Lula government shakes up Brazil’s indigenous foundation

The Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva administration on Monday fired 43 employees from positions at the National Indigenous Peoples Foundation (Funai). Five of them are career public servants and will take on other functions, while the other 38 were political appointees.

Separately, the government has fired 11 people from the Indigenous Health Department in the Health Ministry.

On Friday, Health Minister Nísia Trindade declared a national state of emergency to deal with the humanitarian crisis of the Yanomami people, who live in the northern states of Amazonas and Roraima. A ministerial task force found children and elderly people suffering from severe malnutrition, in addition to several cases of malaria, acute respiratory infection (ARI), and other diseases.

During the weekend, President Lula visited a Yanomami community in Roraima, where he described the indigenous people’s conditions as “inhumane.”

Indigenous Peoples Minister Sonia Guajajara blamed the Jair Bolsonaro administration, saying the previous government “allowed this situation to get worse to the point that we arrive here and find adults with the weight of a child, and children who are skin and bones.”

About 30,000 indigenous people live on the Yanomami protected territory. The federal government estimates that 99 children aged one to four died in 2022 as a result of the encroachment of illegal mining in the region.

The Bolsonaro administration was vocally lenient towards mining in the Amazon, and publicly in favor of allowing mining on indigenous land, which the Constitution bans. Last year, Congressman Ricardo Barros moved to fast-track a bill to allow mining on indigenous lands, but it stalled after large protests in Brasília.

The Federal Prosecution Office issued a communiqué accusing the Bolsonaro administration of “omission” in protecting the Yanomami land from the advance of illegal miners.

Despite the timing, Funai’s press office told The Brazilian Report that the dismissals are “adjustments,” which come “naturally” with changes in government. The staffing moves had been decided “since the beginning of the year,” Funai added.

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