Brazil's government on Monday began expelling thousands of non-indigenous people who illegally occupy native territories, known as grileiros or land grabbers. The measure, which will affect thousands of people living in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, demonstrates the political turn that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has adopted in terms of protecting the Amazon and its peoples with respect to the previous far-right government of Jair Bolsonaro.
The Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin) said in a statement that the goal is to return to the indigenous peoples the lands Apyterewa and Trincheira Bacaja, which are located around the municipalities of Sao Felix do Xingu, Altamira, Anapu and Senator José Porfirio, in the state of Pará.
Abin did not detail whether the expulsion of the land grabbers was carried out entirely peacefully and voluntarily, as the federal government intended. The operation was ordered by the country's Supreme Court and other judges. Some 10,000 non-indigenous people live within the two territories, but just over 15% occupy lands illegally, according to indigenous groups' estimates. Brazilian authorities estimate that up to 2,500 indigenous people, from the Parakaná, Mebengokre Kayapó and Xikrim ethnic groups, live distributed in a total of 51 villages in both territories.
“The presence of strangers on indigenous lands threatens the integrity of the indigenous (people) and causes other damage, such as the destruction of forests,” the agency said in its statement. Around 1,600 families live illegally in that region and some participate in illegal activities such as cattle ranching and gold mining. "They also destroy native vegetation," he added. This is the case, above all, of the Apyterewa territory, which suffered the greatest deforestation of all indigenous lands in Brazil for four consecutive years, according to official data.
Images obtained by local media and shared on social media in September showed hundreds of non-indigenous people living in a newly built city with restaurants, bars and churches deep in the Parakana lands. This indigenous people has also been a victim of direct attacks by the grileiros in order to perpetuate the illegal invasion of their lands.
Other authorities participating in Monday's action included Brazil's Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, the environmental protection agency IBAMA, the federal police and the armed forces, among many others. Many of these bodies had their powers limited and did little to protect indigenous peoples' territories during the Bolsonaro administration between 2019 and 2022.
Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, began rebuilding environmental protection agencies and has so far created eight protected areas for indigenous peoples. After his administration began, his government expelled thousands of gold miners from the huge Yanomami indigenous territory in the northern state of Roraima.
This year, state and federal authorities also evicted land grabbers from the Alto Río Guamá territory. Likewise, they threatened with forced expulsion of settlers who did not leave and promised to eliminate access roads and irregular facilities; almost all illegal residents left voluntarily.
The invasion of such territories in recent years led Brazil's highest court to enshrine indigenous land rights last week by rejecting a lawsuit backed by farmers that sought to prevent an indigenous group from expanding the size of its land claim.
In the case before the court, the state of Santa Catarina argued that the date Brazil's Constitution was promulgated (October 5, 1988) should be the deadline by which indigenous peoples have already physically occupied land or are legally fighting to reoccupy territories. Nine of the 11 judges of Brazil's Supreme Court ruled against that argument, a decision that has far-reaching implications for territories across the country.
