Despite the unblocking of 14 processes at the Belém climate conference, indigenous leaders demand that Lula’s government act faster and criticize the bureaucratic pace, considering the commitment insufficient in the face of climate urgency and land conflicts.

By Douglas Diniz – Journalist, member of the leadership of the Socialist Revolution (RS) and of the International Socialist League (LIS), Coordinator of the Info.Revolução Portal.

E-mail: contato@inforevolucao.com

Belém, PA – The announcement of the recognition of four Indigenous Lands (ITs ) and the delimitation of ten new territories by Minister Sônia Guajajara at COP 30 on Tuesday (18), although a formal step forward, failed to calm the growing frustration of indigenous leaders with the pace of demarcations under the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The capital of Pará, the scene of the Climate Conference and the presence of some 5,000 indigenous people, witnessed a gesture by the federal government that, in practice, is seen by many activists as insufficient and slow compared to campaign promises and the historical urgency of the cause.

Since the beginning of his mandate, when Lula climbed the ramp of the Planalto together with Cacique Raoni, the expectations of the indigenous movement were for a joint effort in the demarcations. However, in crucial events such as the Free Land Camp (ATL), the announcements did not live up to expectations. In Belém, the pressure was public: the Global Indigenous March that preceded the minister’s announcement demanded urgent demarcation as a climate policy.

Bureaucracy and lack of political will

The 14 unblocked processes total more than 2.18 million hectares and are undeniably vital. Demarcation, as shown by data from the Climate Observatory – Indigenous Territories have only lost 1% of native forest in three decades, compared to 20% of private areas – is the most effective environmental protection mechanism in the country. However, the slowness of the process has deep roots, but is compounded by the perception that political will does not translate into speed of implementation.

“The Amazon must remain at the center of the demarcation policy,” said Toya Manchineri, general coordinator of Coiab, reinforcing the focus that the government should maintain, but which has been dispersed. The government, which created a Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, is criticized for maintaining an “inertia” that devalues the initial symbolism.

The slowness not only frustrates the communities, many of which have been waiting for decades for the recognition of their lands, but also fuels territorial conflicts. In a scenario of “fiscal adjustment” and complex political articulation in Congress, the promise to “zero out” the pending demarcations clashes with an alleged “lack of resources” to continue the processes and with the resistance of agribusiness sectors, which are accused of aligning themselves to the detriment of the indigenous agenda.

The history of delays

The 1988 Constitution established a five-year deadline for all demarcations in the country to be finalized, but 37 years later, dozens of processes remain paralyzed. Historically, the annual average of approvals of Indigenous Territories in the eight years of Lula’s first two terms was 10 per year, lower than the 18 per year of Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s government. Although the current mandate signals progress in relation to the ultra-right government of President Bolsonaro, the waiting time and the number of territories still in the initial phase – with 255 Indigenous Territories in process but not yet finalized – are seen as a failure of the State that the current government has not yet managed to reverse decisively.

The delay is doubly detrimental: economically, the cost of expropriation and compensation increases with the revaluation of the land; and symbolically, with the death of the oldest leaders and the emptying of the communities’ memory of their ancestral boundaries.

The four recognized indigenous lands total 2.182 million hectares and are located in the municipalities of Faro and Oriximiná, in Pará, and Nhamundá, in Amazonas. They are:

• TI Kaxuyana-Tunayana (PA-AM)
• TI Manoki (MT)
• TI Uirapuru (MT)
• TI Estação Parecis (MT)

The ordinances declaring 10 Indigenous Lands include areas in São Paulo, Guarani territories, which were also recognized in Mato Grosso do Sul; three in the Northeast, two in Bahia and one in Pernambuco; and two in the North, one in Pará and one in Amazonas. See below:

• TI Sawre Ba’pim (PA – Munduruku)
• TI Vista Alegre (AM – Mura)
• TI Tupinambá de Olivença (BA – Tupinambá)
• TI Comexatiba (BA – Pataxó)
• TI Ypoi Triunfo (MS – Guarani)
• TI Pankará da Serra do Arapuá (PE – Pankara)
• TI Sambaqui (PR – Guarani)
• TI Ka’aguy Hovy (SP – Guaraní)
• TI Pakurity (SP – Guarani)
• TI Ka’aguy Mirim (SP – Guarani)

Leaders demand immediate demarcation and justice at COP 30

The demonstration of the World March of Indigenous Peoples transformed COP 30 into a stage for denouncing the murder of Vicente Kaiowá, used as a symbol of the State’s inability to protect territories and lives.

Clash of agendas in Belém

The intense mobilization of leaders in the World March of Indigenous Peoples, held on Monday (17) in Belém, revealed the deep gulf between the climate rhetoric of the Lula government and COP 30 and the reality of violence in the territories.

The phrase “Stop killing us” became the main slogan denouncing the murder of Vicente Fernandes Vilhalva Kaiowá, 36, which occurred this Sunday (16) in Mato Grosso do Sul.

The armed attack on the Pyelito Kue retaking, in the municipality of Iguatemi, caused the death of Vicente, who was shot in the head, and left four other indigenous people wounded, among them teenagers and a woman, who were hit by firearms and rubber bullets.

The community’s account that the gunmen tried to take Vicente’s body, but the indigenous people prevented them from doing so, underscores the barbarity and impunity that characterize conflicts in the countryside.

Incompetence and impunity

The indignation over the murder was palpable. Vilma Vera Caletana Rios, of the Avá Guarani people of the village of Guasu Gauavira (PR), vehemently demanded that those responsible be punished, directly linking climate justice with justice for the lives lost.

“Another indigenous person, another leader, another man killed in his territory. When we talk about climate justice, we cannot forget to do justice for the people who have already been murdered in their territories. We cannot remain silent in the face of so much violence,” said Vilma.

Paulo Macuxi, coordinator of the Indigenous Council of Roraima (CIR), seconded the tone of criticism of the government’s inertia. “Our relatives are being killed and this is not going to be cheap. This cannot be allowed to continue as if it were commonplace. Someone has to be held responsible, someone has to be punished because lives are being lost, day after day, and nobody does anything about it. The agencies are incompetent, nobody does anything to remedy our pain,” Macuxi vented, pointing out the ineffectiveness of the security and justice institutions.

The cry for life and territory in the COP

The discourse that the climate crisis cannot be dissociated from the humanitarian and territorial crisis dominated the interventions of the leaders. Nadia Tupinambá, from the indigenous territory of Olivença (BA), demanded that the authorities recognize the “spilled blood of all ancestors”, making it clear that the environmental struggle is first and foremost a struggle for physical survival.

The Tupinambá leader directly and forcefully criticized the COP 30 approach, linking violence to the lack of demarcation:

“We’re here to say, ‘Stop killing us. Stop killing our forests. Stop selling our rivers. We have faced many struggles, but we will not give up. At COP 30 they talk about climate, but they don’t talk about the demarcation of our territory, where our people are losing their lives, where children, women and the defenseless are being attacked, even by the police, by the state, without a warrant. But we do not give up. We are all Guarani-Kaiowá”, added Nadia, joining the cause of her people to the struggle of the Guarani-Kaiowá.

The episode of violence in Mato Grosso do Sul, when brought to the center of the COP, forced the conference to face the dilemma: there can be no energy transition or just climate policy without guaranteeing the lives and territories of indigenous peoples, the true guardians of the forest.

The radical mobilizations of the indigenous peoples – especially in the Tapajós region – during the Peoples’ Summit were strongly focused on the demarcation of the Indigenous Territories and on the rejection of the privatization of the Tapajós, Tocantins and Madeira rivers, foreseen in President Lula’s Decree 12,600. The pressure made the government accelerate measures, such as those announced by the Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sônia Guajajara, and ended up overshadowing the performance of the governor of Pará, Helder Barbalho, who disappeared from the political scene during the days of the COP to preserve his image – already highly questioned by the indigenous leaders since the occupation of the Secretariat of Education in January, which forced the government to reverse a law that would have destructured indigenous education.

The reign of the agromilitias: Vicente Kaiowá’s assassination and the silent war in Mato Grosso do Sul

The murder of an indigenous leader in a retaken area highlights the State’s inability to guarantee security in Mato Grosso do Sul, where armed groups in the service of landowners act with impunity in a decades-long land conflict bordering on genocide.

The confrontation in the retaking of Pyelito Kue

The brutal murder of Vicente Fernandes Vilhalva Kaiowá (36 years old) in the Pyelito Kue retaking, in Iguatemi (MS), is not an isolated case, but a tragic symptom of the war of extermination waged by agribusiness in the region.

Agromilitias are private security groups – often made up of gunmen, former police officers or thugs hired by ranchers – that act with the aim of violently expelling indigenous communities from traditional territories that have not been demarcated.

Vicente was shot in the head during an attack that, according to the Guarani Kaiowá, lasted for hours and was perpetrated by a group of gunmen acting as a paramilitary force. The attack, which left four others wounded, took place in the Iguatemipeguá I Indigenous Land (TI) area, which overlaps the Cachoeira Farm and is a focal point in the state’s land conflict.

The logic of agromilitia: defending the latifundia at all costs

In Mato Grosso do Sul, the performance of agromilícias is directly linked to the chronic delay in land demarcation and the high concentration of land ownership. The state has one of the largest indigenous populations in the country (about 120,000 people, mainly Guarani Kaiowá and Terena) in direct confrontation with the agribusiness economy, based on cereal and cattle production.

1. Legal vacuum: The federal government’s slowness in finalizing demarcation processes creates a legal vacuum that is exploited by ranchers. The territory, claimed as traditional by the indigenous people, is illegally occupied by land titles acquired by the ranchers.

• Paramilitary action: to defend their possession of disputed lands, landowners hire armed security. These groups, which use siege tactics, intimidation and extreme violence, are the armed wing of the pressure against the retaken lands. The Consejo Indígena Misionero (Cimi) and leaders denounce that Pyelito Kue’s aggressors acted with 12 and 38 caliber rifles, and even used rubber bullets (ammunition restricted to security forces), which raises suspicions of the involvement of public security agents.

• Silent genocide: The consequence is an uninterrupted cycle of violence. Guaraní-Kaiowá leaders denounce genocide and constant terrorism, with hundreds of indigenous people killed in land conflicts in recent decades (such as the father of leader Valdelice Verón, cacique Marcos Verón). Vicente’s murder is one more name in a tragic list that has been repeated for generations.

Omission and impunity: the failure of the State

The criticisms of indigenous leaders at COP 30, such as Vilma Vera Caletana Ríos and Paulo Macuxi, are directed at the omission and incompetence of state agencies.

• Judicial slowness: Although there have been isolated advances, such as conciliation in some areas coordinated by the STF, the federal and state courts have been slow to prosecute and convict the perpetrators of the murders, allowing the agro-militias to continue to act with impunity.

• Inadequate performance: The State is accused of failing to comply with its main obligation: to guarantee the security of the indigenous communities until the demarcation processes are finalized. The actions of the Military Police (PM) in the conflicts in the region have also been the subject of accusations of disproportionate use of force against the indigenous people.

The arrest of a suspect on the spot by the Federal Police is an important step in the investigation, but the community and activists are demanding that the investigations get to the masterminds and dismantle the scheme to hire gunmen, seen as the only way to stop the cycle of killings.

The definitive solution, as the leaders emphasize, is the immediate demarcation of traditional territories. It is the expropriation of all lands illegally occupied by large agro-exporting estates that care little for the needs of the indigenous population.

This is also demanded by the International Socialist League (ISL), a political organization that joins in the denunciation of this barbaric murder and that, through the organization Socialist Revolution – its official section in Brazil – has supported the struggle and the agendas of all peoples and nations against the State and latifundism.

(Article currently being updated)

Sources: Portal G1, Agência Brasil, CIMI, Repórter Brasil.