Raoni Metuktire, the Amazon’s most internationally recognized Indigenous leader, reaffirmed his political support for Brazil’s leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Wednesday, while Indigenous protesters at an encampment in Brasilia pressed Lula over projects they say threaten Indigenous territories and the Amazon.
Speaking to journalists at the Free Land encampment, Raoni said he “still supports” Lula and would campaign for Lula’s reelection in October. The encampment, Brazil’s largest Indigenous mobilization, has brought together about 7,000 Indigenous people from 200 groups who have camped in Brasilia for a week.
Raoni also said he was interested in meeting Lula directly. “I like his work and am thinking about meeting him so we can address demarcation of Indigenous territories,” he told reporters at the encampment.
The comments came as Indigenous leaders sought to apply pressure on Lula, who has backed Indigenous rights and environmental stewardship in Latin America’s largest country while also pushing projects they say could run counter to those aims. One of the projects drawing sustained opposition is the Ferrograo railway, which would move commodities, including corn and soybeans, nearly 1,000 kilometers across the Amazon rainforest.
The Brazilian government has said it hopes to move the railway forward once the Supreme Court rules on the legality of changing the borders of a national park to allow construction, and once a congressional watchdog approves the plans. Raoni and other Indigenous protesters have protested Ferrograo for years.
As the legal process was set to resume Wednesday, the Indigenous encampment participants, including Raoni, went to court to protest in the afternoon. Raoni said he believes the Ferrograo railway could cause “great harm.”