In poverty, ethnicity of Sonia Guajajara expects unlikely support from the minister

The ethnic group of the Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sonia Guajajara (PSOL-SP), is the sixth most numerous in the country, with around 24,000 Indians according to the latest IBGE survey. In Maranhão, where Sonia was born, ethnicity represents more than half of the state’s indigenous population.

Most of the indigenous people who live in the Guajajara villages live in poverty or extreme poverty and survive on subsistence agriculture and selling handicrafts. Five years ago, a group of ethnic leaders decided to create the Union of Indigenous Farmers of Maranhão (Uaima) with the aim of making agricultural production viable on a large scale to generate income for the villages – a large part of the Guajajara live from family farming, but cannot produce more to market.

The arrival of a representative of the ethnic group at the top of the federal government would be cause for celebration for the villages of Maranhão in view of the chance to obtain support from the Executive for the economic development of the region. Despite this, the possibilities of support are remote, as Lula’s minister (PL) has long been a critic of agribusiness, precisely the activity seen as the only solution to generate income in Guajajara villages and in territories belonging to other tribes in the country.

Sonia, who is one of the main leaders of the NGO Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil (Apib), is often present abroad calling for a boycott of agricultural products produced on indigenous lands. “She and Apib have always clashed with this, they say that the Indian has to live in a loincloth, hunting with arrows and eating natural things from the bush”, says indigenous leader José Marcos Guajajara, farmer and president of Uaima.

“This new generation has the mentality of living like a normal citizen. He wants to work honestly and have a better living condition. Not living from the past, but living with quality, and that depends on being able to produce in our lands”.

It was due to the minister’s speeches abroad that, in 2021, the Group of Indigenous Farmers and Producers, made up of 70 ethnic groups from all regions of the country, even sent a letter to institutions such as the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union and the European Central Bank to warn about the risks of Sonia’s position for the economic development of indigenous peoples.

Guajajara Indians also question the fact that the minister uses the name of the ethnic group to talk about her political convictions in Brazil and abroad, but is absent from the land itself. “She left the village very early and lived most of her time in other states. She takes a long time to come here. She says she represents the Guajajara, but those who know the reality from within a village are those who live here, who live with its people every day”, says Cristiane Amorim Ribeiro Guajajara, president of the Federation of Indigenous Farmers of the State of Maranhão. “A person who lives in a big city like São Paulo will never know the pain that is faced every day in the villages”.

Sonia lived for years in the capital of São Paulo, but after being appointed minister, she moved to Brasília. In last year’s elections, when she was elected federal deputy, she resorted to a maneuver to transfer her electoral domicile from Maranhão to São Paulo – where her party, the PSOL, is quite strong – in order to garner more votes.

In a serious economic scenario and with little support, Guajajaras start production on a larger scale

Both the Federation of Indigenous Farmers of the State of Maranhão and Uaima were created to try to reverse the scenario of misery in Maranhão villages that has been getting worse every year. According to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), in 2021, when the state was still governed by Minister of Justice Flavio Dino, Maranhão fell to the last position in the country’s Human Development Index (HDI) ranking. The state also ranks last in terms of monthly household income per capita, with R$635 per person, according to the most recent data from the IBGE.

If the state in general already lives in a very difficult socioeconomic condition, the situation of the indigenous villages is, for the most part, dramatic and there is a shortage of everything, especially food. As indigenous leaders reported to the report, the difficulty in generating income tends to lead many members of the ethnic group into situations of begging, prostitution, drug trafficking and the illegal sale of wood. In addition, a large number of Guajajaras have left their lands to seek better conditions in urban areas. But they still encounter difficulties: in the municipality of Grajaú, a large number of Indians, including women and children, lived for years near a dump, surviving on what they found there. The situation only began to be effectively resolved by the public authorities in 2017.

“Due to situations of extreme poverty as was the case with the dump, which became well known at the time, we took this initiative. Last year we made large community swiddens and people in the community are believing in this change. The previous management of Funai helped us in this attempt at economic emancipation, but now we don’t have any support”, says José Marcos.

The Uaima, founded and chaired by him, has already established representatives in nine municipalities where Guajajaras are present. So far, six of the indigenous lands in the state already have the presence of the movement, which has articulated with public bodies to obtain support in order to make production feasible.

Despite having been created in 2018, only last year was it possible to actually get the idea out of paper – in the indigenous land of Arariboia, for example, where the current Minister of Indigenous Peoples spent part of her childhood, there are already 26 community gardens that produce rice, corn, cassava and beans on a larger scale. Despite this, indigenous farmers still cannot produce enough to sell.

Challenges for indigenous people to develop are still enormous

In general, Brazilian Indians deal with two central problems in order to maintain agricultural production on their lands. The first is that although 13.8% of the Brazilian territory is considered indigenous land, there are major impasses and bureaucracies for ethnic groups to produce. Difficulties in obtaining land regularization and environmental licensing before Funai and Ibama end up, in several cases, making attempts at economic development unfeasible.

In parallel, there is a discourse of cultural and environmental preservation above indigenous well-being, widely echoed by environmentalist NGOs, academics and politicians more aligned to the left, which results in the difficulty of support that the indigenous people find.

“We face a very big problem, which are these accusations about environmental impacts. But our work is always respecting the environment. We do not deforest, we only take advantage of already degraded places. The indigenous people have a very strong connection with nature, with our rivers, and they are aware that we cannot live without our nature”, says Cristiane Guajajara.

From these two structural problems, others arise: one of them is that faced with the difficulty of regularizing their lands, the Indians are unable to formalize themselves and, therefore, do not have access to credit, which prevents the acquisition of agricultural equipment to increase production and the puts you in a scenario of extensive legwork. It is also difficult to sell what was produced, since international agreements restrict the importation, by foreign countries, of items produced in indigenous lands. There is also a small number of Brazilian companies that also fail to purchase products from these places.

Leaders of the Guajajara ethnic group dedicated to agriculture intend to travel to Brasília in the coming months to present their demands to the minister. “We need support from the government, Funai, the ministry [dos Povos Indígenas] so that we are not dependent on government assistance”, says José Marcos. “We respect Sonia, but she also had to respect the decision of her own relatives that exist throughout Brazil, not just us. She’s already talked a lot about not supporting agriculture, but the community wants it. We cannot be at the mercy of misery, ”he declares.

Other side

THE People’s Gazette got in touch with Sonia Guajajara and sent questions about her positions regarding economic development in indigenous lands based on agricultural production, as well as the space that pro-agricultural Indians will find in her administration. There was no response until the closure of the report. The article will be updated if the answers are sent.