in this moment of pandemic, in which we can’t bury or mourn our dead, Bolsonaro keeps trying to defeat us, through the destruction of our biodiversity”, declares Biko Rodrigues, national articulator of Conaq (National Coordination for the Articulation of Black Rural Quilombola Communities).
“Brazil is today a divides country. On one side there are indigenous peoples, quilombolas, scientists, environmentalists and other people that fight for life and against deforestation. On the other side is the Bolsonaro regime, threatening human rights and democracy and puts the Amazon in risk. Biden must pick a side”, says Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory.
05/Apr/2021
UNION AND FIGHT OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AGAINST VIRUSES THAT KILL US
Declaration of the Indigenous April – Camp Terra Livre 2021
520 years ago, the European invasion of our traditional territories decimated millions of original inhabitants and made thousands of peoples, cultures and languages disappear. A genocide that is one of the most tragic calamities known in human history.
For the colonizers and their descendants, however, the death project was understood to be successful, where the assassins were rewarded for the occupation of our lands and territories. Since then, we have been victims of spoilage, depletion, destruction, violence, prejudice, discrimination, racism, in short, ethnocidal and genocidal policies and practices.
In all phases of Brazilian history, the indigenous policy, following the continuous process of capitalism’s metamorphosis, served to extinguish us physically or culturally, through assimilationism, and integrationism, of the expeditions to “hunt of indigenous”, forged wars, removals, the civil-military regime, the expulsion from our territories, persecutions, murders and massacres.
The Federal Constitution of 1988 put an end to this history written with the blood of our ancestors. After intense mobilizations and struggles by our peoples and leaders, Brazil’s main law has come to recognize that the country is diverse, multi-ethnic and multicultural, establishing our right to exist as parts of the State, with autonomy and maintaining our identity and our differences. The Constitution recognized, therefore, the indigenous peoples, our customs, languages, beliefs, traditions and the right to the lands that they traditionally occupy, which is an original, natural, congenital right, that is to say, of prior origin to the national state constitution. As a result of these recognitions, our peoples have earned the right to differentiated public policies, such as the ou lands demarcation and protection, indigenous school education and health care, through the subsystem currently managed by the Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health (SESAI) and the Special Indigenous Sanitary Districts (DSEIs).
The Brazilian State, its elites and successive rulers, however, have always treated us as obstacles to their projects of development, occupation and death. Hence, it can be understood why the State has never structured itself to fulfill and make the precepts constitutional a reality.
During the democratic life of Brazil, until the institutional rupture as a coup in 2016, we achieved some advances, always with a lot of struggle, such as: the demarcation of indigenous lands, participation in instances of deliberation and social control of the policies that concern us, having as maximum expression the National Commission for Indigenous Policy (CNPI); the creation of SESAI; the construction and promulgation of the National Policy for Territorial and Environmental Management of Indigenous Lands (PNGATI) and the impossibility of anti-indigenous legislative initiatives such as PEC 215 and the mining bill on indigenous lands.
With the election of the current president, Jair Bolsonaro, our indigenous peoples were once again targeted by a death project, which, as in the days of the European colonial invasion, is intended to usurp, drain and chase us away from our territories, in favor the empire of capital: agribusiness, mining, livestock, logging and so many other ways of destroying Mother Nature, with which we will run the risk of dying together, physically and / or culturally, since we are part of it.
Essa política, que nós temos denunciado reiteradamente como genocida e ecocida, encontrou na Pandemia da Covid-19 um solo fértil para “passar a boiada”, o que tem levado ao aumento da violência e dos conflitos, inclusive entre parentes, conflitos esses alimentados pelo próprio governo com objetivo de dividir, enfraquecer e desmobilizar os nossos povos, organizações e lideranças na batalha contínua de defender e garantir o respeito a direitos fundamentais.
The viruses that kill us!
We denounce the smear, intimidation and criminalization campaign promoted by members of the current government against our movement and our leaders. The neglect of this hate and racist policy practiced against our peoples is even more evident in this pandemic context.
The Federal Government is the main transmitting agent of Covid-19 among indigenous peoples. Without effective policies to face the pandemic, we affirm that the Bolsonaro government neglected its obligation to protect workers and users of the Indigenous Health Subsystem and, thus, favored the entry of the virus in several territories. We emphasize that it is the managing agency duty, the Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health (SESAI), to provide the appropriate inputs, training and protocols for the safety of workers and users.
With speeches laden with racism and hatred, Bolsonaro encourages violence against our communities and paralyzes the actions of the State that should promote assistance, protection and guarantees of rights. It tries to take advantage of the “opportunity” of this crisis to proceed with a series of decrees, ordinances, normative instructions, provisional measures and bills that attempt to legalize crimes and diminish the constitutional rights of indigenous peoples.
Bolsonaro’s genocidal policy during the Covid-19 pandemic is reinforced with repeated actions to deny the vaccine, which is the main weapon to fight the virus, and neglect in the immunization campaign management. The government’s determination to vaccinate only indigenous people living in homologated lands is another action of violence, as it excludes indigenous people who live in urban areas, repossessed and indigenous lands in the process of demarcation.
With this decision, obscurantism, ignorance and authoritarianism, which mark the hideous dictatorship of the Jair Bolsonaro government, translate into a death plan against the indigenous peoples of Brazil, since the immunization plan excludes 42.3% of a population estimated at 896,900 by the demographic census carried out by the IBGE in 2010. As if that were not enough, allied sectors, members of the government and Bolsonaro himself spread countless false information to indigenous communities that induced many indigenous people to reject the vaccine against Covid -19.
We decided not do die!
Faced with all this violent scenario that surrounds us and the many lives lost during the pandemic, we from the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (Apib), together with all our grassroots organizations, reinforce our commitment to fight for the lives of our peoples .
Throughout the pandemic, we reinvented our online mobilizations and renewed our strategies for fighting. We created the Indigenous Emergency plan to support sanitary barriers in hundreds of territories. We guarantee food security for more than 10,000 families. We distributed more than 300,000 health safety equipment, supporting indigenous health teams across the country. We achieved, in an unprecedented way, the recognition of the Supreme Federal Court, which admitted Apib as an entity that can bring direct actions in the Brazilian main court of justice and we won a victory with ADPF 709, which obliges the Federal Government to adopt measures to protect the Indigenous peoples.
The pandemic is not over and the violence remains intense, we need to be united and mobilized. In this sense, we at Apib, with our grassroots organizations, have called the 17th Camp Terra Livre 2021, to strengthen the struggle efforts of our Indigenous April.
After the worst month of March of our lives, we will bring the April of the greatest mobilization of our struggles! We saw more than 1000 of our people fall into the covid-19 pandemic, and we felt the pain of the loss of our old people. But we, indigenous peoples, also have the strength of our ancestors on our side.
Parentes, esse é um chamado pela nossa união. Precisamos estar organizados e mobilizados pela vacinação de todos os indígenas, pela garantia dos nossos direitos fundamentais, em especial do nosso direito territorial brutalmente massacrado por este governo neofacista, e pelo bem viver da nossa Mãe Terra.
NUNCA MAIS UM BRASIL SEM NÓS! Essa é uma afirmação que fortalecemos ano após ano. Estamos nas redes, aldeias, universidades, cidades, prefeituras, câmaras legislativas federais, estaduais e municipais e seguiremos lutando contra o racismo e a violência que oprime e mata.
Em um mundo doente e enfrentando um projeto de morte, nossa luta ainda é pela vida, contra todos os vírus que nos matam!
Indigenous peoples, this is a call for our union. We need to be organized and mobilized for the vaccination of all indigenous people, for the guarantee of our fundamental rights, especially our territorial right brutally slaughtered by this neo-fascist government, and for the good life of our Mother Earth.
NEVER AGAIN A BRAZIL WITHOUT US! This is a statement that we strengthen year after year. We are in networks, villages, universities, cities, city halls, federal, state and municipal legislative chambers and we will continue to fight against racism and the violence that oppresses and kills.
In a sick world and facing a death project, our fight is still for life, against all the viruses that kill us!
For the life and historical continuity of our peoples, “Tell the people to move forward”.
Our fight is still for Life, not just the virus!
Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil – APIB
Brazil, April 5, 2021
APIB regional organizations:
APOINME – Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of the Northeast, Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo
SOUTHEAST ARPIN – Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of the Southeast
ARPINSUL – Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of the South
ATY GUASU – Great Assembly of the Guarani people
Guarani Yvyrupa Commission
Terena People’s Council
COIAB – Coordination of Indigenous Organizations in the Brazilian Amazon
18/Feb/2021
The death of the last man of the Juma indigenous people, the warrior Amoim Aruká, by complications from Covid-19, is heartbreaking. The Juma people have suffered numerous massacres throughout their history. From 15,000 people at the beginning of the 20th century, it was reduced to five people in 2002. A proven, but never punished, genocide that led its people almost to complete extermination. The last massacre took place in 1964 on the Aswan River, in the Purus River basin, perpetrated by Tapauá city’s traders interested in the sorghum and chestnut in the Juma territory. In the massacre more than 60 people were murdered, only seven survived. Members of the extermination group hired by the merchants reported shooting at the Juma people as if they were shooting at monkeys. The indigenous bodies were seen by other traditional people (ribeirinhos) in the region after the massacre, serving as food for wild pigs and countless decapitated heads scattered on the forest floor. The mastermind of the crime, aware of what had happened, boasted that he was responsible for ridding “Tapauá city out of these ferocious beasts”. This story must never be forgotten.
Aruká, one of the survivors, continued his resistance struggle, seeing his people verging on disappearance. He fought for the demarcation of the Juma territory, which was only approved in 2004, the Juma Indigenous Land (TI). The Juma survivors, despite the risk of disappearance, saw their people grow again in the 2000s, through marriages with indigenous Uru Eu Wau Wau, indigenous people also of Tupi-Kagwahiva language branch.
Because they are subject to an immense vulnerability and risk of disappearance, the Juma people are considered to be of recent contact and are among the indigenous ethnical groups to be protected by Sanitary Barriers, whose installation was determined by the Supreme Federal Court at the request of indigenous peoples, representatives of the Coordination of the Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB), through the Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), in the Statement of Noncompliance with Fundamental Precept No. 709 (ADPF 709). The request was made in July 2020 and Minister Luís Roberto Barroso accepted. However, given the difficulties alleged by the Bolsonaro government, the minister gave the deadline until September 2020 for the Barriers in the Juma indigenous land to be installed. In August 2020, the Bolsonaro government said it would build the Barrier on the Assuã River, at REBIO Tufari, outside Juma land, it would be a Sanitary Barrier composed of the Military Police and Special Indigenous Health District (DSEI)-Humaitá. However, in December of the same year, he stated that he would make only one access control post on the BR 230 – Transamazônica Highway, but did not prove its effective functioning.
Whether the access post worked or not, as representatives of COIAB and APIB had been charging for months in the Situation Rooms with the Bolsonaro Government, it no longer matters for Aruká. What is known is that he is now dead. Sadly, it is through their dead that indigenous peoples prove their appeals. COIAB and APIB warned that indigenous people of recent contact were at extreme risk. The last surviving man of the Juma people is dead. Again, the Brazilian government proved to be criminally silent and incompetent. The government murdered Aruká. Just as he murdered his ancestors, it is a devastating and irreparable indigenous and humanitarian loss.
Manaus, Amazonas, February 17, 2021.
Coordination of Indigenous Organizations in the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB)
Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB)
Opi – Observatory of Human Rights of Isolated Indigenous Peoples and of Recent Contact
