“Never again without us”: Indigenous Peoples’ Ministry in Brazil

By Clovis Antonio Brighenti and Barbara Arisi, special for Amazônia Real

On the day of the inauguration of his third term as President of Brazil, by inviting the indigenous chief Raoni to walk up the ramp beside him and be one of the representatives of the Brazilian people to hold his presidential sash, Lula demonstrated that indigenous peoples will be active protagonists in this government.

On 1 January 2023, Sonia Guajajara took office as Minister of State. Her people, of Tupi linguistic stock, live in the state of Maranhão, in the Northeast region, a transition zone between the Amazon and Cerrado biomes. Born in 1974 in the Araribóia Indigenous Land, Sonia has lived most of her life in the city, with an academic background of a BA in Languages and a second BA in Nursing and a specialisation in Education. The novelty is not only the fact that Sonia, an indigenous woman, holds the position of Minister of State, but also that it is the first time in the history of Brazil, since its independence from Portugal colonial power in 1822, that a Ministry for Indigenous Peoples has been created. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in his third term as President of Brazil (2003-2006; 2007-2010; 2023), created this new ministry as a  recognition of the resistance and struggle of indigenous peoples.

There have also been changes in the recently renamed Indigenous Peoples’ Foundation (FUNAI), an important public body created in 1967, which will be chaired, also for the first time in history, by an indigenous woman. The head of the new FUNAI is Joenia Batista de Carvalho, Joenia Wapichana, from the Wapichana people (Aruak family) who live in the state of Roraima, in the Amazon region, bordering Venezuela. The foundation was also renamed in the Official Journal of the Union. Created at the time of the civil-military dictatorship, its previous name was the National Indian Foundation. Joenia Wapichana, as a federal deputy, had already presented a bill that was approved by the Chamber of Deputies to officially change the official name of the previously called “Indian Day”, 19 April, to become the “Indigenous Peoples’ Day”. These are important narrative struggles and big steps towards historical reparation and to build good relations and bridges between federal institutions and indigenous peoples.

In common, the appointment of these two indigenous leaders signifies the effective recognition of indigenous peoples and with special emphasis on the prominence of indigenous women. Both nominees for these two positions are important leaders of the Brazilian indigenous movement: Joenia Wapichana was the first indigenous woman to make an oral defense to the Supreme Federal Court during the demarcation process of the Raposa Serra do Sol Indigenous Territory, she was also the first indigenous woman to be elected federal deputy in 2018; and Sonia Guajajara has been recently elected federal deputy in the 2022 elections.

Sonia Guajajara said, on January 2nd,  at the headquarters of the new public organ now renamed Indigenous People Foundation that it is thanks to the struggle of the indigenous movements that she, Joenia Wapichana and Célia Xakriabá are in the places where they are now, as representatives of the struggle of the indigenous peoples and of the indigenous movement. In a live message shared on one of the social networks by the lawyer Eloy Terena Sonia Guajajara said that this is one more step on the road for a person from the indigenous movement to reach the Presidency of the Republic, Minister Sonia Guajajara has already been a candidate for the vice-presidency of Brazil for the PSOL in previous elections. At the ceremony, Sonia also had the honour of being the first minister to take the oath of office among all ministers, and she brought the mbaraká to play during and after the ceremony. Lula, after having his official photo taken, also sounded the mbaraká, an important shamanic instrument for communicating with enchanted beings and other forces.

It is important to remember that since 2016, when the coup against President Dilma Rousseff took place in Brazil, indigenous peoples have been facing one of the most violent processes of denial of their rights, characterised by an extremely adverse scenario that translates into brutal violence against these peoples, whether by local violence of the surrounding non-indigenous society or perpetrated by the Brazilian state that worked against the indigenous people even during the Covid pandemic. This context worsened in 2019 with the inauguration of President Jair Bolsonaro, who in his first speech on 1 January 2019 announced that he would not respect the Federal Constitution, stating that he would not demarcate “one more millimetre of land for indigenous peoples”. This was the tone of this government, which was characterised by a return to 19th century politics by insisting that indigenous peoples should disappear as they were to be integrated into national society. It did not recognise the existence of indigenous peoples to the point of reproducing US General George Armstrong Custer’s discourse that “a good Indian is a dead Indian”.

Resistance

For their part, indigenous peoples have not been intimidated. During these last four years, indigenous peoples and their associations were among the few movements that were present and active in campaigns, such as “Indigenous Blood: Not One More Drop”, firm and present on the national and international scene in the fight against the genocidal policies of the Bolsonaro government. Numerous mobilisations were held at national level, such as the Acampamento Terra Livre (Free Land Camp), a mobilisation held every year in the center of Brasilia, to prevent the approval of Bills and Amendments to the Constitution in the National Congress, to prevent the Supreme Court from approving the “Marco Temporal” – an unfounded argument created by sectors opposed to the indigenous peoples, which could mean one of the greatest setbacks in the recognition of rights. In addition, indigenous peoples also organised numerous regional and local mobilisations. No progress was made, but thanks to their efforts not so many laws to the contrary were passed.

Thanks to the indigenous movement’s courage, we had in Brazil this positive outcome, as a direct result of the struggle of the indigenous movement, in the midst of a reality where the federal government itself was fomenting hatred and violence against indigenous bodies. The violence against indigenous people was not only due to the state’s failure to fulfil its constitutional duty to preserve and guarantee the rights and lives of indigenous peoples, but was encouraged by the former president of the Republic. The report Violence against Indigenous Peoples in Brazil, an annual publication of the Conselho Indigenista Missionário (CIMI), which monitors several areas such as Mato Grosso do Sul, recorded 355 cases of violence last year (the highest rate since 2013, when they began conducting this research). According to a CIMI survey, there are still pending issues in 871 of the 1,393 Indigenous Lands in the country for their effective regularisation, that is, in 62% of them. In 598 lands, the state has so far taken no steps to initiate the demarcation process. This will undoubtedly be one of the priorities of the new Ministry of Indigenous Peoples.

If we go back in history and take the milestone of the approval of the 1988 Federal Constitution, when for the first time indigenous peoples were recognised in Brazil. This 1 January 2023 becomes a historic date because it is the first time that we can glimpse an optimistic move towards the implementation of the provisions of the enacted Federal Constitution. Since its approval in 1988, we have witnessed a festival of initiatives by the federal executive and legislative branches of government to curtail or interpret in a petty manner the rights that were already approved by the Constituent Congress. In these 35 years of the Constitution, the few legislative advances have been concentrated on health care and school education. Initiatives against the protection of indigenous peoples and their biomes rich in biological diversity are frighteningly numerous, so much so that the negotiation of the Statute of Indigenous Peoples has been paralysed in the National Congress since 1994.

Still, it is our hope that the creation of this ministry will rescue the constitutional principles that indigenous peoples are native peoples, societies with collective rights and, as collectivities, should actively participate in the Brazilian state.  The creation of the ministry innovates by treating indigenous peoples as Peoples, something that the Constitution did not have the capacity to recognise (it used other prejudiced terms, such as “Indians” or a generic one such as “communities”).

Violence and killings

During the first three years of Jair Bolsonaro’s government, the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) recorded a total of 471 murders. The figures for this last year of genocide have not yet been included, as the investigation is still ongoing. In 2019, there were 113 killings, this total number was obtained from a survey with the Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health (Sesai) and provinces’ health secretariats. In 2020, 182 indigenous people were murdered, according to data obtained in the same way by CIMI researchers. The largest number were male victims, 127 cases; 55 others were women. The states with the highest number of murders were Roraima (66), Amazonas (41) and Mato Grosso do Sul (34).

Official records show that there was a significant increase in the second year of the anti-Indian government, with the number of murders increasing by 61.06%, compared to the total number recorded in the previous year. In 2021, as in previous years, Amazonas, Mato Grosso do Sul and Roraima were the states where most indigenous people were killed. Of the total of 176 indigenous homicides recorded, 29 victims were women, 146 were men and one had no gender identified. Not yet included in this total of 471 are the murders registered during the violent last year of 2022.

In this historic context, after so many episodes of violence and attacks on the lives and rights of indigenous peoples throughout the country, the creation of the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples is an innovative act both in the sense of creating a specific space to think about public policies for indigenous peoples and in the recognition of the importance of their existence, as President Lula emphasised in his inaugural speech. Nothing is as topical as the slogan of the indigenous movement: “never again without indigenous peoples”.  If the Constitution recognised the existence of indigenous peoples, the Lula government’s third term finally recognises the capacity and the right of these peoples to formulate their own patterns of relationship with the state and government, their right to self-determination, and their right to self-determination.

Clearly, the challenges are enormous. The first of these is to think of a structure that can accommodate the diversity of peoples living in Brazilian territory and that is also capable of acting as a space for historical reparation.

It will be important to contemplate the wishes of the rich socio-cultural diversity of Brazil’s 305 indigenous peoples and their more than 270 languages (according to the 2010 Census). This diversity is manifested, beyond the mosaic of cultures, by different expectations, from free peoples (autonomous or “in voluntary isolation”) to peoples who only have Portuguese/Brazilian as their mother tongue; from peoples attached to traditions and who prefer to live without so much connection to the metropolis to peoples who wish to be in permanent action with the national economy and society.

There are decades of repressed problems and demands that the Ministry will certainly not be able to address quickly, which can lead to frustration. For this it is essential that the indigenous movement and all of us, comrades of the indigenous peoples, understand that this Ministry is not a final stage. We know that its existence alone will not solve all the problems. The contradictions and social disputes will continue and for this the articulated and strengthened indigenous movement is as or more important than the Ministry.  The role of the associations and all members of the indigenous movement will be indispensable for the Ministry to be active and achieve its objectives, giving support and playing the critical role, after all the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples belongs to the State and the Brazilian government. The Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil celebrates the participation of so many leaders, but also prepares and will certainly be attentive to the upcoming challenges. We, who work in defence of indigenous rights, will also add our efforts to this moment of union and reconstruction of Brazil.

The image that opens this article shows the moment when President Lula swore in Sonia Guajajara as Minister of Indigenous Peoples (Photo: Ana Pessoa/Mídia Ninja)

Dr. Clovis Antonio Brighenti – Federal University of Latin American Integration (UNILA), Historian
Dr. Barbara Arisi – Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), Anthropologist

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