Defender sues STF against eviction of indigenous people in Bahia – 03/24/2023 – Panel

The DPU (Defensoria Pública da União) filed two Constitutional Complaints with the STF (Federal Supreme Court) after the Federal Court ordered the removal of two Pataxó indigenous communities from the farms where they are located in the municipality of Prado (BA).

The complaints refer to the communities of Comexatibá and Barra Velha do Monte Pascoal and will be reported by Minister Ricardo Lewandowski.

The determination of the eviction by the Justice comes in the wake of the delay in demarcation processes in the south of Bahia, marked by conflicts and deaths of indigenous people.

The communities are located in areas with the demarcation process already advanced, but still pending homologation and registration, the last two phases.

The local Federal Court had already denied requests for repossession in June 2022 and January 2023, based on a decision by the STF that suspended actions of this type for the duration of the pandemic.

Now, however, he has changed his position, arguing that it is necessary “to respect and protect the interests of the people who, in an orderly manner, owned the areas that were the object of the dispossession, and in which they developed economically and ecologically sustainable activities, generating income and jobs in the municipalities where located”.

Funai (National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples), however, maintains in the process that the two farms are fully in the areas of indigenous lands awaiting ratification.

For the regional defender of Human Rights in Bahia, Gabriel César dos Santos, the conflict situation could get worse if the eviction goes through. In the process, there are reports of threats of invasion by the landowners and even of setting fire to the houses.

In January of this year, two indigenous teenagers were shot in the back while walking through the area. Last September, a 14-year-old boy was killed in an ambush.

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