"Prato principal" terras indígenas: o início da contestação do direito territorial indígena pela Frente Parlamentar da Agropecuária (2011-2014)

Abstract

In the decade of 2010, the matter of demarcation of indigenous territories achieved notoriety in the Brazilian society, especially because of the antagonism of congressmen in the National Congress. Instigated by such attention to this topic, mainly of the Rural Caucus, which had been officially organized at the Parliamentary Front for Agriculture (FPA), we aim to exploit this movement of contestation of the demarcations, especially the first collective actions that were held by congressmen from FPA that were identified during the 54th Legislature (2011-2015). Under this context, the objective of this study is to analyze the performance of FPA, in order to question the acknowledgement of indigenous territories, and, also, aiming to identify the social groups that are involved in this process. In order so, there were examined documents from the National Congress, especially the ones from permanent commissions of the Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate, as minutes of meetings, audio files and audiovisual records. Moreover, diverse news sources were analyzed, by researching relevant events on the topic, mainly about mass mobilization on streets against the demarcation of indigenous territories. In 2019, there was also fieldwork at the National Congress, in order to get to know the functioning of permanent commissions. We highlight that during the processing of the Proposed Amendment to the Constitution (PEC) n. 215/2000, one of the main agendas of FPA during that period is that there was expression, on a first moment, of the limits of the contestation of the acknowledgement of indigenous territories, and it demonstrated to be a very distinct picture of the processing of the new Forest Code. The permanent commissions proved to be important opportunities for discussion on the topic, gathering and articulating groups that are interested in questioning the demarcations, beyond being important instruments to push the Federal Government on this topic. Dozens of street mobilizations, against the acknowledgement of indigenous territories, were also held in 2013, and they expressed conflicts that were related to ongoing processes of demarcation, and that had as main sponsors, the labor unions, not only related to rural employers from family farming. FPA also conducted a national mobilization against the demarcation of indigenous territories in June, 2013, and the labor unions from the Brazilian Agriculture and Livestock Confederation (CNA) were important executors of the street mobilizations. Among the social groups that were involved in the public hearing on the topic, it was stood out the farmers that were in litigation with the demarcation of indigenous territories, mainly the ones that had been organized in groups for the facing of demarcations, labor unions (employers, rural workers and family farming’s) and mayors, as well as guest specialists, in order to contribute for the reasoning of arguments against the acknowledgement of indigenous territories.