Brazil’s Congress overrides president's veto to reinstate legislation threatening Indigenous rights

MAURICIO SAVARESE
Updated Thu, December 14, 2023 

Indigenous leader Cacique Raoni and incoming President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva stand side by side at the Planalto Palace after Lula's swearing-in ceremony, in Brasilia, Brazil, Jan. 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)


SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil's Congress on Thursday overturned a veto by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva so it can reinstate legislation that undoes protections of Indigenous peoples’ land rights. The decision sets up a new battle between lawmakers and the country's top court on the matter.

Both federal deputies and senators voted by a wide margin to support a bill that argues the date Brazil’s Constitution was promulgated — Oct. 5, 1988 — is the deadline by which Indigenous peoples had to be physically occupying or fighting legally to reoccupy territory in order to claim land allotments.

In September, Brazil’s Supreme Court decided on a 9-2 vote that such a theory was unconstitutional. Brazilian lawmakers reacted by using a fast-track process to pass a bill that addressed that part of the original legislation, and it will be valid until the court examines the issue again.

The override of Lula's veto was a victory for congressional supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro — who joined several members of Lula’s coalition in voting to reverse the president's action -- and his allies in agribusiness.

Supporters of the bill argued it was needed to provide legal security to landowners and accused Indigenous leaders of pushing for an unlimited expansion of their territories.

Indigenous rights groups say the concept of the deadline is unfair because it does not account for expulsions and forced displacements of Indigenous populations, particularly during Brazil’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship.

Rights group Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, known by the Portuguese acronym Apib, said in its social medial channels that it would take the case back to Brazil's Supreme Court. Leftist lawmakers said the same.

“The defeated are those who are not fighting. Congress approved the deadline bill and other crimes against Indigenous peoples,” Apib said. “We will continue to challenge this."

Shortly after the vote in Congress, about 300 people protested in front of the Supreme Court building.

Brazil Congress overturns Lula veto on limit to Indigenous land claims

Updated Thu, December 14, 2023 

Brazil's Supreme Court votes regarding the limit to Indigenous land claims, amid protests

By Anthony Boadle

BRASILIA (Reuters) -Brazil's Congress on Thursday overturned a presidential veto that had struck down the core of a bill to limit Indigenous land claims, setting up a likely clash at the Supreme Court.

Indigenous groups had supported President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's veto, while the bill had the backing of the powerful farm lobby.

In a joint session of both chambers, lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to annul Lula's veto of a policy limiting claims to ancestral lands where Indigenous people lived in 1988.

The issue is expected to be decided by the Supreme Court, which ruled in September that the deadline was unconstitutional.

Lula created the first Ministry of Indigenous Peoples when he took office in January and has vowed to recognize pending land claims. In October he vetoed the core of the bill, a move seen as a major victory for the country's 1.6 million Indigenous people. Many of them have struggled to defend land rights threatened by the advance of Brazil's agricultural frontier into the Amazon region.

The number of land conflicts has increased as Brazil's farm sector has boomed in recent decades into a global powerhouse. Indigenous communities across the country claim land that farmers have settled and developed, in some cases for decades.

The core of the bill that Lula had vetoed sought to establish in law a cut-off date for new reservations on lands where Indigenous people did not live on Oct. 5, 1988, when Brazil's Constitution was enacted.

Brazil's congressional farm caucus argued that greater legal security would curtail often deadly land conflicts.

"There is no lack of land for Indigenous people in Brazil. What is missing is support so that they can develop and enjoy the land they already own," said opposition lawmaker Ciro Nogueira on social media.

Indigenous leaders and advocates say protecting their lands is the best way to preserve the Amazon rainforest, which scientists say is crucial to curbing climate change.

Celia Xakriabá, one of only two Indigenous members of Brazil's Congress, called Thursday's vote "a defeat for the climate agenda."

Groups of protesters from some of Brazil's 305 tribes, wearing feathered headdresses with painted faces, danced and chanted outside Congress in support of the presidential veto. Leaders warned that the legislation backed by the farm lobby would lead to more violent conflicts.

Among the protesters, Indigenous Peoples Minister Sonia Guajajara told Reuters she was hoping Lula's veto would stand because the deadline threatened claims to ancestral lands that are vital for the survival of Indigenous culture in Brazil.

(Reporting by Anthony Boadle, Isadora Machado and Maria Carolina Marcello; editing by Jonathan Oatis and David Gregorio)