The indigenous peoples of the Amazon, in Brazil, won strong support on Tuesday (April 12) in their fight against several bills that threaten their territories in the person of former President Lula, presidential candidate of 2023, and , for the moment, the big favorite in the election next October. He has indeed come to the camp that nearly 8,000 of them have set up in Brasilia to oppose a particular bill which aims to allow the exploitation of their natural resources, be it minerals, oil or gas.
>> At the beginning of March, a massive demonstration against the environmental policy of Jair Bolsonaro
Indigenous people strongly oppose it because they already know the damage of illegal gold panning in the Amazon. The presence of the ex-president candidate was therefore a great victory for them because, not only did he recognize that his government had made mistakes, he was blamed in particular for the Belo Monte dam in the Amazon, but above all he is very committed if he returns to power in January 2023.”It is certain that the government of the Workers’ party has not done all that it should have done, and what is serious is that practically everything that we have done has been dismantled. We don’t want an invasion of indigenous lands.” said the former president.
“Caring for the forest is an obligation of the Brazilian state.”
Ex-president Lula, candidate for 2023at franceinfo
“I want to tell you that you are going to have to participate in the development of my government’s program”, he added. Indigenous peoples had not received such support for a long time. The attacks they experience even call into question all the rights they had acquired and which were guaranteed in the Constitution.
Lula has promised to overturn all of Jair Bolsonaro’s decrees against them. And one of the coordinators of the Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, Alberto Terena, made him sign these commitments. He recognizes that the dialogue with Lula is very different from that which does not exist with the current president. “Lula comes from a party that looks to the minority. So we keep that hope alive and in our speeches we make it clear to him that we recognize the work he has done, but that there is still a lot to dosays Alberto Terena. Even though he didn’t do what he could do, he also didn’t attack us viciously like Bolsonaro.” It remains to elect Lula. It is certain that he has now won the vote of Indigenous people and those who care about ecology in Brazil.