ブラジル先住民、大統領府近くで座り込み　保護区めぐる政策に抗議

【ブラジリアＡＦＰ＝時事】羽根のついた頭飾りに腰みの、ボディーペイントをまとったブラジルの先住民数千人が２３日、首都ブラジリアで野営し、先祖伝来の保護区をめぐるジャイル・ボルソナロ大統領の政策と取り組みに抗議する座り込みを実施した。（写真はブラジルの首都ブラジリアで、ジャイル・ボルソナロ大統領に抗議するため座り込みをする先住民）
　参加者らは２２日、大統領府や議会、最高裁判所など近代的な建物が並ぶ政治の中心地付近に、「生きるための闘い」と称し、木製のテントを張った。
　座り込みは１週間の予定。主催団体のブラジル先住民族連合（ＡＰＩＢ）によると、ボルソナロ氏の「反先住民政策」に対する抗議活動が行われる。最高裁が２５日、先住民の土地の保護に関する判決を下す前に、圧力をかける狙いがある。
　ＡＰＩＢの代表はＡＦＰに対し、「われわれは長年必死に先住民を保護する法律を求め闘ってきたが、それが大幅に抑圧され、妨害される時代になっている」と語った。
　ブラジルの先住民グループは、ボルソナロ氏が先住民の権利を組織的に攻撃し、アグリビジネスや鉱業に開放しようとしていると非難している。
　６月にも同様のデモが行われ、先住民と警官が衝突。先住民３人が負傷し、警官３人も矢で負傷した。
　平和的に開始された今回の抗議活動には、主催者発表で、１１７民族から４０００人が参加した。
　環境保護活動家らは、先住民の保護区を守ることは、アマゾン熱帯雨林の破壊を防ぐ最善策の一つだとしている。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】

〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2021/08/25-10:46）

With feather headdresses, grass skirts and body paint, thousands of indigenous demonstrators camped out in Brazil's capital Monday to protest far-right President Jair Bolsonaro's policies and an initiative that could take away their ancestral lands.
Pounding wooden tent poles into the ground, the protesters set up the Fight for Life camp outside the seat of power in Brasilia, near the trio of modernist buildings housing the presidency, Congress and the Supreme Court.
The protest camp, which opened Sunday, will hold a week of demos and other activities against what the organizers, the Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), call Bolsonaro's anti-indigenous agenda, seeking to exert pressure ahead of a crucial Supreme Court ruling on native lands.
We're living in a time of much oppression, of setbacks on the protections and laws the indigenous movement has fought so hard for all these years, APIB representative Kleber Karipuna told AFP.
Indigenous groups in Brazil accuse Bolsonaro of systematically attacking their rights and trying to open their lands to agribusiness and mining.
A similar protest in June erupted into clashes, with three indigenous demonstrators injured and three police wounded by arrows.
The latest camp opened peacefully. Organizers said there were 4,000 indigenous protesters from 117 ethnic groups.
- 'Case of the century' -
The tension has peaked with a Supreme Court case opening Wednesday on the issue of how indigenous lands are protected.
The agribusiness lobby argues Brazil's constitutional protection of indigenous lands should only apply to those whose inhabitants were present in 1988, when the current constitution was adopted.
However, indigenous rights activists say native inhabitants were often forced off their ancestral lands, including under Brazil's 1964-1985 military dictatorship, which wanted to develop the Amazon rainforest.
Having now returned, they should have the right to benefit from the protected status of official reservations, their lawyers argue.
The case centers on a reservation in the southern state of Santa Catarina, but will set legal precedent for dozens of similar cases throughout Brazil.
Protest organizers called it the most important court case of the century.
If the Supreme Court accepts the so-called... 'time frame' argument in its ruling on land demarcation later this month, it could legitimize violence against indigenous peoples and inflame conflicts in the Amazon rainforest and other areas, the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, Francisco Cali Tzay, said in a statement.
On the other hand, if the ruling goes in the indigenous groups' favor, it could also deflate a bill before Congress that would enshrine the 1988 time-frame argument in law.
That bill, which passed a lower house committee vote in June, is one of several that indigenous activists and environmentalists say Bolsonaro and his allies are trying to use to further the advance of agriculture and industry into Brazil's rapidly disappearing forests.
It's a very important case at a time when we are seeing numerous setbacks in terms of indigenous rights, Juliana de Paula Batista, a lawyer with the Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA), told AFP.
- Surging deforestation -
Brazil is home to around 900,000 indigenous people. They make up less than 0.5 percent of the population of 212 million, but their reservations cover some 13 percent of the country.
Environmentalists say protecting indigenous reservations is one of the best ways to stop the destruction of the Amazon, a critical resource in the race to curb climate change.
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has surged since Bolsonaro took office in 2019. In the 12 months through July, a total of 8,712 square kilometers (3,364 square miles) -- an area nearly the size of Puerto Rico -- of forest cover was destroyed, according to official figures.