Hundreds of Brazilian Indians are protesting against the World Cup this week, marching in the streets of Brasília and around the capital’s Mané Garrincha football stadium, calling for their lands and lives to be protected. Indians brandishing bows and arrows and carrying signs reading ‘FIFA NO. Demarcation YES!’ were teargassed by police, as shown by a video published by the New York Times.
There is mounting anger at the government’s failure to recognize and protect their lands, vital for their survival, while spending millions of dollars on hosting the World Cup.
The protestors who are from several tribes have forced FIFA to close the stadium, and to cancel its trophy display.
A delegation of 18 indigenous protestors met the Minister of Justice yesterday. Indigenous leader Sonia Guajajara, national coordinator of the Association of Indigenous Peoples (APIB), said, ‘We are here to show that without our land, we are chained up. We are imprisoned. We are here to demand our rights.’
The Guarani tribe, Brazil’s largest, suffers extremely high malnutrition and suicide rates as their land has been stolen to make way for vast sugar cane plantations. Their leaders are frequently targeted and killed by gunmen acting for the landowners.
They are calling for their land to be demarcated as a matter of urgency before more lives are lost, and for the cancellation of a series of draft bills which, if passed into law, would drastically weaken their, and other tribes’, control over their lands. Those in the Amazon are calling for a halt to the many hydro-electric dams being built on their land.