The last four years have been marked by the “stealing” of indigenous lands in Brazil and the destruction of Funai. The warning comes from UN Indigenous Peoples rapporteur Francisco Cali Tzay.
The rapporteur, who has deep knowledge of Brazil, has sent several complaints to Jair Bolsonaro’s government since 2019, highlighting serious human rights violations in the country. Over the past few years it has hosted dozens of indigenous people, activists and representatives of Brazilian civil society.
In an interview with the column, one of the world’s leading experts on indigenous peoples’ rights insists that some of the devastation in Brazil in recent years cannot be saved. This Wednesday will receive new complaints about Bolsonaro submitted by different Brazilian indigenous groups this week at the UN in Geneva.
Since taking office in 2019, Bolsonaro has promised and fulfilled that he will not separate an extra centimeter of indigenous territory. The result, according to human rights groups, was an explosion of violence. The president, on the other hand, used each of his speeches at the UN tribune to ensure that his government protects indigenous people and that demarcated areas are larger than the territory of European countries.
The speech did not convince anyone in the international agency. “The biggest threat facing the indigenous peoples of Brazil in the last four years has been the usurpation of their land, the illegal occupation of their land,” he said. “And the transfer of other non-indigenous people to defend that this land is occupied and can be exploited for its resources,” said Cali Tzay.
“These lands were stolen. They were legally demarcated lands,” he warned. According to him, this was only possible because of the operation “almost extermination of Funai” at the same time.
“Funai played a very important role in the politics of the natives, protecting their rights. The only way[to carry out land theft]was to destroy it completely,” he said.
Cali Tzay remembers how the federal and military police were placed in responsible positions in the government agency. “This is militarization to completely destroy indigenous institutions and invade indigenous peoples’ lands,” he said.
We receive news of threats against women and girls, deaths, rapes, murders every day.”
For the rapporteur, the destruction recorded in recent years will have long-term consequences. “It won’t be easy to rebuild,” he admitted. “We should not forget that many of the people who were attacked were first contact or not contacted,” he said.
They are the ones who have been attacked for being so-called obstacles to Brazil’s economic development,” he warned.
“So how do we reconstruct a contactless public?” she asked. “This is irreparable,” the rapporteur complained.
He highlighted how he received the news of the death of the last member of a tribe in Brazil last month. “This is the complete loss of knowledge of an entire public,” he said.
“The balance of these last four years is profoundly negative,” he said. When asked whether the indigenous people’s crisis was the result of government negligence or deliberate actions, he concludes “both”.
source: Noticias
