02/nov/2019
Photo: Patrick Raynaud
Maranhão, November 2, 2019 – It is with deep sadness and disgust that we, the Brazilian Indigenous Peoples’ Association (APIB), publicly denounce and offer solidarity to the Guajajara People for the guardian Paulo Paulino Guajajara’s murder, after the “Forest Guardians” team of indigenous forest agents were ambushed by loggers in the Guajajara territory. The Indigenous leader and guardian Laércio Guajajara was also injured, he’s hospitalized and in a stable condition.
The crime occurred yesterday in the Araribóia Indigenous Land, at Bom Jesus das Selvas, Maranhão, between the Lagoa Comprida and Jenipapo villages. There was intense confrontation. The indigenous forest guardian Paul Paulino Guajajara, known as “Bad Wolf”, was brutally murdered with a gunshot to his face. It has been reported that a logger involved in the crime may also have died in the confrontation, his body is missing.
The Bolsonaro Government has indigenous blood on their hands, the increased violence in indigenous territories is a direct reflection of their hate speech, as well as their measures against indigenous peoples in Brazil. Our lands are being invaded, our leaders murdered, attacked and criminalized, and the Brazilian state is abandoning indigenous peoples to their fate with the ongoing dismantling of environmental and indigenous policies.
Currently, eight indigenous leaders of APIB are on an intense tour across Europe to denounce the serious human rights crisis faced by Brazil’s indigenous peoples under President Jair Bolsonaro’s Government. Titled “Indigenous Blood: Not a Single Drop More” the campaign calls on authorities and business leaders in Europe to respond to the growing violence and environmental devastation in the Amazon and across the country.
A recent report by the Indigenous Missionary Council of Brazil (CIMI) revealed a dramatic increase in violence against native communities and invasions of indigenous territories. During the first nine months of the Bolsonaro Government, there were 160 reported cases of land invasions, double the numbers recorded last year.
Sonia Guajajara, APIB Executive Coordinator and leader of the Guajajara People, stated that the Araribóia Indigenous Territory is in mourning and that they have long been denouncing the absence of government authority to protect indigenous territories, as well as the invasions of Araribóia territory for illegal logging and the guardians’ struggle to protect it: “We no longer want to be statistics, we want measures from the Government, from the agencies that are increasingly scrapped precisely to not protect the people who are paying with their own lives for doing the work that is the State’s responsibility. We demand urgent justice!
This Monday, the 3rd, a public hearing is scheduled in Imperatriz (MA) to discuss the leasing of indigenous territories and their being handed over to agribusiness. We will not accept the legalization of our territories’ destruction.
We know that indigenous peoples around the world are responsible for preserving 80% of biodiversity, as well as for fighting the climate crisis which is one of the biggest problems faced by humanity in the 21st century. Where there are indigenous people, there are forests. Therefore, an attack on our peoples represents an attack on all societies and on the future of the next generations.
We need to stop the escalation of this genocidal policy against our indigenous peoples in Brazil. That is why we are campaigning around European countries: to alert the world to what is happening in Brazil and to call for support so that not even one drop of indigenous blood is shed.
Indigenous Blood: Not a Single Drop More!
23/out/2019
To His Holiness
Pope Francis
Holy Father:
As leaders representing the largest indigenous organization in Brazil, the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), we are honored to greet you reverently, thanking you for the explicit choice your papal mission has made in favor of the least favored people on the planet, especially the peoples and organizations of the countryside. As original peoples, over 500 years of colonization still impacts us today, threatening our lands and our extinction in order to satisfy the interests of profit and exacerbated consumption of the few. This is driven by the spirit of capital, of destruction, and will lead to the death of Mother Earth and all the living beings she holds in her holy arms.
We would like to bring your attention to this programmed hecatomb that will sacrifice the indigenous peoples of Brazil. Since he took office on January 1st of this year, President Jair Bolsonaro has chosen us as the artillery targets for supposed development project he wants to impose at any cost on our lands, territories and the natural resources we have protected for thousands of years.
Bolsonaro dismantled the various institutions and public policies that with much struggle we conquered from the Brazilian State through the Constitution of 1988, recognizing our ethnic and cultural specificity. The Constitution recognizes our social organization, customs, languages, beliefs and traditions, and our customary rights to the lands we have traditionally occupied. The Union is obligated to demarcate and protect our lands. Land is indispensable for the preservation of the natural resources necessary for our well-being, and necessary for our physical and cultural reproduction in accordance with our uses, customs and traditions. Our lands are therefore recognized as our permanent possession and reserved for our exclusive enjoyment, including the riches of the soil, rivers and lakes in them. According to the Constitution, our lands are inalienable and the rights over them imprescriptible.
Notwithstanding the constitutional text, backed by international treaties signed by Brazil, the government has stepped up attacks on our fundamental rights. President Bolsonaro himself has repeatedly stated that as long as he governs the country, he will not demarcate another inch of indigenous land. He has also completely dismantled the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) responsible for the demarcation and protection of indigenous lands and the promotion of indigenous rights in articulation with other public agencies; gutted national environmental policies, disfiguring environmental oversight and controls; terminated or restricted specialized institutions and policies for our peoples in the area of environmental and territorial management, indigenous school education, and the indigenous health subsystem; and extinguished mechanisms and spaces for citizen participation and social control. He has also exerted strong influence on the National Congress, in collusion with the economic forces represented there, to relax or backtrack on environmental legislation and restrict or suppress our constitutional rights, especially our customary rights to our territories. These rights are also under threat within the judiciary, which under pressure from landowners and agribusiness, threatens to regress in its interpretation of indigenous peoples’ rights to our traditional lands.
Government policy and speeches have thus been one of the main elements stimulating the violence, conflict, invasion and criminalization that our peoples and leaders suffer on our territories. The situation has led to increasing numbers of indigenous leaders being threatened, persecuted and murdered.
The Brazilian government’s death project is pushing to implement large development projects that will have unpredictable and irreversible impacts on our lands and territories, even where people in voluntary isolation and recent contact are present. These projects – for agribusiness, ranching, mining, hydropower, roads and transmission lines – threaten our lives, and violate our right to consultation and free, prior and informed consent, upheld by national and international law.
For all this, Holy Father, we hereby present our appeal to your Holiness, in the hope that it may help push the Brazilian government to end this brutal offensive that threatens our ways of life, our peoples, languages and cultures – and our very lives.
Vatican City, October 21, 2019.
INDIGENOUS BLOOD: NOT A SINGLE DROP MORE
09/out/2019
Led by APIB, a delegation of Brazilian leaders will visit 12 countries to inform authorities, companies and European society about violence against indigenous people.
Brasília, October 9, 2019 – From October 17 to November 20, a delegation of indigenous leaders will visit 12 European countries to denounce serious violations against Brazilian indigenous people since President Jair Bolsonaro took office last January.
Led by APIB (Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil), in partnership with civil society organizations, the campaign “Indigenous Blood: Not a Single Drop more” aims to pressure Brazilian government and agribusiness companies to fulfill international agreements on climate change and human rights signed by Brazil – such as the Paris Agreement, the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 169, which guarantees free, prior and informed consultation, the United Nations Declaration on the rights of indigenous people, the New York Declaration, among others.
The delegation, formed by Sonia Guajajara, Alberto Terena, Angela Kaxuyana, Celia Xakriabá, Dinaman Tuxá, Elizeu Guarani Kaiowá and Kretã Kaingang, will join in important spaces for dialogue and political impact with European public to draw the world’s attention to the serious threats that are taking place in Brazil and also to inform authorities and public opinion about the origin of Brazilian products that are produced in conflict areas or in indigenous lands. According to the leaders, the agenda will be a campaign of dialogue, pressure, denunciation, dissemination and awareness of the European society of the context that indigenous peoples live in Brazil, a reality that threatens the lives of the forest people and of the planet.
The journey will begin at the Vatican, with the presence of the leaders at the Synod for the Pan-Amazon Region, inaugurated last Friday by Pope Francis, who demanded respect for indigenous culture and rejected destructive or reductive “ideological settlements”. Then, the leaders will go to Rome, Germany, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Portugal, the United Kingdom and Spain. The agenda includes meetings with authorities and political leaders, congressmen of the European Parliament and the Green Bench, high commissioner of international cooperation bodies, businessmen, international courts, activists, environmentalists and artists.
Last April, data from an APIB report, produced in partnership with Amazon Watch, showed how European and US companies, including banks, loggers and accessory makers, finance deforestation in the Amazon region. Brazilian companies fined for environmental crimes in the Amazon since 2017 have been analyzed and the research identified linkages between them and Northern countries’ commercial interests. There is evidence of companies operating in conflict areas and extracting resources from indigenous territories.
Preliminary data published in September by the Indigenous Missionary Council (Cimi) indicates that invasions into indigenous territories exploded in 2019. From January to September, there were 160 invasions in 153 indigenous lands against 111 such cases in 76 territories in 2018. Within three months until the end of 2019, there is already a 44% increase in total attacks and a 101% increase in land affected.
Another recent report, published by Human Rights Watch, showed how an action by criminal networks drives deforestation and fires in the Amazon, showing that reduced environmental fiscalization encourages illegal logging and results in greater pressure on forest peoples, who suffer even more violent reprisals in defending their territories.
In August, an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report suggested, for the first time, as solutions to the climate crisis, the act of recognizing the role of indigenous people as guardians of the forest, as their knowledge and practices are important contributions to climate resilience.
For APIB, the moment to amplify the visibility of these facts through a campaign of articulation and communication abroad is now, because the genocide of indigenous peoples in Brazil is real and they need to join forces and allies for this battle for life.
To follow the leadership journey, follow APIB, Mídia Ninja and Mídia Índia on social media.
Media contacts
Amazon Watch
Camila Rossi: [email protected] + 55 11 98152-8476
Greenpeace
Rebecca Cesar: [email protected] +55 11 95640-0443
11/jul/2019
From August 9 to 13, there will be the 1st Indigenous Women’s March, which will bring together 2,000 women from the most different peoples, from all over Brazil.
With the theme “Territory: our body, our spirit”, the objective is to give visibility to the actions of indigenous women, discussing issues inherent to their diverse realities, recognizing and strengthening their protagonism and capacities in the defense and guarantee of human rights, in especially the care for the mother earth, the territory, the body and the spirit.
The Indigenous Women’s March will be much more than the literalness of the name suggests. The proposal is to hold a large gathering of indigenous women called ‘National Forum of Indigenous Women’, which will discuss issues raised during the women’s plenary in Free Land Camp 2019. The violations of indigenous rights that in the current political situation are spreading throughout Brazil demand an immediate reaction, especially since women are the most impacted by agribusiness, climate change, machismo and by racism.
Aiming unity and visibility, the idea is that the Indigenous Women’s March will join the Daisy’s March in August 13th, an act that will bring together 100 thousand women from the countryside and the forest, in a great national demonstration for women’s rights and protagonism, from a new vision of sustainable development and social justice.
In addition, on August 9, the International Day of Indigenous Peoples is celebrated, a very significant date that will also be reinforced in the Forum.
17/abr/2019
Following the intention to exterminate the indigenous peoples of Brazil, the Jair Bolsonaro government intensifies his position when it was still a federal deputy, when he stated on April 15, 1998, that “the Brazilian cavalry was very incompetent. Competent, yes, it was the American cavalry that decimated its Indians in the past and nowadays does not have that problem in their country. ”
This morning we received the news that his minister Sérgio Moro published the Ordinance n. 441 which authorizes the use of national security force in the esplanade of the ministries and in the place of the three powers during the next 33 days. This measure was encouraged by the Institutional Security Office (GSI) and has as one of the motivators the Free LanD Camp(ATL), which will take place in Brasília from the 24th to 26th of April. It is not excessive to mention that Decree 5289/2004, which bases the aforementioned decree, provides as an action to be developed by the National Security Force, with the support of civil servants, the exact opposite of what is intended with the use of force, that is , to support actions aimed at the protection of individuals, groups and organs of society that promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms.
The Free Land Camp is a meeting of national and international indigenous leaders that seeks to exchange cultural experiences and the struggle for the guarantee of our constitutional rights, such as the demarcation of their territories, access to health, education and indigenous social participation. The Camp has been going on for more than 15 years always in a peaceful character, seeking to give visibility to Indigenous peoples daily struggles, always made invisible by the authorities. If it is in the interests of General Augusto Heleno to discourage the use of violence against the native indians, why can’t he stand for the people that is been suffering violence and having their families and relatives killed for over 500 years?
“What are you afraid of? Why do they deny us the right to be in this place? Why do they insist on denying our existence? In binding us to interests other than ours? In speaking for us and lying about us?”
The camp is not financed with public money as President Jair Bolsonaro said, he is self-financed with the help of several collaborators and only happens because of the sweat of so many that make it happen.
Unfortunately the government is not willing to listen to them and does not help with anything, which to our understanding should be its role. It is necessary to end the binge with the public money and this will not be done with the shutting down of the minimum salary, or cuts in health and education. It can only be done with the end of corruption, the checks, the fakes job titles or so many other scandals we see in this government.
“Stop inciting that the people are against us! We are not violent, violent is those who attack the sacred right to free demonstration with armed troops, the right to come and go from so many Brazilians who have walked and walked these lands since much before 1500.”
The history of our existence is the history of the tragedy of this model of civilization endorsed by the present government that puts profit on top of life, we are the living resistance, and in the last 519 years we have never cowered before the armed men who wanted tell us what our place was, now it will be no different. We will continue to march, with the strength of our ancestral culture, being the resistance to all these attacks that we are suffering.
Tell the peoples we will move!
01/abr/2019
The year of 2019 already began in a scenario of backlash against Indigenous Peoples in Brazil. Since the 1st day of the year, many severe violations of human rights and social-environmental rights of Indigenous Peoples have escalated. They have targeted our lives and our lands. In this context, we will hold the 15th Free Land Camp, bringing together thousands of Indigenous leaders from all regions of Brazil, in Brasilia, to reaffirm our resistance and to articulate strategies for struggling for our rights, lives, lands, and protecting the environment.
We rely on your support! Please, donate, and share the link for this campaign.
For brazilian donations, acess:
Brazilian donators
For internacional donations, send email to [email protected]
01/abr/2019
Dear Relatives,
The year 2019 began in a very severe context. On the first day after the inauguration, President Jair Bolsonaro issued MP 870, whose measure dismantles FUNAI, the agency responsible for the Brazilian State’s indigenous policy, transferring it from the Ministry of Justice to the newly created Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights, commanded by Minister Damares Alves. This same measure removed the attributions of indigenous land demarcation and environmental licensing in the indigenous lands of FUNAI and handed over to the Secretariat of Land Affairs of the Ministry of Livestock and Supply-MAPA, under the control of the ruralist group. There followed a series of attacks and articulated invasions against indigenous lands, persecution and expression of racism and intolerance of our peoples and our lives. Lastly, the announcement by the Health Minister, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, further aggravated the dismantling, when he announced changes in indigenous health care, aiming at municipalization, with a clear intention to dismantle the National Policy on Health Care for Indigenous Peoples (PNASPI). leading to the extinction of the indigenous health subsystem, an historic achievement and result of many struggles of the indigenous movement.
It whithin this context that the 15th Free Land Camp takes place. A space that will require of us reaction with wisdom during the three intense days.
For ATL 2019, which is already the main and largest Assembly of indigenous peoples in Brazil, it is important that all of them pay attention to the following general guidelines:
1. The ATL will take place from April 24 to 26 in Brasilia. The location will be informed later.
2. The arrival will be on the evening of the 23rd and the morning of the 24th. It is important that all the delegations calculate well the travel time not to arrive before and not much later.
3. All participants need to bring their camping kit (tent, mat, blanket, cups, cutlery and toiletries). This material will not be available this year.
4. Each delegation, state or region, must bring non-perishable food and whoever can bring their kitchen to prepare their own food.
5. Whoever takes daily or continuous medications, bring your full medication.
6. Each delegation should present people to join the cleaning, safety and health teams for the sake of our own space.
7. No extra-shedule activities will be permitted within the ATL space, whether it’s saling, debates, hearings, or commemoration wise.
8. We will jointly build and jointly watch over our mobilization of struggle.
9. The mobilization will take place in Brasilia, but we advise that each state and region that can, also carry out local mobilizations.
Indigenous blood no more droplets!
APIB Executive Coordination
Brasília, April 1, 2019
ARTICULATION OF THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF BRAZIL
APOINME – ARPIN SUDESTE – ARPINSUL – COMMISSION GUARANI YVYRUPA – COUNCIL OF PEOPLE TERENA – ATY GUASU – COIAB
25/mar/2019
National Mobilization happens in one of the biggest offensives against indigenous rights in recent decades.
The Free Land Camp (ATL) will bring together thousands of indigenous leaders from across the country from April 24 to 26 in Brasilia. The greatest mobilization of indigenous peoples in Brazil will be in the midst of a major offensive against their rights, threats and violence against leaders and the scrapping of the organs responsible for indigenous public policies. This year, the motto of the camp is “Indigenous blood. In the veins, the struggle for the land and territories”.
With a strong character of resistance, its objective is to bring together leaders of the indigenous peoples of the five regions of Brazil and partners from all over the world, including indigenous leaders of Coica (Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin), AMPB (Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests), AMAN (Alliance of Indigenous Peoples of the Indonesian Archipelago) and others to articulate strategies of struggle and to give more visibility to the Brazilian reality, denouncing the constant and growing attacks.
The discussion about the transferring of the FUNAI (The main indigenous state organism) from the Ministry of Justice to the Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights will also be in the agenda; the municipalization of indigenous health, the proposal of temporal framework (a political- unconstitutional legal system, according to which indigenous peoples would only be entitled to lands that were in their possession on October 5, 1988), changes in executive power, with the transfer of demarcation power to the Ministry of Agriculture under the control of the ruralist group, the intensification of invasions of indigenous lands and threats to leaders, among others.
During the three days of the ATL there will be marches, public acts, audiences with authorities, assemblies and debates. The ATL 2019 is carried out by the Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB) with the support of indigenous organizations, indigenists, and socio-environmental, countryside and city movements and supporters of civil society.
In less than 90 days of Bolsonaro Government the attacks on indigenous rights have already dismantled 30 years of indigenous policy:
1 – Transfer of Funai to the Ministry of the Women, Family and Human Rights
2 – Delivery of Demarcation folders and environmental licensing to the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply, under the agribusiness lobby command.
3 – Extinction of SECADI – Secretary of Continuing Education, Literacy, Diversity and Inclusion (SECADI / MEC).
4 – Extinction of National Council for Food and Nutrition Security.
5 – Increase in territorial conflicts due to the speech that states “there won’t be any other centimeter of demarcated land” by the actual Government.
6 – Negotiation and delivery of the Amazon to national and international interests and corporations.
7 – Intense articulation for the Pension Reform, which is actually the end of the Public Pension in the country.
8 – The release of the weapon carrying, thus enabling violence to increase in the countryside, besides the risks to indigenous people.
9 – Decision for the municipalization of indigenous health, ending the SESAI – The Special Secretariat of Indigenous Health.
10 – Exploration and ventures that directly impact Indigenous Lands with irreversible consequences for the environment, culture and way of life of our peoples.
11 – Establishment of a new legal framework, through administrative, legal and legislative measures that confront or suppress the original right of our peoples, the right of traditional occupation, possession and exclusive usufruct of indigenous lands, territories and natural assets.
28/mar/2018
Never like today, on the last 30 years, the brazilian State chose a relation completely adverse to the rights of indigenous people. The illegitimate government of Michel Temer reportedly took an anti-indigenous policy putting end to the indigenous lands demarcations and protections, leading to the invasion of these lands by governmental and private enterprises. Prompted the dismantle of institutions and public policies to the indigenous people and is being absent and conniving with the discrimination and violence practices of all order against the indigenous peoples and communities even in already regularized territories. Administrative and legal measures are adopted to restrain indigenous rights. Stand out among these, besides the distinct reforms (labor, social security, privatization of state-owned enterprises etc.) that reaches all the brazilian population, freezing public budget for 20 years, through the Constitutional Amendment 95, involving the already reduced budget of the indigenist organ. The General Union Law, on the coupist government service, institutes the Opinion 001 / 17, that intends to generalize to all indigenous lands the conditions defined by the Supreme Court exclusively to Raposa do Sol indigenous land and wanting to consolidate time frame thesis that refers to the recognition of indigenous territorial right to the Federal Constitution promulgation , in October 5, 1988.
Convergent with this policy, distinguished anti-indigenous stands, mostly the ones from agribusiness, religious fundamentalism and mining, among others, move around dozens of Constitutional Amendment Projects (PECs) like PEC 215 and Law Projects (PLs) to regress or suppress indigenous rights assured by the Federal Constitution, with the purpose to legalize invasion and usurpation of indigenous territories to natural goods (soil, forests, water, mineral, resources, biodiversity) illegal exploitation and the implantation of infrastructure enterprises (ports, hydroelectric, roads, transmission lines) besides the expansion of agricultural frontiers and the usurpation of traditional knowledges. Also part of this offensive of capital and its national partners are the practices of co-optation of indigenous leaders, the internal division of indigenous peoples and communities, judicial and extrajudicial evictions, intimidation, persecution and murder of indigenous leaderships.
Lastly, in the judicial sphere, worries the growing consolidation and applicability, mostly in inferior stances, of time lapse thesis, the lack of access of indigenous people to justice and frequent repossessions, in favour of invaders , the extrajudicial evictions, when indigenous peoples decide to retake their traditional territories.
CALL
In face of this barbarism scene. that reaches not only the indigenous people, Indigenous Peoples of Brazil’s Articulation (APIB) summon the indigenous peoples and organizations from all regions of the country to the biggest indigenous national mobilization of the year – the Acampamento Terra Livre – ATL (Free Land Camp) which will be held in Brasília – DF, in the period from April 23 to 27, 2018, with the objective of: “Unify the struggles in defense of Indigenous Brazil – for the guarantee of the original rights of our peoples”.
The ATL provides for discussing and defining positions about the situation of fundamental rights of our peoples within the scope of the different State powers, mostly the territorial (demarcation, protection and sustainability) and about the specific and differentiated public policies conquered in recent years (health, education, PNGATI, CNPI, etc.) as well as on the increasing climate of criminalization, violence and institutional racism against our indigenous peoples, communities and leaderships. This will involve mobilizing and demonstrating with the organs and instances of the public authorities involved in principle with the protection and promotion of the rights of indigenous peoples and the implementation of the public policies that concern us.
The APIB will make available the conditions of logistics, infrastructure and feeding to welcome the delegations, it is therefore up to the local and regional indigenous associations, communities and organizations to seek with their supporters and partners network transportation facilities to travel to Brasília. Each participant cannot forget to bring their personal use materials (toothpaste, soap, toothbrush, plate, glass, cutlery, mattress and sweaters) and, who can, lodging material (tents, canvas, blankets, sleeping bags, nets, mosquito nets, etc.) and contribute with feeding material and non-perishable hygiene.
The delegations will be received starting monday morning, April 23, on the Camping site to be informed in a different moment, when we will start the installation. the mobilization activities will happen during 4 intense days, from April 23rd to 26th, leaving to return to the territories on the 27th.
We recommend to the delegations coordinators to orient the leaderships about the safety rules and the need to be fully involved at the foreseen activities.
To further informations, please contact Apib representation in Brasília, through the e-mail [email protected] or by phone (+55 61) 30345548.
Press office ATL: Patrícia Bonilha – (+ 55 61) 61 99643-8307 / [email protected].
Letícia Leite – [email protected]
17/out/2017
A relatora da ONU Vicky Tauli Corpuz fala ao representante da rede para prevenção do genocídio na América Latina sobre riscos de genocídio e desafios para a sobrevivência física e cultural de povos indígenas na América Latina e chama a atenção para a situação dos povos indígenas isolados no Brasil. O relato aconteceu durante o encontro focal da rede Latino Americana de Prevenção de Genocídio e Ataque de Massa, nos dias 15 e 16 de outubro em Nova York.
Leia na integra aqui Vicky Tauli Corpuz Olhar sob os povos isolados
