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
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!
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
12/Feb/2020
The undersigned organizations – representing indigenous peoples, anthropologists, social, environmental and human rights defenders – that make up the National Indigenous Mobilization (MNI) network express their categorical rejection of Bill No. 191/20, submitted by the President of the Republic, Jair Bolsonaro, to the Federal Congress on February 6 of this year. The bill purports to regulate research into and exploration of mineral resources, hydrocarbons, and hydroelectric power on indigenous lands. The bill fulfills many of this President’s twisted dreams. Since being inaugurated he has defended the economic exploitation of indigenous territories, a policy that represents a nightmare scenario for indigenous peoples.
Once again Bolsonaro has shown his disrepect for democracy, the rule of law, human rights, the Federal Constitution, and international treaties recognizing indigenous rights that Brazil has historically respected. Bill 191/20, recently submitted to the Chamber of Deputies, proposes to open up indigenous territories to the exploitation of minerals, water resources and even agriculture. The law’s proponents claim they merely wish to fulfill the Brazilian Constitution, which clearly expresses the federal government’s duty to protect indigenous territories.
The President and his supporters’ real intent, however is to open indigenous lands up to exploitation by Brazilian and international capital. This project would sentence thousands of indigenous peoples to death. Under this proposal indigenous territories would no longer be recognizable. It would lead to the violation of indigenous peoples’ rights and autonomy, which are secured by law in the Brazilian Constitution and in international treaties. The bill would irreversibly damage indigenous peoples’ exclusive sovereignty over their territory.
Indeed, the project proposes to move indigenous peoples from a state of sovereignty to a state of guardianship, in which they no longer make decisions over how to manage their territory. Instead, the President could move forward with economic development projects on indigenous territories by submitting the action to a purely procedural “consultation.” It also hands the administration of financial resources over to an advisory council that may consist of only three indigenous people and that will be able to decide on its own which groups legitimately represent the interests of affected indigenous communities.
This bill is authoritarian, neocolonial, violent, racist, and genocidal, especially with regard to voluntarily isolated and recently contacted indigenous peoples. The bill resumes an ethnocidal and genocidal perspective against indigenous peoples, contrary to what the Federal Constitution advocates in Articles 231 and 232, because, in addition to eliminating protective policies, it alters the status of currently recognized indigenous territories and points in the direction of no longer recognizing any new indigenous territories. Such policies also contradict various international treaties that Brazil is a party to. We express our utter repudiation and dissent with regard to this bill and its unpredictable impacts. We are united in struggle with the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil in defense of the full extent of their rights as the original inhabitants of this country.
Brasilia, February 10, 2020
Signed:
Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil – APIB
Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Nordeste, Minas Gerais e Espirito Santo – APOINME
Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Sul – ARPINSUL
Associação Floresta Protegida
Associação Indígena Moratu do Xingu – AIMIX
Aty Guasú
Centro de Trabalho Indigenista – CTI
Comissão Guarani Yvyrupa
Comitê Nacional de Defesa dos Territórios Frente a Mineração – CNDTFM
Conselho das Aldeias Wajãpi – Apina
Conselho Indigenista Missionário – CIMI
Conselho Terena
Coordenação das Organizações Indígenas da Amazônia Brasileira – COIAB
Indigenistas Associados – INA
Instituto de Estudos Socioeconômicos – INESC
Instituto Internacional de Educação no Brasil – IIEB
Instituto de Pesquisa e Formação Indígena – IEPÉ
Instituto Socioambiental – ISA
Operação Amazônia Nativa – OPAN
Rede de Cooperação Amazônica – RCA
Greenpeace Brasil
Instituto, Sociedade, População e Natureza – ISPN,
Movimento dos Atingidos pela Mineração – MAM
20/Jan/2020
We, representatives of 45 indigenous peoples in Brazil, more than 600 participants, were summoned by chief Raoni to meet between January 14 and 18, 2020 in the village Piaraçu (Terra Indígena Capoto Jarina), with the objective of bringing together our forces and denounce that a political project of the Brazilian government of genocide, ethnocide and ecocide is underway.
The Brazilian State has to understand that it has a historic debt to indigenous peoples. We are the first inhabitants of our country. We not only defend the environment: we are Nature itself. If they kill the environment, they are killing us. We want the forest forever standing, not because the forest is beautiful, but because all these beings that inhabit the forest are part of us and run in our blood.
The Brazilian State recognizes indigenous rights by the Federal Constitution of 1988 in Articles 231 and 232, in which’s creation we were involved, in addition to other national and international legal standards, such as the 169 convention of OIT. So we demand, that whenever projects and decisions that may impact and threaten our territories and ways of life are projected, our right to free, prior and informed consultation be respected.
We don’t need to destroy to produce. They cannot sell our wealth; money does not pay for it. Our territory is very rich, not in money, we are rich in diversity and this whole forest depends on our culture to stand. What counts for us is our land. This is worth more than life. And we are the ones who can sustain nature are, us who never destroyed or polluted our river. We take care of our land; we know it’s value. We must protect that which our ancestors left us.
The current government’s threats and hate speech are promoting violence against indigenous peoples and the murder of our leaders. Today we must prepare ourselves to face not only the government, but also to react to the violence of some sectors of society, who very clearly express racism just because we are indigenous.
The indigenous women present at the gathering, leaders and warriors, generators and protectors of life, reaffirm their fight against the abuses that their bodies, spirits and territories are facing. It is women who guarantee our ways of life and our language. They guarantee our existence in our collective home. We indigenous women and men fight side by side for the right to the land that feeds and heals us.
The indigenous youth present at this gathering reaffirms the commitment to continue the struggle of the leaders in defense of our lives, our territories and our right to exist. The knowledge and traditions that our grandparents taught us are the great solution to the threats against our people and our territories, and to the climate crisis that is coming. This new generation is ready to take the solutions they have been taught.
Only we can talk about ourselves and for ourselves. We do not admit chiefs being disrespected, just as Bolsonaro did in 2019 in his speech during the UN meeting against chief Raoni. We affirm that Chief Raoni is YES our leader and he represents us! He will be our reference, for his firm and peaceful struggle, for his leadership: today and always. That is why we support his candidacy as a Nobel Peace Prize. We demand that Congress legally recognize indigenous authorities as the first rulers of this country. Our lands are governed by our chiefs, indigenous authorities who decide in favor of communities, based on collective claims and not individuals.
The current president of the republic is threatening our rights, our health, our territory. The current government has a plan to permit extraction of ore, and livestock, in our territories. We join our forces, reunited together and show our strength in this document to continue our struggles that are being followed by our grandchildren. The current government is attacking us, wanting to take the land out of our hands. We do not accept gold digging, mining, agribusiness and leasing on our lands, we do not accept loggers, illegal fishermen, hydroelectric plants and other projects, such as Ferrogrão, that will impact us in a direct and irreversible way.
We are against everything that destroys our forests and our rivers. We don’t admit that Brasil be put on sale for other countries who have the intention of exploiting our territory. We want above everything respect for our lives, our traditions, our costums and the Federal Constitution which protects our rights.
We write this document as a clamor, so that we indigenous peoples can be listened to by the three powers of the republic, by society and by the international community.
Consultation processes must guarantee our right to say NO to government and Congress initiatives. Consultations must respect our traditional forms of political representation and organization, as well as our autonomous protocols for consultation and consent.
We make clear that the indigenous people that now hold positions in the federal government, without our participation in their appointment, and who support in some manner Bolsonaro’s government, do not represent us
We demand the compliance of our original right over our territories through the demarcation and homologation of the claimed indigenous lands. We repudiate the thesis of the timeframe and demand that stopped demarcation processes be resumed immediately, as Kapot Nhinore, the former claim of chief Raoni.
We are against the municipalization of indigenous health and against the political nomination for positions at SESAI. We demand the political, administrative and financial autonomy of the Special Indigenous Health Sanitary Districts – DSEI’s and the strengthening of social control through the recreation of the District Indigenous Health Councils Presidents Forum – CONDISI, extinguished by Decree 9.759 / 2019. We demand the guarantee of a qualified and adequate workforce for our service.
We demand compliance with the Conduct Adjustment Term – TAC signed between the Ministry of Health, FUNAI, SESAI, the Federal Public Defender’s Office and the Federal Public Ministry, which guarantees the continuity of services related to indigenous health policy. And we demand the holding of the 6th National Conference on Indigenous Health.
We demand compliance with the indigenous policy under the responsibility of FUNAI and SESAI for all indigenous peoples and indigenous territories in Brazil, and not only for the approved indigenous territories.
We reject the persecution and attempt to criminalize our leaders, indigenous and indigenous organizations, collaborators and partners.
We demand guarantee of the physical and moral integrity of our communities and leaders and the punishment of those who are killing our relatives.
We demand that the Brazilian State fulfill its constitutional responsibility to protect indigenous territories and the environment, restraining illegal activities and punishing criminals. We also demand that the government take responsibility for the poisoning of the air, soil and rivers caused by the irresponsible and uncontrolled use of pesticides around our lands.
We demand compliance with public policies for the protection of isolated and recently contacted peoples.
We demand a differentiated and quality education for our young people, which allows them to complete their training, from basic education to high school, in our territories. We do not accept the scrapping of public universities and we ask for the guarantee of continuity of scholarships for indigenous youths who are going to study in the city at universities. The university education of young people is important for the continuity of our struggle. It is a space that ensures that we are prepared for the changes that threaten us. For this reason, the youth holds the pen in their hands next to what has been taught by their grandparents to launch the arrow that was given to them, to continue fighting. Being at university only makes sense if we exercise our spirituality. In this sense, we ask Brazilian society to join us in the struggle for access to plural and democratic universities, for university education that values and recognizes the science of the territory.
We want policies to strengthen sustainable economic alternatives for our territories, without the use of pesticides, and that promote the economy of the Standing Forest, with an emphasis on culture, traditional knowledge, no extractivisim and clean technologies.
We are human beings, we are the originary people from Brazil. We are part of Brazil and Brazil is part of us. We do not accept them saying that our territories are too big, because that does not compare to the size and strength of our culture and to what we have contributed to maintain, not only our lives and ways of life, but the lives of everyone on the planet. Brazil was not born first, it was us indigenous peoples, and we were massacred, but we continue to resist in order to exist.
We are not alone. At this great meeting, we declare the resumption of the Forest People’s Alliance, which includes the Caatinga, Pantanal, Cerrado, Atlantic Forest and the Amazon. We will be together defending the protection of our territories. This struggle is not only for indigenous peoples, but for all of us, it is a struggle for the life of the planet.
We conclude certain that 2020 will be a year of a lot of struggle, and we call on all relatives and partners of Indigenous Peoples, in Brazil and abroad, for a year of many mobilizations, where we must be present with the strength and energy of our ancestors in Brasilia and on the streets around the world. The fight will continue until the last Indigenous person is standing!
Piaraçu Village, January 18, 2020
23/Aug/2019
The Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB), hereby expresses extreme concern about the rapid destruction of the Amazon rainforest, home to our families and to all the resources we need to live. The related record rates of deforestation and outbreaks of fire are a consequence of the anti- indigenous and anti-environmental genocidal speeches of this government. Loggers are taking our land and irresponsible landlords are taking advantage of the weakening of environmental surveillance to advance into our homes (Amazon).
The weakening of enforcement is a result of Bolsonaro’s speech of violent attacks on the Amazon rainforest and our indigenous relatives who live there. Deforestation and a record wave of fires are destroying environmental protection areas and our territories, highlighting the dire consequences of this government’s attitudes to our current and future survival. As an example, we draw attention to the fires currently occurring on Bananal Island, Tocantins and in the Apyterewa Indigenous Land, in southern Pará, where indigenous peoples, including groups in voluntary isolation, live. The fires are destroying the remaining forests in these regions, vital spaces for the survival of our relatives. The state of Mato Grosso leads the current number of fire outbreaks. In addition to a strong agribusiness, Mato Grosso is home to many of our relatives. There are also isolated people in the state of Mato Grosso, many of whom have not yet had their presence recognized by the Brazilian state, which may also be in the process of escape and violence due to the current high rates of deforestation and fire. The states of Pará, Mato Grosso, and Amazon lead the ranking of deforestation this year, it is precisely where a significant population of our people is. It is also in this region that most of the last isolated peoples in Brazil live.
We will not admit such destruction to our homes… Amazon! They want to wipe us out, but the people of this land will not let you. We will fight for you and us.
NO BLOOD DROP MORE!
08/Jun/2017
GENEVA / WASHINGTON DC (8 June 2017) – Three United Nations experts and a rapporteur from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights have joined forces to denounce attacks on indigenous and environmental rights in Brazil.
“The rights of indigenous peoples and environmental rights are under attack in Brazil,” said the UN Special Rapporteurs on the rights of indigenous peoples, Victoria Tauli Corpuz, on human rights defenders, Michel Forst, and on the environment, John Knox, and the IACHR Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Francisco José Eguiguren Praeli.
Over the last 15 years, Brazil has seen the highest number of killings of environmental and land defenders of any country, the experts noted, up to an average of about one every week. Indigenous peoples are especially at risk.
“Against this backdrop, Brazil should be strengthening institutional and legal protection for indigenous peoples, as well as people of African heritage and other communities who depend on their ancestral territory for their material and cultural existence,” the experts stated. “It is highly troubling that instead, Brazil is considering weakening those protections.”
The experts highlighted proposed reforms to the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), the body which supports indigenous peoples in the protection of their rights, and which has already had its funding severely reduced. A report recently adopted by the Congressional Investigative Commission calls for the body to be stripped of responsibility for the legal titling and demarcation of indigenous lands. The experts were also concerned with allegations of illegitimate criminalization of numerous anthropologists, indigenous leaders and human rights defenders linked to their work on indigenous issues.
“This report takes several steps back in the protection of indigenous lands,” the experts warned. “We are particularly concerned about future demarcation procedures, as well as about indigenous lands which have already been demarcated.”
The Congressional Investigative Commission’s report also questions the motives of the United Nations, accusing it of being a confederation of NGOs influencing Brazilian policy through its agencies, the ILO Convention 169, and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
“The report also states that the UN Declaration presents a grave threat to Brazil’s sovereignty, and it further encourages the Brazilian government to denounce ILO Convention 169, claiming it manipulates the establishment of non-existent indigenous peoples in order to expand indigenous lands in Brazil,” the experts stressed.
“It’s really unfortunate that instead of exemplifying the principles enshrined in the Declaration, the Congressional Investigative Commission questions the motives behind it and those of the UN itself, and waters down any progress made so far,” they said.
Ms. Tauli Corpuz expressed particular alarm at accusations that her 2016 visit to Brazil intentionally triggered an increase in the number of indigenous peoples reclaiming their lands, exposing them to further violence. She highlighted the fact that some of these communities suffered attacks immediately following her mission.
The human rights experts also noted that a number of draft laws establishing general environmental licensing that would weaken environmental protection were being circulated in Congress on Friday 2 June. For example, the proposed legislation would remove the need for environmental licenses for projects involving agri-business and cattle ranching, regardless of their size, location, necessity, or impact on indigenous lands or the environment.
“Weakening such protections would be contrary to the general obligation of States not to regress in the level of their protections of human rights, including those dependent on a healthy environment,” they stressed.
The experts warned that the proposed laws were at odds with the American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which guarantees the rights of indigenous peoples to the conservation and protection of the environment, and protects the productive capacity of their land and resources.
Both the report and the draft legislation had been submitted by members of the “ruralist” lobby group, a coalition representing farmers’ and ranchers’ associations, the experts noted.
“Tensions over land rights should be addressed through efforts to recognize rights and mediate conflicts, rather than substantially reducing the safeguards in place for indigenous peoples, people of African descent and the environment in Brazil,” they said.
The UN experts are in contact with the Brazilian authorities and closely monitoring the situation.
Ms. Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, Mr. Michel Forst, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, and Mr. John H. Knox, Special Rapporteur on the issue of human rights obligations related to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council’s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures’ experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.
Mr. Francisco José Eguiguren Praeli, Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, was elected on June 16, 2015, by the OAS General Assembly, for a 4-year mandate ending December 31, 2019. A principal, autonomous body of the Organization of American States (OAS), the IACHR derives its mandate from the OAS Charter and the American Convention on Human Rights. The Inter-American Commission has a mandate to promote respect for human rights in the region and acts as a consultative body to the OAS in this area. The Commission is composed of seven independent members who are elected in an individual capacity by the OAS General Assembly and who do not represent their countries of origin or residence.
UN Human Rights, country page: Brazil
For more information and media inquiries, please contact Ms. Hee-Kyong Yoo (+41 22 917 97 23 / [email protected]), Ms. Christine Evans (+41 22 917 9197 / [email protected]) or write to [email protected]
For media inquiries related to other UN independent experts:
Xabier Celaya, OHCHR Media Unit (+ 41 22 917 9383 / [email protected])
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