President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) said this Friday (18) that he wants indigenous peoples to feel “like us” and do with their land “exactly what we do with ours”.
The statements were made during the awarding ceremony of the Medal of Indigenist Merit at the Ministry of Justice. Bolsonaro and ministers were awarded the honor.
“We are exactly the same. We all came to earth by the grace of God,” said the chief executive, with a headdress on his head and an indigenous child on his lap.
In political folklore, it is said that it is bad luck for candidates to wear an Indian headdress. But Bolsonaro, who is seeking re-election this year, has already worn the accessory more than once.
“What we’ve always wanted is to make you feel just like we do,” he said. “We want you on our side, that you make your lands exactly what we do on ours.”
The tribute comes at a time when Bolsonaro uses the war between Ukraine and Russia as a pretext to press for the approval of a bill that allows mining in indigenous lands.
The proposal was urgently approved in the Chamber of Deputies, and is supported by the agribusiness bench. The argument of the government is that the project could solve the possible shortage of fertilizers, with the war in Ukraine.
The text foresees radical changes in relation to what has been practiced for almost 50 years in the country. The proposal amends the Indian Statute, a law in force since 1973.
If Congress approves the project sent by the government in the way it was prepared, the Indian Statute should lose the article that restricts indigenous people from exploiting wealth on their lands.
The mineral sector took a stand against the proposal last Tuesday (15).
“The Brazilian Mining Institute (Ibram) understands that PL 191/2020 is not suitable for the purposes for which it is intended, which would regulate the constitutional provision that provides for the possibility of implementing economic activities in indigenous lands such as energy generation, production of oil, gas and mining”, says the note.
The institute has 127 associated companies, the main mining companies operating in the country. These include Vale, Votorantim, Samarco, Gerdau, Alcoa, Anglo American and ArcelorMittal.
This was the first manifestation of the sector since June 2021, when Ibram defended the activity, subject to consultation with indigenous peoples.
The project was one of those criticized by civil society and the artistic class, which held a protest in front of the National Congress, organized by Caetano Veloso, against environmental dismantling.
The personalities honored with the Medal of Indigenist Merit were announced last Wednesday (16). In addition to the president, Minister Torres also gave himself the medal.
Nine other ministers also received the same favor, including Braga Netto (Defense), Tereza Cristina (Agriculture), Damares Alves (Women, Family and Human Rights), Luiz Eduardo Ramos (General Secretary) and Augusto Heleno (Institutional Security Office) .
The latter two attended the ceremony at the Ministry of Justice this morning.
as showed the sheetHeleno came to authorize, but later withdrew, gold exploration fronts in one of the most preserved areas of the Amazon, within a stretch of the Rio Negro that cuts through two indigenous lands, where 11 ethnic groups live.
The event was closed and had the participation of some indigenous ethnic groups, according to the president of Funai, Marcelo Xavier, such as the Kalapalo, Kayapó, Macuxi and Xavante.
In his speech, Xavier said that his administration faces “a liability left by decades of failure of Brazilian indigenous policy”, in which there was “a scenario dominated by intermediaries, in which indigenous people were made up of a mass of maneuver”.
The president of the institution does not name, but directly cites NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations), one of the main targets of the Bolsonaro government.
The choice to honor the President of the Republic made the former president of Funai Sydney Possuelo return the medal he received from the Ministry of Justice about 35 years ago.
He sent the medal along with a letter in which he said he felt “immense surprise and natural astonishment” when he discovered that Bolsonaro had been decorated.
In the text, Possuelo recalls that Bolsonaro is known for opposing indigenous agendas and quoted a phrase the president said when he was a deputy. “The Brazilian cavalry was very incompetent. Competent, yes, was the North American cavalry, which decimated its Indians in the past and today there is no such problem in the country.’
Also according to the letter, when delivering the medal to Bolsonaro, the tribute “lost all the reason why, in 1972, it was created”.
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