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Indigenous Brazilians Rally Against 'Death Decree' Attack on Land Demarcation
"We are fighting for life," said one Indigenous leader. "We do not want our land to be exploited, we want to continue living in harmony with nature."
Oct 31, 2024
Thousands of Indigenous Brazilians rallied and marched in the capital Brasília and staged demonstrations in at least five states on Wednesday in a bid to block a proposed constitutional amendment that critics say could halt or even reverse the process of demarcating native lands.
Constitutional Amendment Proposal (PEC) 48 was introduced in September 2023 by federal Sen. Hiran Gonçalves of the right-wing Progressives party. The amendment would constitutionally enshrine a thesis backed by the country's powerful agribusiness sector under which Indigenous land claims made after October 5, 1988—the date Brazil's current constitution was adopted—would be invalidated.
Many Indigenous Brazilians call the proposal the "PEC of death." The Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), the country's leading nongovernmental Indian advocacy group, says the amendment "is an agribusiness and anti-Indigenous proposal as it violates the original right of peoples to their ancestral territory, already recognized by the 1988 constitution, which PEC 48 seeks to alter."
"The measure also ignores the violence and persecutions that Indigenous peoples have faced for over 500 years, especially during the military dictatorship, which prevented many peoples from being in their territories on that exact date in 1988," APIB added, referring to the U.S.-backed regime that ruled through terror and torture from 1964-85 and in whose army former far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsnaro—a big supporter of PEC 48—proudly served.
On September 21, 2023, Brazil's Supreme Federal Tribunal ruled 9-2 that the Temporal Framework thesis is unconstitutional. On the same day, both houses of Brazil's Congress approved PL 2903, which contained provisions to codify the Temporal Framework.
Leftist Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva subsequently issued a veto for parts of the bill dealing with the Temporal Framework and other provisions that abolished Indigenous peoples' right to free, prior, and informed consultation; made it easier to intrude upon Indigenous lands; and would have banned the expansion of previously demarcated Indigenous lands.
However, right-wing Brazilian lawmakers overruled Lula's veto in December 2023. Despite being declared unconstitutional, lawmakers passed Law 14.701, which codified the Temporal Framework and was subsequently challenged in multiple lawsuits. In April 2024, the Supreme Federal Tribunal suspended these cases and suggested a process of mediation and conciliation between Indigenous people and agribusiness interests. That process began in August.
In a Wednesday interview with Agência Brasil, APIC executive coordinator Alberto Terena of the Terena Indigenous community said that PEC 48 "is a threat against our demarcated lands" that will exacerbate the planetary climate emergency.
"As soon as we stop protecting the environment, the climate crisis will be even worse," he argued. "Indigenous lands are the territories with the greatest preservation of the environment, the greatest biodiversity. We are fighting for life. We do not want our land to be exploited, we want to continue living in harmony with nature."
The demonstrations in Brazil came as a United Nations biodiversity summit (COP16) is underway in neighboring Colombia. Indigenous rights advocates reported that Amazon defender Txai Suruí, one of Brazil's best-known Indigenous activists, was accosted at COP16 after speaking out against the Temporal Framework.
Takakpe Tapayuna Metuktire of the Raoni Institute, which promotes Indigenous rights and sustainability, toldg1 that the Temporal Framework is a death decree for us and our children."
Brian O'Donnell, head of the international advocacy group Campaign for Nature, said in a statement Thursday that "if the world is to maintain its important cultural diversity, or achieve its biodiversity and climate goals, Indigenous peoples' territories must be recognized and secured."
"We are outraged by the assault on Indigenous territories and the disenfranchisement of Indigenous people," O'Donnell added. "Their rights to their ancestral lands must be secured. We stand in solidarity with Indigenous people in Brazil and around the world, who are calling for this ill-conceived set of policies to be scrapped and for world leaders to recognize the territorial rights of Indigenous peoples."
In addition to the Brasília rally and march, Indigenous-led demonstrations saw road blockages and other actions across the country of 200 million inhabitants. Protests took place in the states of São Paulo, Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul, Maranhão, and Roraima.
"We will not stop our mobilization as long as there is this assault on our rights," said Terena. "This march is not only in the streets, but in Congress and other government agencies... We want the constitution to be respected within this country."
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Brazilian Judge Orders Slaughterhouses and Ranchers to Pay for Harming Amazon
"The invaders and their main business partners—loggers and meatpacking companies—make the profits their own while passing on to society the costs of environmental damage," notes one of numerous lawsuits.
Sep 06, 2024
A Brazilian judge on Thursday ordered two slaughterhouses and three ranchers to pay $764,000 in combined penalties for trading cattle raised in a protected area of the Amazon rainforest.
The decision by Judge Inês Moreira da Costa in Rondônia—the most severely deforested state in the Brazilian Amazon—came in response to a flurry of lawsuits filed by green groups seeking millions of dollars in damages from defendants including Distriboi and Frigon, two meat processing firms accused of trading cattle in the Jaci-Parana protected zone.
"When a slaughterhouse, whether by negligence or intent, buys and resells products from invaded and illegally deforested reserves, it is clear that it is directly benefiting from these illegal activities," the plaintiffs' complaint states. "In such cases, there is an undeniable connection between the company's actions and the environmental damage caused by the illegal exploitation."
The slaughterhouses and ranchers are but two of numerous parties being sued, including other ranchers and JBS, the Brazilian meat giant that bills itself as the world's largest protein producer.
According toThe Associated Press—whose reporting on the cattle trading documents prompted the lawsuits:
Brazilian law forbids commercial cattle inside a protected area, yet some 210,000 head are being grazed inside Jaci-Parana, according to the state animal division. With almost 80% of its forest destroyed, it ranks as the most ravaged conservation unit in the Brazilian Amazon. A court filing pegs damages in the reserve at some $1 billion.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuits are seeking to put a price on the destruction of old-growth rainforest, asserting that "the invaders and their main business partners—loggers and meatpacking companies—make the profits their own while passing on to society the costs of environmental damage."
The Amazon rainforest is one of the world's most biodiverse ecosystems and is a crucial carbon sink, meaning it absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The world lost around 3.7 million hectares of primary tropical forests last year—a rate of approximately 10 soccer fields per minute, according to data from the University of Maryland's Global Land Analysis and Discover laboratory. While this marked a 9% reduction in deforestation compared with 2022, the overall deforestation rate is roughly the same as in 2019 and 2021. Felling trees released 2.4 metric gigatons of climate pollution into the atmosphere in 2023, or almost half of all annual U.S. emissions from burning fossil fuels.
In Brazil, the government of leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has taken steps to combat deforestation, resulting in a more than one-third reduction in forest loss. Progress in reversing the rampant forest destruction wrought by the previous far-right administration of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro—who was nicknamed "Captain Chainsaw"—were partially offset by a 43% spike in deforestation in the Cerrado region last year.
Earlier this year, Marcel Gomes—a Brazilian journalist who worked with colleagues at Repórter Brasil to coordinate "a complex, international campaign that directly linked beef from JBS... to illegal deforestation"—was one of seven winners of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize.
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Brazilian Judge Orders Total Suspension of Elon Musk's X Social Network
"Elon Musk showed his total disrespect for Brazilian sovereignty and, in particular, for the judiciary," said Brazilian Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.
Aug 30, 2024
Brazilian Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes on Friday ordered the nationwide suspension of Elon Musk's X social media platform in response to the billionaire's failure to comply with the judge's directive to appoint a legal representative in the South American country.
Moraes ordered the "immediate, complete, and total suspension of X's operations" in the nation of 215 million people, "until the court's judicial decisions are complied with and the fines applied are paid" and "until a representative of the company in the country is appointed."
The judge also infuriated Musk by blocking his SpaceX company from conducting financial transactions in Brazil over millions of dollars in unpaid fines imposed on X—formerly known as Twitter—for breaking Brazilian laws.
"X Brazil failed to comply with several court orders, as well as the willful intention of evading responsibility for complying with the court orders issued."
Earlier this month, Musk withdrew X's staff from Brazil after Moraes threatened to arrest the company's legal representative if the platform did not delete user accounts spreading far-right misinformation and hate speech in violation of Brazilian law.
"Elon Musk showed his total disrespect for Brazilian sovereignty and, in particular, for the judiciary, setting himself up as a true supranational entity and immune to the laws of each country," Moraes said.
"The president of the National Telecommunications Agency, Carlos Manuel Baigorri, must take all measures to ensure the suspension," Moraes continued, adding that he "also ordered Apple and Google to take measures to block the use of the application by iOS and Android systems, in addition to removing it from their virtual stores."
Internet service providers and app stores have five days to comply with Moraes' ruling. People who use virtual public networks (VPNs) to skirt the new ban are subject to a roughly $8,900 fine.
Moraes stated that he "made every possible effort and granted every opportunity for X Brazil to comply with the judicial orders and pay the fines, which would have avoided the adoption of this more serious measure."
"Unfortunately," he added, "the illicit conduct was repeated in this investigation, making it clear that X Brazil failed to comply with several court orders, as well as the willful intention of evading responsibility for complying with the court orders issued."
In April, Moraes
launched a criminal investigation into Musk's alleged obstruction of justice and incitement to crime.
Friday's decision comes amid a monthslong feud between Musk—the world's wealthiest person—and Moraes. Musk has accused the judge of "censorship" and of being a "tyrant."
"Alexandre de Moraes is an evil dictator cosplaying as a judge," Musk
said Thursday on X in one of several increasingly sophomoric posts.
However, as Brazil-based journalist Brian Mier
explained, "this is about sovereignty."
"Treating a system where the rich can buy more reach than normal citizens as if it were a democratic commons, as a 'free speech' issue, is ludicrous," Mier wrote on X. "In the Global South, U.S. social media corporations are coup machines."
In the 1960s, the United States played an instrumental role in overthrowing a democratically elected Brazilian government and installing a 21-year military dictatorship in which a young Jair Bolsonaro—the former right-wing Brazilian leader who is the target of multiple criminal probes led by Moraes—served as an army officer.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva offered thoughts on Musk and the case ahead of Friday's ruling during a television interview.
"Who does he think he is?" asked Lula. "He has to respect the rules of this country."
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