The time frame and usurpation

The questioning of the law approved by the National Congress that rejected the understanding reached in the Federal Supreme Court (STF) regarding the time frame brought more than 10 thousand indigenous people to Brasília this week. It was the largest mobilization of indigenous peoples in Brasília. They set up the Terra Livre Camp, close to the Ibero-American Cultural Axis and the TV Tower, on the Monumental Axis.

The approval of law 14,701/2023 changed the demarcation of indigenous lands, which was the prerogative of the Executive Branch, through Funai. According to the rule, approved by a Congress strongly aligned with agribusiness, it is determined that indigenous lands must be restricted to the area occupied by original peoples on the date of promulgation of the 1988 Federal Constitution.

The measure is considered the legalization of the usurpation of ancestral territories. The organizers of the movement, which took place from Monday (22) to Friday (26), wrote a letter addressed to the three Powers, in which they demand urgent measures to ensure the protection and strengthening of the rights of original peoples, mainly in in relation to the demarcation of territories.

“We are here, with all the people, asking for this law (14,701) to be repealed. We have been suffering threats. We have already lost several leaders. Teachers were killed, captured. There is leadership that to this day we have not found the body”, denounced Simão Guarani Kaiowá, general leader of the Grand Assembly of Aty Guasu.

In the letter, read at the opening event, the indigenous people point out that the new law provides for the ‘legalization’ of crimes and rewards invaders of territories. In just the first month of law No. 14,701/2023, the expansion of agribusiness and the leasing of land for monocultures and mining caused nine murders of indigenous people and 23 conflicts in territories in seven states and five biomes”, says the text.

This year’s edition of the Camp has a content of deep criticism against the government’s stance in relation to the indigenous cause, so much so that President Lula was not invited to the opening event. For the movement, the government is slow in demarcating indigenous lands.

The president’s third government, according to organizers, created nine agrarian reform settlements and only six Indigenous Lands. According to the leaders, government investment in agribusiness was R$363 billion in 2023, while family farming received R$71 billion, five times less.