The latest move by Brazil’s president, while expected, goes against all of Brazil’s past agreements. Indigenous lands were given back- they are not a gift from the Brazilian government. Indigenous people have lived in the Brazilian rainforest for millennia longer than Europeans have been in South America.
Whether you believe in the rights of indigenous peoples or not this is bad news. Those outsiders Bolsonaro intends to give the land to (land that isn’t his too give). Indeed this land he is seizing is listed in the Brazilian constitution, and so is illegal in all ways.
The west cannot stand by as Jair Bolsonaro rules for the descendants of European settlers and no one else. The destruction of this rain forest (logging and palm oil plantations are some of the intended uses). It is time for international organisations to stand up for right against the tyrannical behaviour Jair Bolsonaro is displaying.
