The high price of safety and land rights for Brazil’s Indigenous Peoples

Farmers have waged a real low-intensity war against Indigenous people in this region, which is known for agribusiness, wrote Brasilia-based organisation CIMI in its draft report, seen by FairPlanet.

In the states of Paraná and Mato Grosso do Sul, the threat of violence is preventing children from going to school or playing freely, and there are limited food and water supplies. The report details "makeshift houses made of black canvas and wattle and daub, with no basic infrastructure and little space for crops."

Previous and ongoing armed attacks against the indigenous residents are also described, with increasing security concerns given the reduced security that comes with deforestation.

 "[The farmers attacked us] in the past, but in the past, there were woods to run through. And today? Where are we going to flee to? They've hit more than our bodies; they've hit our souls," said an Indigenous leader unidentified here for security reasons.

"The Guarani people are being attacked, tortured, killed and thrown into a storm of racism and lack of public assistance," a CIMI spokesperson told FairPlanet. This year alone, at least five Guarani individuals have been shot dead, with many more severely injured. Farmers primarily carry out the attacks, seeking to take Indigenous land, often hiring gang members to do so.

Task force members report that open gunfire has resulted in Indigenous casualties, though the exact details of these incidents are still under investigation. 

Historic disputes over Indigenous lands

Indigenous peoples are originally from Brazil. They owned the land when Europeans came to settle in a new country. Five centuries later, their remaining land continues to be invaded and taken by farmers, miners, loggers and business developers.

The Avá-Guarani underwent a series of forced displacements with the arrival of colonisers and agricultural expansion in the 20th century but also suffered from the construction of the Itaipu hydroelectric dam in the 1970s. The flooding caused by the dam submerged ancestral Guarani lands, forcing many to migrate to smaller areas without the necessary infrastructure to live with dignity. "Most of [the Avá-Guarani] have begun to live in precarious conditions, with no space to grow food or carry out their rituals and cultural activities, worsening the struggle for physical and cultural survival," wrote CIMI in their draft report.  

Nowadays, land demarcation is a long-lasting juridical dispute. According to the report “Violence against Indigenous Peoples in Brazil—Data for 2023,” also released by CIMI, 62 per cent of 1,381 Indigenous lands and territorial claims still have administrative issues pending their regularisation.  

In September 2023, the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional any bill or law proposing the so-called “Time Limit Trick,” which stipulated that land would only belong to Indigenous peoples if they lived on it as of October 5, 1988, when the current Federal Constitution was adopted. Indigenous communities and their advocates oppose this principle, arguing that their land rights should not be restricted to that date. They cite reasons such as nomadic lifestyles and the violent historical processes that forced many Indigenous peoples off their ancestral lands.

Despite the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling, Justice Gilmar Mendes invoked the Time Limit Trick during a conciliation hearing in September 2024 between Indigenous groups and farmers involved in land disputes based on this principle. Critics argue that if the court’s earlier decision had been fully upheld, there would have been no need for such a conciliation, as the land would have automatically reverted to the Indigenous peoples.

As a result, the federal government and the state government of Mato Grosso do Sul reached an agreement to pay BRL 145 million (USD 26.7 million) in compensation to ranchers who had been illegally occupying Indigenous land. This compensation was offered to encourage the farmers to leave despite the land having been officially granted to Indigenous peoples in 2005. Although the land was rightfully demarcated for Indigenous communities, the farmers invaded it and violently evicted its people that same year. The government, in effect, has now paid the farmers to vacate the land as if they were losing property they had legitimate claims to, even though it had always belonged to the Indigenous peoples by law. 

"It was very painful to see those landowners walk away millionaires after usurping our land, but it was necessary to restore our rights, for our people and in memory of those who perished in this struggle that has lasted more than 500 years," Kaiowá leader Inayê Lopes told FairPlanet. 

CIMI agrees that such a deal is not an example to be followed in other land disputes. "Far from being a benchmark solution for the demarcation of Indigenous lands, the agreement on the Nhanderu Marangatu Indigenous Land, under the guise of pacifying conflicts, manages to privilege precisely those who have appropriated and exploited Indigenous lands and lives," reads its official note on the issue. "Compensation for occupants of indigenous territories is an extremely complex issue and needs to be matured, which has not yet happened. It is essential to remember the principle that indigenous lands are federal lands. For this reason, it is unacceptable to pay for land that is already public."  

While the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples asserts that the deal has been "a historic milestone in resolving the scenario of land conflicts," a way of giving a solution to the matter "without renouncing fundamental rights," it acknowledges that this should not be adopted as a national parameter for solving all land situations in Brazil. 

"Circumstances have to be assessed on a case-by-case basis and, therefore, there is no way to anticipate the definition of uniform conduct," The Ministry said to FairPlanet. 

The Ministry, along with other bureaus and federal agencies, established a Situation Room in July as an emergency response to escalating conflicts. Among the measures taken are mobile teams deployed to locations close to the conflict regions. These permanent teams monitor the situation from the capital city of Brasilia, and permanent meetings are held between government ministries and federal departments, such as the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples and Ministry of Agricultural Development, to monitor conflict situations.

Devastated land 

In the draft report of the mission, which has been shared with the Ministry of Justice, CIMI writes that the current situation "generates food insecurity, damaging the livelihoods of indigenous communities, who depend on the land to grow food […] exacerbated by the contamination of water sources by pesticides, resulting from their proximity to farmers' plantations, making natural resources unsafe for consumption and cultivation."

"The Guarani are losing their lives and their health. For us, the forest is our health and our food. They have destroyed our life, our forest and we are left in a world that is finished; we die for lack of territory, we are run over like animals," said an Indigenous leader to the group, also unidentified for security reasons.

FairPlanet asked the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples what plans it has to guarantee land for Indigenous peoples – their legal right – and ensure that these lands can provide them with conditions to live under their life principles. In response, it affirms that, in the restored Nhanderu Marangatu land, the government plans to implement a programme called "Teko Porã: Strengthening the Well-Being of the Guarani and Kaiowá People,” with an investment of around 1 million dollars to "strengthen productive capacity in the area, contributing to food and nutritional security, income generation, environmental conservation and indigenous autonomy." 

Though it did not provide a timeline for the action, the Ministry said the programme will be developed in partnership with the indigenous peoples, supporting the development and financial sustainability of the territory. "At the end of the process, the plan will be translated into the Guarani language so that it can be an instrument of consultation and support for the Guarani Kaiowá." 

Picture by Daniel Tischer