Support The Free Land Camp Movement! Defend The Rights Of Indigenous Peoples Of Brazil!

The Free Land Camp movement (Acampamento Terra Livre) gathers thousands of Indigenous Peoples and allies from all of Brazil to demonstrate their collective resistance to mining, oil exploration, illegal logging, land conversion, and other destructive projects on Indigenous territories. Every year since 2004, Indigenous Peoples, communities, and allies set up a ten-day camp in the capital of Brazil to defend their lands and assert their right to political participation.

Indigenous Peoples of Brazil continue to fight for justice and defend their rights to autonomy, land ownership, and preservation of their ways of life, amid threats of criminalization, harassment, and violent attacks done at the hands of their government alongside mercenaries hired by greedy corporations. Despite the serious health risks the COVID-19 pandemic poses on Indigenous Peoples.

Their struggle against the entry of mining corporations, logging, and agribusinesses into Indigenous lands is not only a struggle for the survival of their peoples but also one that defends the Amazon rainforest from complete and utter destruction. Indigenous land defenders are slowing the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Without them, the Amazon rainforest, the world’s largest rainforest and most biodiverse region would have burned.

In 2019 and 2020, an alarming increase in fires and deforestation in the Amazon occurred. Studies linked this with the land grabs expanding into Indigenous territories. It reminds us that setting fires is an age-old method to clear forests for settler-colonists to expand their lands. Pres. Jair Bolsonaro denied the gravity of these cases and even blamed peasants and Indigenous Peoples for starting the fires.

It is imperative now more than ever that we, members of the international community, show our solidarity and broadest support for the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil who are suffering under the repressive administration of Pres. Bolsonaro. He made promises during his electoral campaign that “not one centimeter of land will be demarcated for indigenous reserves or quilombolas (descendants of self-freed slaves).”

Pres. Bolsonaro stayed true to this promise by introducing and fast-tracking Anti-Indigenous rights bills in Congress. He packaged these as pro-economic development but, in reality, are undemocratic and institutionalized the Indigenous Peoples’ dispossession of their ancestral lands.

Pres. Bolsonaro’s administration fuels the violent racist attacks against Indigenous Peoples and has enabled big businesses and corporations to continue their plunder of resources and ancestral lands. He had even used the war in Ukraine and Russia to justify the encroachment on Indigenous lands, stating that opening Indigenous lands for mining could help Brazil with its shortage of fertilizers. Environmental groups have warned that such an action would severely impact the environment and further impoverish Indigenous communities.

The International Indigenous Peoples Movement for Self-Determination and Liberation (IPMSDL), committed in its mandate to forward the rights of Indigenous Peoples across the world and the IP struggle for self-determination, strongly supports the Free Land Camp movement. The Free Land Camp movement in Brazil is a testament to the strength of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, their IP communities, and organizations to defend their rights, lands, and ways of life.

We salute the bravery of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, who continue to fight for their rights, future, and our planet. We offer our warmest solidarity with the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil in this struggle for self-determination and the protection of the environment. We call on the members of the international community, fellow human rights, and environmental rights defenders to support and amplify the campaigns of Indigenous Peoples for land rights and ways of life and calls to hold accountable the Bolsonaro administration for its crimes against Indigenous Peoples of Brazil.

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