21/Jul/2017
This week, Brazil’s highly unpopular President Michel Temer signed a legal opinion from the office of his Attorney General (AGU) that directs his government’s administration to paralyze all indigenous land demarcations in the country. The move continues a string of devastating assaults on human rights and environmental protections that blatantly cater to Brazil’s regressive “ruralista” agribusiness lobby, which Temer is courting in the run-up to a congressional vote next week that could remove him from office to face charges of rampant corruption.
While potentially halting 748 pending cases to demarcate tribal lands, the measure also illegally attempts to strip indigenous peoples of their constitutional rights to permanent and exclusive use of their territories, claiming these rights cannot overrule “national interests” such as military operations, road construction, communications infrastructure, and hydroelectric dams. Such projects would be authorized in native territories without respecting the indigenous right to consultation.
Imposing a highly contentious “time frame” (marco temporal) clause, the AGU’s opinion only recognizes the land claims of indigenous peoples that have continuously occupied their territories since Brazil’s 1988 Constitution was enshrined, ignoring common situations in which communities were brutally driven off their lands. Authoritarianism is a key concept here: Temer’s blatant disregard for indigenous rights runs parallel to acts committed in the absence of democracy, during the military dictatorship (1964-1985) – a situation the country increasingly confronts today.
Brazil’s dictatorship and its current political crisis share a common denominator: the ascendant power of a conservative rural elite posing as a modern agribusiness sector. A steadfast ally of the authoritarian coronels of Brazil’s past, they now constitute Mr. Temer’s political base and offer his only chance of political salvation from a mushrooming corruption scandal and indictment that threaten to see him removed from office and investigated by the Supreme Court. Accordingly, the President has obediently done their bidding, enacting a draconian ruralistawishlist that guts indigenous territorial rights and opens vast protected areas in the Amazon to unfettered destruction. Indeed, mainstream media characterized this paradigm as trading trees for votes.
“Michel Temer is cutting indigenous rights to remain in power by attending to ruralista interests,” said Luiz Henrique Eloy, a lawyer for Brazil’s Association of Indigenous Peoples (APIB). “The Temer government wants to remain at all costs, which requires the votes of the ruralista bloc.”
Anticipating the AGU decision and its endorsement from the president, the ruralista lawmaker Luiz Carlos Heinze – notorious for his comments that indigenous peoples, escaped slave communities (quilombolas), gays and lesbians are worthless – gleefully acknowledged that the agribusiness bloc pursued this agenda with Mr. Temer from the first day of his administration, when his party seized power with the removal of President Dilma Rousseff.
“In my evaluation, over 90% of Brazil’s [pending demarcation] processes are illegal and will be archived,” said Mr. Heinze, claiming the measure represents “a new direction for Brazilian rural producers.” Attorney General Grace Mendonça’s statement goes further, making the absurd assertion that her opinion will “bring judicial security to indigenous people” by “standardizing understandings and diminishing social and landholding conflicts across the country.”
“What diminishes rural conflicts is indigenous land demarcation,” said Juliana de Paula Batista, a lawyer at Brazil’s Socio-environmental institute (ISA). “To the contrary, what causes conflicts is the message from executive power and from Congress that it is possible to mitigate the constitutional rights of indigenous peoples. This is a clear message from a president that seeks to keep his job at any cost, including by offering amnesty to land grabbers, invaders of Conservation Units, and by disrespecting peoples whose rights have been historically violated.”
The AGU’s opinion directly violates article 231 of the Brazilian Constitution, which guarantees indigenous people “the right to traditionally occupied land.” It also interferes with contentious land titling processes, such as the Munduruku struggle to demarcate their ancestral dominion Sawré Muybu, that are flashpoints for rural conflict. Definitively barring their demarcation efforts – as President Temer and his ruralista bosses propose – would do anything but “bring judicial security” to the Munduruku.
Worse still, it directly contradicts Brazil’s commitments to international agreements on indigenous rights, such as Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).
The office of Brazil’s Federal Public Prosecutors (MPF), a constitutional watchdog agency, issued a scathing statement and is preparing a rebuttal to the AGU’s opinion, based on its clear unconstitutionality. The country’s National Indigenous Movement (MNI) and their allies are also organizing resistance to the measure, which had proven critical to reversing similar, past regressions. In a statement, the MNI calls for support from social movements and society in general to impede these violent actions.
Catering to ruthless ruralista greed and motivated by a foolish determination to hold onto power with no mandate while under indictment, President Temer is personally driving an unprecedented series of assaults on human rights and environmental protection in Brazil. His actions must be categorically denounced as they portend disaster for native peoples, endangered biomes such as the Amazon, and humanity as a whole.
20/Apr/2017
There are only a few days left for the beginning of the Free Land Camp 2017. The entire program aims to bring together in a large assembly leaders of indigenous peoples and organizations from all regions of Brazil to discuss and position themselves on the violation of the constitutional indigenous rights and the anti-indigenous policies of the brazilian State. Check out the complete grid:
Monday (April 24th)
9am – Free Conference on Women’s Health
Location: Indigenous Peoples’ Memorial
9am/6pm – Presidents of CONDISI Forum
Location: SESAI – 510 North
6pm – Dinner
Location: ATL
7pm – Opening Plenary
Location: ATL
8:30pm – Documentary: ‘Preconstituinte’
9pm – Publication Launch (Unified Report): UN special Rapporteur to the indigenous people; Rapporteur about indigenous rights (Dhesca Platform) and parallel Report to the RPU.
Location: ATL
10:30pm – Surprise artistic presentation
Location: ATL
**All day: Delegations arrival and camp set up
Tuesday (April 25th)
6am/8:30 am – Cultural Activities: singing, dancing and body painting
Location: Delegation tent
7am – Breakfast
Location: ATL
8am – Opening Plenary – welcoming dancing and singing
Location: Main tent
8:30am – Opening Plenary with traditional leaders from the 5 regions
9am/1pm – Seminar “Indigenous Peoples and Original Rights”
Location: Ministério Público Federal
10am – Debate on threats to indigenous rights in the three branches of government
Location: ATL
- Executive Power: Deconstructing the institutions and public policies directed to indigenous people (the paralyzation of demarcation, the dismantling of Funai and Sesai, decrees, etc.).
Participants: Weibe Tapeba and Adriana Ramos
- Legislative Power: anti-indigenous legislative initiatives (Inquiry Parliamentary Commission – CPI; Law Proposals – LP; Constitutional Amendment Proposals – CAP; Legislative Decree Proposals – LDP).
Participants: Sônia Guajajara and Maurício Guetta.
- Judiciary System: “Time Frame” thesis, judicialized demarcation processes; Repossessions of Property; denial of Access to Justice rights; criminalization of leadership.
Participants: Valéria Buriti and Adelar Cupsinski
1pm/2pm – Lunch
Location: ATL
3pm – Guidance for the march
3:30pm – March / National Congress Act
6pm – Dinner
Location: ATL
6pm/7pm – Terra Livre Audiovisual show
7pm/8pm – Monologue Theatre Piece: Gavião de Duas Cabeças
8pm – Indigenous Women Plenary with Angela Kaxuyana and Samanta Xavante
11pm – Cultural Activities
Wednesday (April 26th)
6am/8:30 am – Cultural Activities: singing, dancing and body painting
Location: Delegation tent
7am – Breakfast
Location: ATL
7:30am – General Plenary – welcoming, dancing and singing
Location: Main tent
8am – Plenary: Themed Work Groups Guidance
Moderator: Ceiça Pitaguari and Marivelton Baré
9am – Themed Work Groups
* Indigenous Lands and Territories (land situation, indigenous land demarcation)
* Enterprises that impact indigenous territories (Right to consultation and Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), consultation of community protocols).
* “Time Frame” thesis; right to access justice; indigenous communities and the criminalization of leaders
* Indigenous Health / Indigenous Health Special Secretary (SESAI): background, current situation of the special policy and prospects.
* Indigenous School Education: past, current and prospective situation of the special policy
* Indigenous legislative proposal, national and international (Law Proposals – LP, Constitutional Amendment Proposals – CAP, International Treaties).
Note: In addressing the themes, consider the basic text of the ATL and the proposals deliberated by the First National Conference of Indigenous Peoples (I CNPI).
12am – Lunch
2pm/3:30pm – Plenary: sharing the conclusions of the Themed Groups
Moderator: Dinaman Tuxá and Nara Baré
3:30pm/6:30pm – Debate and ways forward
Note: Invited participants for the plenary: government authorities; members of the Parliament; Jurists and MPF representatives (participants in the Seminar “Indigenous Peoples and Original Rights”).
External
2pm – Public Hearing at the CDH of the Federal Senate, with the participation of a commission of 80 to 100 leaders representing the ATL.
** Table: Kretan Kaingang; Lindomar Terena; Eliseu Lopes; Paulinho Guarani; Paulo Tupiniquim; Sônia Guajajara and Darã Tupi-Guarani
Location: Federal Senate
6pm – Dinner
6pm/9pm – Terra Livre Audiovisual Show
9pm – ‘Demarcação Já’ Concert with indigenous and non indigenous people
Thursday (April 27th)
6am/8h30am – Cultural Activities: singing, dancing and body painting
Location: Delegation tent
7am – Breakfast
8am – General Plenary welcoming dancing and singing
Location: Main tent
8:30am/9:30am – Plenary: “Unify the fights in defense of indigenous Brazil”, with the presence of representatives from urban and rural organizations and social movements.
9:30am/4:30pm – Plenary: “International mobilization and unification of the indigenous peoples fights”, with the presence of APIB indigenous leadership and international indigenous movements.
10h30am/11h30am – Approval of the Conclusions of the Women’s Free Conference
11:30am/12:30am – ATL Final Document
12:30am – Lunch
3pm – March and Demonstration to the Ministries of Environment, Health, Justice and Education, besides Planalto Palace, to file the Final Document of the ATL.
4pm/6pm – Hearings and filing of the Final Document of the ATL and other texts in the offices of the STF Ministers.
6pm – Dinner
6pm – Maracatu
7pm – Terra Livre Audiovisual Show
Movie: Movie Martyrdom
Friday (April 28th)
6am/8h30am – Cultural Activities: singing, dancing and body painting
Location: Delegation tent
7am – Breakfast
8am – General Plenary – welcoming, dancing and singing
Location: Main tent
9am – General Strike: integration with social movements
12am – Final referrals
Additional activities:
1. Meeting of indigenous parliamentarians, mayors and vice-mayors
2. Meetings of indigenous communicators.
3. Meetings of indigenous lawyers.
4. Meetings of Women and Indigenous Youth
5. Other joint meetings.
6. Shows: audiovisual, musical and other cultural and artistic manifestations.
Note: Complementary activities should take place at times other than plenary sessions, working groups, marches and demonstrations, preferably during ATL evenings.
