Marie Claire | I discovered the brazilian tribe fighter Jair Bolsonaro

Deep inside Amazonas, the people of the Black Earth He wakes up with the song of a rooster. The simple lifestyle of the Maraguas does not mean that they are unaware that their Eden lives in reduced time. They are the last to fight the repeated attacks on the jungle, where trees are replaced by soybean plantations and livestock farms. The Abacaxis River, source of life for the 600 members of this tribe divided into five colonies, now brings new calamities. In its muddy waters, large fishing boats filled with adventurous tourists alters the population of fish and poachers in search of jaguars, alligators and monkeys, all protected species.

"Nothing has changed since our first contact with the Jesuits in 1840," complains Egidia Dos Reis, a woman who shares her time between the people and Manaus – the distant capital of the region – where she runs a network of # 39; activists. "Whites simply chase us to let them destroy nature in peace".

Today, the greatest threat to the Maraguas is very narrow, on the other side of the river. They are the so-called "ribeirinhos", who live from the cultivation of cannabis and the illegal exploitation of exotic woodss. A simple mention of this group is enough to terrorize the entire city.

It took us a long time to convince the cacique, the only one authorized to negotiate with these dreaded neighbors, to accompany us to the makeshift camp hosting a dozen maragua families.

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Originally from the northeast, their ancestors settled in this region of the Amazon half a century ago. Since then, they were abandoned by the state: no school, no health, no benefits to help them survive in this far-off country, converted into a lawless place, eight hours by pirogue from the nearest police station.

Few years ago, a young indigenous woman who had threatened to report to police the activities of "ribeirinhos" was cut into pieces, as well as her two-year-old baby. On March 22 this year, another woman from Maragua, Nazaré Pereira da Silva, was beaten to death and abandoned by the river. His alleged attacker was arrested by the police and released.

According to the Native Missionary Council, 48 people were killed in the Amazon between 2007 and 2017. "The number is probably much higher because these crimes occur in isolated areas and even among unregistered tribes," says Chantelle Texeira, a lawyer working for the organization.

Princess backpacks

Like many advocates of the Maraguas cause, the young woman fears that the recent modification of the gun law in Brazil, an implicit killing permit granted by Jair Bolsonaro to her supporters, leads to the extermination of whole communities.

This fear has been confirmed by several badociations in the field and witnessing the resurgence of violence since last January, when Bolsonaro became president. According to Chantelle Texeira, this sad record is due in large part to militias working for large landowners, who appear to be protected by the state.

Throwing in his hand, Teodoro Yagures enters this forest he knows better than the palm of his hand, the place where he was born about sixty years ago. Last month, the old Indian discovered the remains of a camp located a few kilometers from the city of Maraguas. Its occupants abandoned it after taking their precious trunks to Manaus, leaving behind a cemetery of dead wood. Theodore sighs as he looks at a hundred-year-old tree cut wildly by a chainsaw. More than an aberration, more than an anguish, the destruction of the environment is a collective suicide in progress: "Whites have always had a short-term exploratory vision.They take, but do not do not replace, they do not realize that there will soon be nothing to take away, even here. "

Increasingly marginalized, the indigenous cause received a fatal blow when Jair Bolsonaro was elected president. In the Twitter account that he uses indiscriminately, the politician does not hide his ambitions: "More than 15% of our nation is defined as an indigenous land.Less than a million people live in these isolated areas, exploited and manipulated by NGOs We will integrate with these citizens. "Integration The word has a bitter taste, almost colonial. As of the first day of his term, on January 1, 2019, the new President made the controversial decision to grant the power to delimit the indigenous territories to the Minister of Agriculture Tereza Cristina, nicknamed "the muse of pesticides" for its links with agriculture. It's like asking the fox to watch the hen house.

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The Fundação Nacional do Indio (FUNAI), an agency supposed to "protect and promote the rights of indigenous peoples", has also been integrated into the government, this time to the Ministry of Women and Family, canceling one of the last guarantees. It existed.

At dawn, three canoes approach the village of Tierra Negra. Kids jump on the shore with their backpacks of superheroes and Disney princesses. Right next to "goose", the big communal tent, there is a wooden cabin full of old offices: the rudimentary schoolhouse, hard won by the inhabitants of Maragua in 2008. Previously, The tribesmen who wanted their children to be educated had to exile to Nova Olinda, a small town that developed as a poisonous fungus in the heart of the Amazon after the discovery of 39, an oil field in the 1950s.. It took two days and two whole nights to get there, before the arrival of the motor boats, just two years ago.

This logistics has generated "several generations of illiterates," sighed the Master Jesus, who returned to the village after completing his studies to help train the "Indians of tomorrow": those who know their rights and, more importantly , The best way to defend them.

Reunited in the open hut, the new guard seems to ignore the magnitude of his mission. Like all kids of her age, young maraguas dream of an overdose of industrial candy while watching Hollywood stars save the world on the big screen. "This does not have to be incompatible," smiles Jesiana, convinced, like many indigenous activists, that today the resistance will not only be educational, but will also depend on how it works. presence in cities. A network of sentinels, almost always women, rubs shoulders with the "Whites", while they rain and shine on their ancestral land.
Death threats

Heartbroken, Lia Minapoty reluctantly decided to leave Tierra Negra five years ago to become the spokesperson for her people in Nova-Olinda. At thirty, he leads a group of women who enter the communities to keep alive the ancient language of maragua. "Among our people, it is the women who know the medicinal plants.and pbad on knowledge and our identity from one generation to the next, in addition to cooking and housekeeping. But there is a majority of women on Earth, "laughs Lia with a mischievous smile. A mother of three, she also finds time to stage demonstrations against the mayor's repeated attempts to conceal the complaints presented by his tribe and denounce multiple intrusions of material. loggers and gold miners from Maraguas lands.

This implacable commitment seems to have earned him death threats, but he prefers to talk about the children's books he writes to teach schoolchildren about indigenous culture: "At school, we learn that Brazil was discovered by the Portuguese as if it were not the case, there would have been no one here before them, but it was our ancestors, the First Nations! In January, after the holidays, their editor had telephoned for him. announce sad news: for the first time, his books had not been commissioned by the Ministry of Education and, therefore, would not be present in schools, a dark portent of humiliations to come up.

In theory, indigenous communities are protected by the Brazilian constitution, which guarantees them the right to live on their ancestral lands. The territory of Maraguas is one of the 115 that still awaits the demarcation. The chief carefully opens the map representing the defined area in consultation with Funai and the Ministry of Justice, an area that should have been officially registered after the New Year. The culmination of a thirty-year struggle torn apart by the election of Bolsonaro. The president is about to blow up the last legal safeguard: this year, a constitutional amendment proposal to freeze the recognition of already defined territories, opening them to the farm and mining, will be presented to the Congress. If things continue to evolve at this rate, the Amazon, "the lung of the earth", will not be very long for this world anymore.

at Manon Quérouil-Bruneel