Lula allocates R$ 640 million to indigenous health and safety

Bianca Diniz – from Cenarium Magazine

BRASILIA – On Monday, 3, the President of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), signed a Provisional Measure (MP) that allocates R$ 640 million to indigenous communities in Brazil. The amounts should help protect the life, health, and safety of indigenous peoples, especially those in the Yanomami territory, who are facing a humanitarian crisis caused by illegal mining. The MP 1.168/2023 was published in an extra edition of the Diário Oficial da União. The House of Representatives and the Senate will make their analyses.

The resources will be divided between five ministries, with the biggest part (R$ 146 million) going to the National Foundation for Indigenous Peoples (Funai), linked to the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples (MPI), to be used in regularization, demarcation, inspection of indigenous lands and protection of isolated peoples.

According to the president of Funai, Joenia Wapichana, seven indigenous lands in four states will benefit from the credit: Amazonas, Maranhão, Pará and Rondônia.

“The credit will allow Funai to develop its institutional mission, and comes at the right time, when we need to strengthen territorial protection in priority areas identified by Funai,” explained Wapichana.

The Ministry of Development and Social Assistance, Family and Fight Against Hunger (MDS) will receive R$ 144.7 million for the distribution of food to traditional population groups and families in a situation of temporary food and nutritional insecurity.

The Ministry of Defense will receive R$135.4 million to support emergency actions in indigenous lands. In addition, the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change will receive R$86.5 million for inspection and management actions of Conservation Units (UCs) in Indigenous Lands (TI), and the Ministry of Justice and Public Security will receive R$126.7 million to cover various expenses, including the displacement of federal police officers and federal highway patrol officers.

The Provisional Measure responds to the decision of the Minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) Luís Roberto Barroso who ordered the Union to take a series of emergency measures to assist and protect the Yanomami, Karipuna, Kayapo and other peoples.

Barroso is the rapporteur of the lawsuit filed by the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (Apib), which denounced serious human rights violations against the Yanomami people and the invasion of indigenous lands by illegal mining.