Bolsonaro government abolishes Funai’s fiscal council and indigenous participation committees

The government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL) extinguished the Fiscal Council and the regional committees of Funai (Fundação Nacional do Índio) and removed from its statute the attributions of the protection fronts and regional and technical coordinations — three instances of action close to indigenous communities. .

The changes signed by the president are some of the points of an internal restructuring of the body published in the Official Gazette of the last day 7.

According to people from the foundation, interviewed by the report anonymously, the biggest fear is that the changes, especially the extinction of some bodies or their attributions, represent another step by the government in the dismantling of Funai

These same people believe that for some sectors, such as isolated peoples, there will be more space for the appointment of representatives of the indigenous movement.

Sought by its communication office, the agency stated that the changes aim to “improve the quality of the federal public service by reviewing and modernizing the management of commissioned positions”.

Also according to Funai, the duties of the supervisory board will be transferred to the audit sector and that “there is no provision for changes in the organizational structure or purpose of decentralized units”, such as the protection fronts.

The note also says that the end of the regional committees is due to Bolsonaro’s decree that, in 2019, extinguished hundreds of federal councils, and does not inform how or if the activities of these bodies will be maintained otherwise.

Since Bolsonaro took office in January 2019, no new demarcations of indigenous lands have been carried out, several soldiers have gained positions in the foundation and budget and staff have been reduced.

On the other hand, reports of persecution and moral harassment against civil servants grew and reports of mining, invasions and other types of violence in indigenous territories exploded.

On Monday (10), deputy Joênia Wapichana (Rede-RR) filed a proposal for a legislative decree that calls for the repeal of the restructuring – the text would have to be approved by the Chamber and the Senate to be able to reverse the decision of the Presidency.

“The dismantling had already been carried out, but with the publication [das medidas], was made official from a normative point of view. And this was done, of course, without consulting the indigenous peoples, in a clear disrespect for their right to be heard”, says lawyer Eloy Terenã, from Apib (Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil).

“Although, in theory, it is an adaptation of the structure, we receive it with great distrust. Even more so because there is no dialogue, neither with the servers, nor with the indigenous people”, says Fernando Vianna, president of INA (Indigenistas Associados).

According to the evaluation of people from Funai and the indigenist movement, both the fiscal council and the regional committees, extinguished by the restructuring at the beginning of the month, were already functioning precariously since before the Bolsonaro administration, but that were important.

The tax agency, for example, is responsible for carrying out the governance and control of the entity’s accounts, but it was not very active. The regional committees, in turn, would be bodies spread across the country aimed at the social participation of indigenous communities in the definition of Funai’s policies, but which hardly managed to develop this role.

According to the entity’s website, the committees are regional instances of planning, articulation, shared management and social control, in which “indigenous people, employees of Funai and other federal government agencies jointly plan the actions of regional coordination, monitor their execution and evaluate the results of the indigenist policy”.

“The absence of these administrative bodies increases omission, leaves an institutional vacuum. If you don’t have an institutional channel to receive demands [dos povos indígenas]it is also a way for you to make these demands invisible”, says Terenã.

The attributions of regional coordination, ethno-environmental protection fronts and local technical coordination were removed from Funai’s statute. The three bodies are instruments of local action, responsible for both the administrative and inspection aspects.

Indigenist Bruno Pereira, for example, before being coordinator of the sector of isolated peoples, headed the front for the protection of Vale do Javari — the region where he was murdered in June of this year.

The technical coordinators, on the other hand, are branches of the foundation that are usually located within the indigenous lands themselves and in direct contact with the communities. The regional coordinations, in turn, centralize and organize the activities in each area.

The lack of discrimination, in the statute, of the attributions of each of these bodies, does not prevent them from continuing to operate normally.

However, say representatives of the indigenous movement, it can mean a vacuum of responsibility — it is common, for example, for legal actions that denounce, for example, omission on the part of Funai to use statute to support their arguments.

“It is very striking that, in the new statute, there is no mention of the entity’s attributions regarding these decentralized bodies. It is not possible to understand why”, says Vianna, from INA.