São Paulo, Brazil – After taking office in January 2023, one of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's first goals was restoring health and security to some of the country's 1.7 million Indigenous people.
He inherited a humanitarian crisis. From 2019 to 2022, 570 children in Brazil's northern Yanomami Indigenous Territory died of starvation or preventable disease under the leadership of President Jair Bolsonaro. The right-wing leader had actively encouraged the exploitation of the Amazon Rainforest by ranchers, loggers and miners, and systematically undercut government agencies designed to protect Brazil's Indigenous peoples.
Lula accused his predecessor of committing "genocide" and sent security forces to reclaim Indigenous territories lost to land grabbers -- investing over R$ 1 billion (approximately USD $175 million) last year alone on the effort.
However, Indigenous leaders faced more violence in 2023 than they did the year before Lula took office. An annual report released in July by the Indigenous Missionary Council (Cimi) revealed that 208 Indigenous people were murdered in 2023, a 15% increase compared to the 180 reported in 2022.
"When [Lula] won, we relaxed, thinking everything would change," Neidinha Suruí, an indigenous activist from the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous Territory in Brazil's western Amazon, told The Latin Times. "But last year, we were taken hostage; we were held captive within our own territory."
Roberto Liebgott, an advisor for Cimi and one of the authors of the report, explained that violence against Indigenous peoples can be attributed to a deliberate policy that viewed them as an obstacle.
"During the [President Michel Temer] and Bolsonaro administrations, the focus was on a tripartite approach: the dispossession of Indigenous lands, the integration of Indigenous people into national society, and a dehumanizing perspective, implying that they need not exist. This trend persisted for a considerable time," Liebgott told The Latin Times.
Cimi reported that during Bolsonaro's administration, 795 Indigenous people were killed, and in 2022, Human Rights Watch Brazil Director Maria Laura Canineu warned that his policy and rhetoric had "emboldened" land grabbers "leading to devastating consequences for Indigenous people and the environment."
Such policies aren't easy to reverse overnight. "We cannot forget that not long ago we had a government that emboldened the notion of undermining indigenous rights, and those individuals did not simply disappear with the advent of the new administration," Eliesio Marubo, a leader of the Marubo people in Brazil's northern Javari Valley Indigenous Territory, told The Latin Times. In 2022, international attention turned to the Javari Valley after Guardian reporter Dom Phillips and activist Bruno Pereira were murdered during a reporting trip there.
While Indigenous communities exist throughout Brazil, most are concentrated in the northern Amazon region, which was hit the hardest in terms of violence, according to the Cimi report. There were 47 murders recorded last year in the state of Roraima on the border with Venezuela and Guyana, and 36 in the northwestern Amazonas state. (The central Mato Grosso do Sul state on the border with Paraguay also reported 43 murders of Indigenous people).
An incident in Roraima in particular sparked national outrage. In April, gold miners attacked the Uxiu village in the Yanomami Indigenous Territory. A 36-year-old Indigenous health worker was shot in the head and killed and two others were wounded but survived. The government ordered an investigation and eventually arrested a miner months later.
Beyond homicides, Indigenous communities faced other forms of violence in 2023. Cimi reported 276 territorial invasions related to illegal resource extraction, causing significant environmental damage and impacting Indigenous populations. Farmers and land grabbers encroached on or took over 51 Indigenous territories across the country, the report said.
Brazil has a total of 736 Indigenous territories at different stages of the demarcation process, 528 of which have been fully legalized. In April, Lula's administration officially recognized two more. Demarcation, which guarantees possession of the land and the exclusive use of its natural resources to the Indigenous people that live on it, was established by Brazil's 1988 Constitution. The practice was completely halted under Bolsonaro.
Liegbott, the Cimi researcher, argues that more demarcations must happen to help avoid violence. "We need policies that adapt to these realities in order to promote territorial protection in some cases, [we need] demarcation in others to avoid violence and conflict," he said.
Brazil's Ministry of Justice, which is responsible for approving demarcation petitions, told The Latin Times in a written statement that there is a backlog of new land demarcations accumulated during previous administrations, and the last presidential approval for a demarcation before Lula's third term came in 2016. "Some demarcation procedures take more than 20 years to complete," the ministry said. It also noted that since Lula began his third term as president, eight Indigenous lands have completed the final stage of the demarcation process.
Court battles between Indigenous communities and rural farmers have slowed the pace of demarcations. In the northern Bahia state, legal battles have also spilled over into violence.
In January 2023, two young members of the Pataxó indigenous people, who trace their roots in Bahia to before the Portuguese settled the land, were ambushed and shot dead in a disputed area. A police officer was arrested for the crime and investigators suspect he was working security for a local rancher. A month earlier, the Pataxó Hã-hã-hãe Chief, Lucas Kariri-Sapuyá, was assassinated by gunmen who ambushed him on a road in the same region. The attack on the tribal leader was blamed on rural farmers.
Kâhu Pataxó, the president of the Indigenous Federation of the Pataxó and Tupinambá Peoples in Southern and Extreme Southern Bahia, told The Latin Times that control of the land is the main factor contributing to violence.
"The Pataxó people have had an area under demarcation for several years, and it remains unresolved," he said. "This lack of resolution has led to conflicts, as the community is constantly threatened by those claiming ownership of this territory."
He argued that his people have "been in this territory long before it was called the Brazilian State," adding, "the invaders are those who arrived on ships, claiming to discover what had long been discovered."
Lula's security strategy for Brazil's Indigenous territories has also been criticized. Last November, leaders from the Yanomami Indigenous Territory denounced that miners had begun returning to their land, nine months after the government launched an operation to remove them from the territory.
"What happened in 2023, this high level of violence, persisted precisely because you have a government discourse, but the practice doesn't match that discourse," Liegbott said. "A very important organization is required of the State, with the capacity to intervene, with the capacity to combat violence, to protect and to supervise."
The Justice Ministry told The Latin Times that the National Public Security Force (FNSP) is currently present in over 16 Indigenous territories across nine states. It said that for Indigenous lands, the FNSP is comprised of a number of agencies, including the Federal Police, National Indian Foundation (Funai), the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio), the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama), the Executive Office of the Presidency, and state governments.
Of the nine states where the FNSP is now deployed, only one, Mato Grosso do Sul, currently has Federal Police presence, according to the statement. The ministry said that agency teams are distributed for 90 to 180 days according to "operational needs." It added that the FNSP is responsible for "ensuring the security and integrity of people and property, as well as mediating potential conflicts in Indigenous territories. The teams prioritize respect for local cultures and avoid any violations of human rights."
Meanwhile, Neidinha Suruí, the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous activist, hopes the security forces will remain present to ensure that land invaders don't return.
"I sincerely hope the federal government will carry out the removal of the invaders, but also maintain protection of the area by keeping the [National Public Security Force] there for a significant period," she said.
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