Tues­day 1st Octo­ber, Brasil­ia, Brazil – Today hun­dreds of indige­nous peo­ples rep­re­sent­ing Brazil’s native com­mu­ni­ties con­verged on gov­ern­ment build­ings in the nation’s cap­i­tal to decry unprece­dent­ed and grow­ing attacks on their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and ter­ri­to­ries. The his­toric mobi­liza­tion coin­cides with the 25th anniver­sary of the found­ing of Brazil’s con­sti­tu­tion with its ground­break­ing affir­ma­tion of indige­nous rights and aims to pre­serve these rights in the face of pow­er­ful eco­nom­ic inter­ests behind a spate of pend­ing laws seek­ing access to resources on native ter­ri­to­ries.

Brazil’s Artic­u­la­tion of Indige­nous People’s (APIB) called the mobi­liza­tions – staged simul­ta­ne­ous­ly in var­i­ous cities across the coun­try such as São Paulo, Belém, Rio Bran­co – to protest the attack against ter­ri­to­r­i­al rights of native peo­ples. Ema­nat­ing from the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment and backed by a pow­er­ful con­gres­sion­al bloc rep­re­sent­ing agribusi­ness known as the ban­ca­da rural­ista as well as large min­ing and ener­gy inter­ests, a series of new pro­posed laws seek to under­mine Arti­cle 231 of the Brazil­ian Con­sti­tu­tion, which assures the indige­nous right to an exclu­sive and per­ma­nent usufruct to resources on their ances­tral ter­ri­to­ries.

“We are here because Con­gress wants to take our rights and extin­guish our peo­ple,” said Chief Raoni Metuk­tire, a leg­endary Kayapó leader from the Ama­zon. “This assem­bly is impor­tant because it aims to unite our peo­ples against this threat.”

Hun­dreds of planned laws and con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ments tar­get­ing the rights of indige­nous and tra­di­tion­al com­mu­ni­ties are under debate in Brazil’s Con­gress and risk being passed this month before law­mak­ers go into recess, mak­ing this week’s mobi­liza­tions both urgent and time­ly.

Among the pro­posed changes are Pro­posed Com­ple­men­tary Law (PLP) 227 which would mod­i­fy Arti­cle 231, elim­i­nat­ing the indige­nous right to resources in cas­es of “rel­e­vant pub­lic inter­est,” clear­ing the way for indus­tri­al farm­ing, dam-build­ing, min­ing, road build­ing and set­tle­ment con­struc­tion on indige­nous lands. Pro­posed Con­sti­tu­tion­al Amend­ment (PEC) 215 would roll back the demar­ca­tion of new indige­nous ter­ri­to­ries by pass­ing the author­i­ty to demar­cate lands from the Exec­u­tive to a Leg­isla­tive branch that is increas­ing­ly hos­tile to indige­nous rights.

Indige­nous pro­test­ers gath­er at the encamp­ment out­side the Nation­al Con­gress in Brasil­ia

“These amend­ments and new laws that the gov­ern­ment wants to pass will destroy indige­nous rights enshrined in the Brazil­ian Con­sti­tu­tion and the inter­na­tion­al treaties of which Brazil is a sig­na­to­ry,” said Maíra Iri­garay Cas­tro of Ama­zon Watch. “If Brazil denies the rights of these tra­di­tion­al pop­u­la­tions they risk extinc­tion, some­thing the world can­not afford. These are the guardians of the rain­forests for the ben­e­fit of all human­i­ty.”

“We’re not going to stand by and watch our ter­ri­to­ries being stolen, our hous­es being invad­ed and our rivers being destroyed,” said Sonia Gua­ja­jara, coor­di­na­tor of APIB. “Rather than call­ing Con­gress the house of the peo­ple it should be called the house of agribusi­ness.”

In addi­tion to pre­sid­ing over this unprece­dent­ed assault on indige­nous rights, the Rouss­eff gov­ern­ment has demon­strat­ed the worst record of indige­nous ter­ri­to­r­i­al demar­ca­tion since the nation’s dic­ta­tor­ship era. Fur­ther under­min­ing the integri­ty of these ter­ri­to­ries, the office of her Attor­ney Gen­er­al pro­pos­es Ordi­nance 303 in order to veto any expan­sion of demar­cat­ed lands while autho­riz­ing the con­struc­tion of roads, ener­gy trans­mis­sion lines, and mil­i­tary instal­la­tions with­in their bor­ders when such projects are deemed rel­e­vant to “nation­al secu­ri­ty.”

These moves coin­cide with increas­ing gov­ern­ment back­ing and finance for projects and indus­tries, exem­pli­fied by Brazil’s dam-build­ing boom in the Ama­zon, that are entire­ly at odds with indige­nous rights.