Ethnocide policies in Brazil

Attacks on indigenous peoples and the new pattern of domination

On the second day of January 2019, the new President of the Republic, Jair Bolsonaro, issued Provisional Measure 870 (MP / 870).

In it, it restructures the organs of government and their functions. Among the changes, the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) moves from the Ministry of Justice to the Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights, and deprives it of the demarcation and protection of indigenous lands, now transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture (MA ). The MA will also accumulate the functions of the Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform. Thus, it will be the MA who will take care of the land policy as a whole, which, in addition to the indigenous lands, includes the quilombola and agrarian reform areas.

In Brazil, there are approximately one million Indians, with 274 different languages. The demarcation of their lands, foreseen in Articles 231 and 232 of the Federal Constitution, had its moment of high in the first half of the decade of 1990 and was falling, more pronounced during the government Dilma Rousseff, until the paralysis during the government Michel Temer . Let's look at the table:

There are now 436 regularized indigenous lands, totaling almost 106 million hectares. There are also 130 demarcation processes pending, between delimited, declared and approved lands, which correspond to just over 12 million hectares. In addition, there are 115 areas under study. Six areas, totaling just over one million hectares, are prohibited for the protection of isolated indigenous peoples2. The regularized lands correspond to 12% of the national territory and the largest indigenous area is concentrated in the Legal Amazon.

The observation of table 1 allows to identify a descending curve in the demarcation processes. But the fall has been more salient since the launch of the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC) in 2007. The PAC provided for infrastructure works aimed at integrating the territories with the accumulation chains. It involved the production and distribution of energy and logistics for the production and disposal of mineral and agricultural commodities. And also for fixing labor in these areas.

Despite the legal framework of 1988, the land policy of the Brazilian State has been prioritizing export agribusiness in a continuous way. What has been conquered in the letter of the Constitution, does not avenge in the politics of State. The curve of land allocation for agrarian reform and titling of quilombola lands follows the same trend as the curve of demarcation of indigenous lands. They have been treated more as social policies than as land policies.

Table 2 shows that the demarcation of land was not exactly proportional to the indigenous population of each region. As stated above, most of the demarcated lands are in the Legal Amazon, which covers the North region and a part of the Midwest when it was not yet a frontier of export agribusiness. The demarcation in these regions ended up valuing the nearby lands.

The chains of accumulation, however, now demand the integration of all territories. Do not leave "an inch outside." For this, it is necessary to change the legal regulatory framework of land use (water and air). Soya, cane, eucalyptus and pine plantations, for example, today border the territories of traditional peoples. And they find in the way of life and indigenous spirituality an insurmountable border. There is no way to integrate these areas into the productive / extractive practices of capital.

The changes in the policies for indigenous peoples outlined in MP / 870 and formulated in the statements of the new government aim not only to prevent the continuity of demarcation processes. They aim at ethnocide, the "deindianization," as it was called the integration of the indigenous population during the Old Republic. The intention is the abandonment of their way of life, which is antagonistic to the civilization of capital.

The Minister of Agriculture is Tereza Cristina Corrêa da Costa Dias. Representative of the ruralists, is from Mato Grosso do Sul (MS), where this sector advances over Guarani and Kaiowá territory. The State, which has already undergone the cycles of the maté herb produced in scale, livestock and soybeans, in recent years had been trying to take advantage of the business opportunities arising from the high demand for cane for ethanol production. Farmers from MS even started cattle auctions to sponsor anti-indigenous militias. This is the minister who will deal with the demarcations. The risk to the peoples is that, in addition to interrupting the demarcation processes, criteria that threaten already regularized land, such as those already used in the "time frame", will be applied.

At the same time, the Minister for Women, Family and Human Rights, Dalmares Alves, wants a carte blanche to evangelize indigenous people. The new government officials use ads that are not certain to be applied: the extinction of IBAMA (Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources), the withdrawal of Brazil from climate agreements, non-recognition of ILO Convention 169, which requires consultations with peoples. On the one hand, they withdraw, and, if necessary, retreat. But in making these statements, they encourage the ruralists, the miners, and the loggers to lay their hands on terror against the First Nations of Brazil.

The attack on the natives, their territory and their way of life aims to leave the land, all of it, as an unprotected continuum available for "rape", for exploitation by dispossession, for extractivism.

Brazil thus becomes a laboratory for the pattern of domination corresponding to the new model of accumulation of capital. The Brazilian working classes were disarmed during the last decades of any anti-capitalist project. The organizations that were able to build in the last cycle of struggles were either co-opted for capital projects or reduced in their autonomous action. The peoples of the earth can not integrate into value chains without dying as a people. The death of their culture is the trump card of the destruction of territories (which includes human energy) to extract value.

What is at stake here is the future of all of us, indigenous and non-indigenous. Let us learn from the people of the earth. They know how to make the world a place to live.

By: Silvia Beatriz, published on 11/1/2019

Translated and adapted from:
https://jornalggn.com.br/noticia/politicas-de-bolsonaro-visam-o-etnocidio-a-%E2%80%9Cdesindianizacao%E2%80%9D

 Brazil's indigenous groups decry new Brazilian government attacks

Report finds Brazil's indigenous communities are facing growing attacks, threats and land grabs under the new president.

Sao Paulo, Brazil - Brazilian indigenous groups say far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has ramped up land grabs, intimidation and killings during his short time in office. 

On Wednesday, several indigenous organisations gave the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights, hosted in Bolivia a grim joint report.

The report, obtained by Al Jazeera, details a sharp uptick in atacks on indigenous people since Bolsonaro won the presidency in the October 2018 elections. 

In less than three months, the report says, at least 16 attacks on indigenouscommunities in Brazil were documented. In addition to four homicides, the report recounts stonings, deforesting, threats and arson. 

Cosigning the document presented to the commission were the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB); the Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB)l; Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of the North East, Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo (APOINME); and the Indian Law Resource Center (ILRC). 

According to the report, indigenous communities have seen healthcare centres set ablaze, been firebombed by farmers, and shot at with rubber bullets. Many were injured, and some were killed. 

"For 519 years indigenous people know what violence is," said Angela Amanakwa Kaxuyana, coordinator at COIAB.

"The difference is that now these attacks are institutionalised, as in the president himself incites hatred," she told Al Jazeera from Bolivia.

And as attacks ramp up, according to the indigenous groups, Bolsonaro has started dismantling many of the bodies responsible for protecting native land rights, paving the way for more land grabs. 

Prior to Bolsonaro's ascent to the government, the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), part of the Ministry of Justice, oversaw indigenous rights issues. 

But after Bolsonaro took office, he divided FUNAI's responsibilities between the Ministry of Human Rights and the Ministry of Agriculture, which now controls land designations. 

'Opening the door to enemies'

Bolsonaro's picks for both ministries' heads has sparked yet more controversy.

Bolsonaro chose Damares Alves to lead of the Human Rights Ministry. However, Epoca magazine has accused Alves of kidnapping her indigenous adopted child, an allegation which Alves denies. 

Heading up the Ministry of Agriculture is Tereza Cristina, who has called for reappropriating indigenous lands for commercial farming.

Cristina also presides over the so-called rural bench, one of the most influential parliamentary groups, which the report says is aligned with the agriculture industry's interests. 

"We considered the new minister might subordinate the rights to indigenous lands to the expansion necessities of the farming industry," reads Wednesday's report. 

COAIB coordinator Kaxuyana added, "That's like opening the door of indigenous lands to our enemies." 

Brazilian officials did not respond to Al Jazeera's interview requests to comment on the report's allegations.

The Ministry of Justice said the matter was now in the hands of the Ministry of Human Rights. However, the human rights ministry said the request should be addressed to FUNAI, which said that no one was available for comment.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Agriculture said it only dealt "with new cases of land designation", without clarifying which ministry could comment on land grab allegations. 

"Unfortunately we are not seeing any action from the responsible authorities [regarding the attacks]", said Cleber Buzzatto, executive secretary at CIMI (Indigenous Missionary Council).

"We consider this change by the Brazilian government very negative, since the agriculture ministry has a history of acting in favour of the agribusiness's interests," Buzzatto told Al Jazeera. 

OPINION

"These are organisations with intense anti-indigenous action. In our view, giving responsibility of land designations to this structure means the government will violate the constitution."

Brazil's Prosecutor General Raquel Dodge said in a conference in January "there can be no backsliding on public policies toward the indigenous people".

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, also urged Bolsonaro to comply with international agreements signed by Brazil that guarantee protections for native groups.

'Now it's OK to kill'

Luiz Eloy Terena, a lawyer from APIB, said Bolsonaro's ideas were like "saying it is now ok to kill [the indigenous]".

Speaking to Al Jazeera by telephone from Bolivia, Terena insisted that the indigenous rights groups would "continue to bring the indigenous fight to the international stage". 

While campaigning, Bolsonaro appealed to a large swath of farmers by promising "to not demarcate another centimetre of indigenous land" for protected status. 

But rights groups insist policies like these threaten the safety of indigenous people and could harm the country's vast environmental wealth.

As of now, reservation lands untouched by farming constitute 12 percent of Brazilian territory. 

But of the 700 indigenous territories nationwide, at least a third are still waiting for official recognition and protection. With Bolsonaro in office, indigenous people and rights groups fear these lands are at even greater risk. 

The situation had worsened even before Bolsonaro took office. Between 2017 and 2018, deforestation increased by 124 percent and incursions by 62 percent, according to the CIMI group.

Meanwhile, indigenous communities endured a record-high 110 killings and 128 suicides.