Security is reinforced for judgment on indigenous lands in the STF

The Federal Supreme Court (STF) is due to decide this Wednesday (7) whether or not to resume the judgment on the time frame for the demarcation of indigenous lands. Ministers will make the decision under pressure. On one side are indigenous activists camped in Brasilia who want a Supreme Court decision against the time frame. On the other side are rural parliamentarians who are in favor of the time frame and who defend that the matter should be decided by the Legislature and not by the Judiciary.

Due to the judgment, security in the central area of ​​Brasília will be reinforced, especially in Praça dos Três Poderes, where the STF is located. The reinforcement in security is due to the forecast of mobilizations involving protesters against or in favor of the time frame.

The Military Police of the Federal District reported that “it is adopting measures regarding the planning and use of policing”. The headcount employed is not informed for reasons of strategy and security.

The Articulação dos Povos Indígenas (Apib) organized a mobilization camp against the timeframe on the 5th, 6th and 7th of June in Brasília. According to the organization, at least 2,000 indigenous people are in Brasília to participate in plenary sessions, vigils and acts against the time frame and to follow the STF judgment.

The timeframe judgment started in 2021, but was stalled. With the prospect that it could be resumed in the STF, deputies rushed to resume the matter in the Chamber and approved a bill last week. Their hope is that the action will make the STF give up the judgment.

The STF session is scheduled to start at 2 pm. Minister Rosa Weber may, at any time during the session, remove the timeframe from the agenda. This would suspend the trial indefinitely.

In addition to pressure from the indigenous outside, this trial is also an arm wrestling match between the Judiciary and the Legislature.

If the trial is resumed as provided for in the agenda, the Justices of the STF must present their votes to define whether the date of enactment of the Federal Constitution (10/5/1988) should be adopted as a time frame for defining the traditional occupation of land by indigenous peoples .

So far, only ministers Edson Fachin and Kassio Nunes Marques have cast their votes, one against and one in favor of the time frame, respectively.

Judgment will have general repercussions in cases of demarcation of indigenous lands

This Wednesday’s judgment refers to an appeal in a land demarcation process in Santa Catarina. But, in 2019, the STF determined that the judgment in this case will create a general rule for judgments on all land demarcations in the country.

The Extraordinary Appeal under discussion in the STF deals with the Indigenous Land Ibirama La Klãnõ, inhabited by the Guarani, Guarani Mbya, Guarani Ñandeva, Kaingang and Xokleng peoples, whose area is between the municipalities of Doutor Pedrinho, Itaiópolis, José Boiteux and Vitor Meireles, on the plateau north of Santa Catarina.

In the process being judged by the STF, the state of Santa Catarina requires the repossession of part of the Sassafrás State Ecological Reserve, in the municipality of Itaiópolis. In 2009, around 100 indigenous people invaded part of the reserve, which is owned by the Santa Catarina Institute of the Environment (IMA-SC).

At the time, the then Santa Catarina Environmental Foundation (FATMA) sought to recover the area through a repossession action against the National Indian Foundation (Funai), which was upheld. However, the indigenist body filed an appeal in which it alleges that the decision published by the Federal Regional Court of the 4th Region (TRF-4) “violated article 231 of the Constitution”, defending that the Magna Carta “adopted the theory of indigenato and, therefore, , the relationship established between the land and the Indian is original and does not depend on title or formal recognition”.

The state of Santa Catarina works for the application of the timeframe thesis in the case. According to this interpretation, indigenous peoples can only claim lands where they were already on October 5, 1988, when the Federal Constitution was enacted.

Resumption of the trial was announced after the president of the STF visited an indigenous village

The analysis of the timeframe was suspended at the STF in September 2021 following a request for a review by Minister Alexandre de Moraes. At that time, only two votes had been cast by the ministers of the STF. Since then, leaders linked to agribusiness and indigenous people have sought to reinforce their theses for and against the thesis, in anticipation of the resumption of the trial.

In March 2023, Minister Rosa Weber was in Amazonas and, on a visit to Aldeia Paraná, in Vale do Javari (AM), stated that she would guide the process that discusses the time frame of land demarcation “still in the first half of this year” . The minister’s trip was accompanied by a delegation of magistrates from the National Council of Justice (CNJ) and aimed to bring the Judiciary Power closer to indigenous populations.

Confirmation of the resumption of the trial took place in April, during the opening of a forum on the demands of indigenous peoples, organized by the CNJ. On the occasion, minister Rosa Weber said she was responding to the request of the minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sonia Guajajara. “We will continue with the judgment of the extraordinary appeal regarding the time frame and here I make the announcement in response to the claim of Minister Sonia Guajajara, on June 7”, said the Minister of the STF.

Action on the STF agenda also questions the expansion of indigenous land in Santa Catarina

One of the processes on the STF agenda for this June 7th is the Originating Civil Action (ACO) 1100, which deals with the expansion of the demarcation of the Ibirama Laklaño Indigenous Land (TI), belonging to the Xokleng people, in the Alto Vale do Itajaí, in Santa Catherine. It is the same indigenous land that is the central theme of debates on the time frame.

The said action questions Ordinance No. 1,128/2003 of the Minister of Justice, regarding the demarcation of the boundaries of the indigenous land and seeks the repossession of an area belonging to the former Fundação do Meio Environment (Fatma), replaced in 2017 by the Instituto do Meio Environment of Santa Catarina (Ima).

Agribusiness caucus in Congress seeks approval of PL on time frame

The bill that creates a time frame for the demarcation of indigenous lands in Brazil has been processed at an accelerated pace in the Chamber of Deputies in recent weeks. After 16 years of debate, in two weeks the deputies managed to approve the urgency, on May 24, and the merits of the proposal, on May 30. Now, in the Senate, the pace should be slowed down again, since the President of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), signaled that the appreciation will follow the normal rite, with “caution” and “prudence”, and the matter should go through the commissions.

However, senators are already seeking signatures to speed up the vote on the time frame bill. Senator Ciro Nogueira (PP-PI) started, this Monday (5), the collection of signatures for the urgent request. By the end of the afternoon, after the presentation, the application already had 16 signatures. 27 signatures of senators are needed for the urgency to be discussed and voted on in plenary.

For FPA, time frame guarantees legal certainty the right to property

The Agricultural Parliamentary Front (FPA) defended the timeframe thesis in the project approved by the Chamber. Rapporteur of the approved bill, Deputy Arthur Maia (União-BA) highlighted that the debate in the National Congress is about ‘the theory of the indigenate and the indigenous fact’. “Those who defend the theory of indigenato understand that all lands in this immense territory belong to the Indians and disregard this Brazilian society, which over centuries has consolidated itself in the Brazilian people,” he said.

Regarding the trial at the STF, the president of the FPA, deputy Pedro Lupion (PP-PR), said he had spoken with ministers of the Supreme Court and indicated that Congress would fulfill the role of legislating. “This Bill puts into law the 19 conditions that the STF itself created in the Raposa Serra do Sol case. Our message is that there is no need for a judgment, since we are doing our part to vote and ratify what they themselves defined”, emphasized the president of the FPA on the day of the approval of the PL in the Chamber, May 30, when commenting on the resumption of the judgment in the STF last week.

President of Funai says that the thesis of the timeframe is “controversial”

The president of the National Foundation for Indigenous Peoples (Funai), Joenia Wapichana, said this Tuesday (6th), during an event on the timeframe, organized by the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples (Apib), that the approach to the framework thesis timing is controversial. “This approach is controversial as it excludes indigenous peoples who were forcibly removed from their lands before that date, compromising their ancestral rights and the recognition of their cultural identity,” she said.

For Wapichana, “this struggle is not just for indigenous peoples, but for all of Brazilian society, as it will affect the lives of living beings who depend on territorial protection, who depend on a legal definition of their lands and, above all, to guarantee that this generation and the next can have dignity to live. Our concern is with the legal security not only of new lands to be demarcated, but of those that are already in progress”.