Justice applies deadline and prevents expulsion of invaders from indigenous lands with isolated people in Mato Grosso

The decision comes at a time of intense institutional conflict over land demarcation in Brazil. The controversy between powers is represented by the Supreme Federal Court (STF), which rejected in September 2023 the thesis of Marco Temporal, reinforcing the original right of indigenous peoples, regardless of the date of 1988; and the Congress, which, in response to the STF, approved Law No. 14,701/2023, which practically repeats the calendar thesis in its text.

Earlier this week, the Senate approved, in the second round, by 52 votes to 15, a proposed amendment to the Constitution (PEC) that creates a timetable for the demarcation of indigenous lands. The vote is seen as a response to the Supreme Court since the Court is also ruling on four actions that challenge the constitutionality of the demarcation schedule. The text must still be adopted by the Chamber of Deputies.

The heart of the current controversy is that the Federal Court, applying Article 9 of the Temporal Framework Law, allowed the non-indigenous occupants to remain in the Piripkura TI, on the grounds that the land has not yet been demarcated. This article guarantees the right of use and enjoyment to the occupants until the conclusion of the process, subject to compensation for the improvements.

The court’s decision worsens a situation that has lasted for almost four decades, amid devastation of native forests that increased by 1,200% between 2019 and 2022, during the Bolsonaro years, according to Landsat satellite images and data from annual land occupancy and use maps. While the process of territorial demarcation remains unfinished since the first records of contact with the indigenous Piripkura people, survivors of a massacre, in the 1980s, the administrative vacuum becomes a legal argument for the invaders.

The MPF contests and alleges that the possession of the invaders is illegal and in bad faith, given that the Piripkura TI has been subject to the Use Restriction Order of the National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples (Funai) since 2008. And that the territory benefits from a special legal regime due to the presence of isolated people, which should guarantee the full protection of constitutional rights (art. 231 of the Constitution).

“Article 9 of the Deadlines Law does not apply literally when there is an order restricting the use and isolated persons in question,” prosecutors Daniel Luis Dalberto and Ludmila Bortoleto Monteiro said in the action that seeks the removal of the invaders named in the public civil action for repossession against Gustavo Moura Pezzin Viguini, Oldielson Moura da Silva, Elideto Ferreira Coelho, Roberson Gomes, Márcio Boria, Pedro Facchi, Marcos Antônio Xavier Facchi, Erineu Taveira de Souza, José Carias Xavier Lopes and other unidentified third parties.

In rejecting the resumption, the federal judge of Juína (MT), Rodrigo Bahia Accioly Lins, limited the protection of the territory to simple environmental restrictions in specific places, such as the prohibition of new deforestation in Permanent Preservation Areas (APP) and Legal Reserves, and not on the entire perimeter of the Indigenous Land.

The MPF invokes the case law of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ), emphasizing that the irregular occupation of public land constitutes simple detention and not legitimate possession, which prevents the protection of dispossession. “There is no protected property whose legal system imposes absolute restrictions on its exercise,” underline Luis Dalberto and Ludmila in the petition.

— The protection of the Piripkura is not a favor. It is a duty of the State, a constitutional obligation and an ethical imperative. If the piripkura disappear, Brazil will not be able to say that it did not know. Rampant deforestation, criminal invasions, strategic fires – all this is visible and documented in the archives – Luis Dalberto tells GLOBO.

The legal outcome favorable to the occupants of the territory coincides with a scenario of unprecedented environmental devastation in the territory.

Deforestation increases by more than 1,000%

A survey attached to the process by the MPF itself shows that, since 2019, deforestation by clearcutting in the Piripkura TI has already destroyed around 2,920 hectares of forest (nearly 3,000 football fields). The region is constantly invaded by loggers and ranchers, who seek to expand Mato Grosso’s agricultural frontier.

The maintenance of the invaders, protected by the application of the Temporal Framework in a territory with a demarcation process that has lasted for decades, is considered by experts as a condemnation of risk for the last two known Piripkura indigenous peoples – Tamanduá and Pakui – and an incitement to the continued degradation of the area, contradicting the decisions of higher authorities, such as the Request for non-compliance with the fundamental precept (ADPF 991), of the Federal Supreme Court. (STF), which requires total protection of isolated peoples.

The theme of the documentary “Piripkura”, made in 2017 by directors Mariana Oliva, Bruno Jorge and Renata Terra, the Piripkura indigenous land rose to prominence after the confirmation of the presence of uncontacted Indians in the region; they were the last three survivors of at least two massacres carried out by loggers in the 1980s. Tio and Sobrinho, Pakui and Tamandua follow the nomads through the forest and move through dense forest, between the boundaries of the municipalities of Colniza, Rondolândia and Aripuanã, about a thousand kilometers from the capital, Cuiabá.

Pakui’s sister, Rita, managed to escape the first massacre when she was a child. In the documentary, she says that her loved ones, including her children, were allegedly beheaded by the invaders. After the death of her husband, Rita decides to leave the group and move to a farm in the region.

— This decision of the Federal Court of Juína represents a serious violation of the rights clearly expressed in the Federal Constitution and in international law which guarantee the possession and enjoyment of the territory by the isolated Piripkura indigenous people. Allowing the invaders to stay is tantamount to signing a death warrant for isolated Piripkura and its forest. This decision also shows how the deadline, now also approved as PEC 48, is already being used to favor illegal invaders and land theft — says Priscilla Oliveira, representative of Survival International, an entity that organizes campaigns around the world to protect uncontacted people.

— Isolated indigenous peoples are entirely dependent on their forests to survive and thrive. The presence of invaders in their forests threatens the existence of these populations. Piripkura indigenous land has been waiting for its demarcation for 40 years. Finalizing land demarcation is essential to guarantee legal security and permanent protection of the territory. How long will the isolated Piripkura indigenous people have to wait for their right to land to be recognized? — asks Priscilla.