Brazil Indigenous leaders disappointed after President-elect Lula backs creation of ministry

BRASILIA - Brazil's indigenous leaders were disappointed on Monday after President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva appeared to backtrack on a promise to create a ministry of indigenous affairs to restore rights and protections that were undermined by the current government.

Lula said on Friday that he might decide on a special department linked to the presidential office rather than a fully-fledged ministry, which disappointed Indigenous leaders who were taken by surprise by his comments.

A working group in Lula's transition team will present a proposal for the ministry next week, but she doesn't expect any announcement until after January 1, said Dinamam Tux, a lawyer for the largest Indigenous umbrella group, the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, APIB Sonia Guajajara, who became only the third Indigenous person elected to Congress.

She told Reuters that the ministry was important for the historical recognition of Brazil's 900,000 indigenous people and reparation for their mistreatment and loss of land rights.

Lula drew a lot of applause at the COP 27 climate talks in Egypt last month when he told delegates he promised an Indigenous ministry to ensure dignified survival, security, peace and sustainability for some 300 indigenous tribes that still exist in Brazil.

Under far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who Lula defeated in October 30, violence has increased against indigenous communities who have been increasingly invaded by illegal gold miners, loggers and cattle ranchers.

The recognition of land claims under Bolsonaro needs to be restarted and urgent action is needed to protect Indigenous people, as well as environmentalists and defenders of our rights who are at risk, Guajajara said.

Bolsonaro backed environmental enforcement and backed legislation to allow commercial agriculture and mining in the Amazon, and even on protected Indigenous reservation land, measures that the APIB is trying to revert to.

Guajajara said violence by organized crime had surged in frontier areas, such as the Javari Valley bordering Peru, where British journalist Don Phillips and Bruno Pereira, an expert in isolated tribes, were murdered in June by illegal fishermen.

Indigenous experts said that the creation of a secretariat under the presidency could be quicker, more effective and cost less.

Indigenous leaders said that a ministry was needed to support their communities with the power to mobilize other ministries, and even the police and security forces to protect them.

Our situation is so serious today that we need a robust ministry with powers and resources to defend us, said Eliesio Marubo, a lawyer for the Javari Valley Indigenous Union Univaja.

A main Indigenous demand is to restructure the government's Indigenous Affairs Agency Funai, which has been run by a policeman appointed by Bolsonaro and seen by the people it is meant to protect as a tool of the farm sector's land interests.