They are gathered in Brasilia to reject a law that restricts their rights to territorial occupations that existed in 1988.

From Monday to Friday, thousands of Indigenous people will camp in Brasilia to defend their ancestral land rights and demand greater respect for Amazonian ecosystems.

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Held annually since 2004 by the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), the “Free Land” camp will bring together members from around 200 Indigenous communities. They will meet with representatives from all three branches of the Brazilian government and remain in a state of “permanent assembly.”

This year’s gathering has been called “in defense of the Constitution and life,” a slogan that refers to a controversial legal theory known as the Time Frame (Marco Temporal), which the far right managed to turn into law in 2023, despite the fact that it had recently been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

The Time Frame limits Indigenous land rights to territories that were physically occupied as of October 5, 1988, the date the current Constitution was enacted. This legislation disregards their ancestral rights to lands from which they were violently expelled by European colonizers.

The land dispossession process continues today through powerful transnational corporations and landowners, two lobbying groups closely linked to the Brazilian far right.

For over a year, the Supreme Court has been promoting a reconciliation process aimed at finding a compromise to soften the Time Frame ruling, but it has so far failed to achieve the necessary consensus.

Indigenous peoples will also ask President Lula da Silva to accelerate the official recognition of the territories they are claiming. The demarcation of Indigenous lands—a constitutional obligation of the state—was suspended between 2019 and 2022 during the administration of former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, and was resumed by Lula in 2023.

Nevertheless, APIB is demanding faster processing of over a hundred pending territorial claims, which would add to the roughly 600 territories already recognized, covering nearly 14% of Brazil’s landmass.

On Friday, Lula addressed these concerns during a visit with Raoni, a 93-year-old Indigenous leader who has become a symbol of the fight to preserve the Amazon.

“Those who complain that Indigenous people have too much land should not forget that they once had 100% of the territory,” Lula said in the Piaraçu village, located in the Xingu region in the state of Mato Grosso.

The Brazilian president assured that his administration respects Indigenous peoples and is working to ensure their rights are upheld. He emphasized the role of Indigenous communities and their cultures in protecting the Amazon and other biomes.

Nevertheless, Raoni criticized the oil projects being promoted by the Brazilian state roughly 500 kilometers from the mouth of the Amazon River, in the Atlantic Ocean, in a region of extreme environmental fragility.

teleSUR/ JF

Source: EFE

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