Brasilia, 18 Mar Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, wearing a feather headdress and with members of various tribes, received recognition from his own Government on Friday for his indigenous policy, rejected by most of the indigenous peoples. “We are exactly the same. All of us came to earth by the grace of God,” said Bolsonaro, with an indigenous girl in his arms, when he received the Medal of Indigenous Merit, created in 1972 by the dictatorship that ruled the country at the time. According to the Ministry of Justice, which awarded this award to the leader of the far right, it is a “recognition of his important services, of an altruistic nature, related to the welfare, protection and defense of indigenous communities”. “You arrived here long before we did, but with time we integrated,” Bolsonaro said with a showy feather headdress on his head and addressing dozens of indigenous people who attended the ceremony. “All we want is for you to do on your land what we do on ours”, because “we are brothers, we are friends, and we are no different,” he said in a clear reference to a project that his Government is promoting to free the exploitation of mineral and forest resources in indigenous reserves. The award was imposed on him at a time when the Government is pressing Congress to accelerate the discussion of this project, resisted by the vast majority of indigenous peoples, who fear the ecological impact of the release of productive activities that are now prohibited by law in their reserves. In recent weeks, Bolsonaro has argued, among other arguments, that indigenous lands are rich in potassium and other minerals needed to produce fertilizers, which are becoming scarce due to the economic sanctions imposed on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine. Bolsonaro came to power in January 2019 and, since then, as he had promised in his campaign, he has not recognized “a millimeter” of new indigenous lands and encouraged artisanal mining, mostly of an illegal nature and which is the source of violent conflicts and invasions of reserves. It has also progressively reduced budgets for the protection of indigenous peoples, as has those related to the environment and protected areas. Faced with these policies, the Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (Apib), one of the largest groups representing Brazilian ethnic groups, last year filed an accusation of genocide against the head of state before the International Criminal Court. CHIEF net/mat/copy (video)
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