The Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sônia Guajajara, said this Friday (27) that the President of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), Rosa Weber, hopes to complete the judgment on the thesis of the time frame for demarcation of indigenous lands later this year. The end of the trial is a goal of the minister’s management at the head of the court. Rosa Weber compulsorily retires in September of this year and, consequently, will leave the presidency. 
“Is it over there [Rosa Weber] signaled that the time frame will be judged in his management”, said Guajajara in an interview with vehicles of the Brazil Communication Company (EBC). The trial of the time frame was suspended in September 2021 after a request for a view from Minister Alexandre de Moraes, who does not have a deadline to present his vote. “It is important that the trial resumes, to end this legal uncertainty, this anxiety of the people. Not only the Xokleng people, from Santa Catarina, who are the object of the trial, but everyone. If it is a case of general repercussion, it will affect everyone, all indigenous peoples are looking forward to this outcome”.
Earlier, Rosa Weber also received representatives from the Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil (Apib) in her office, who also asked for the trial to be resumed. During a meeting with the president of the STF, the legal coordinator of Apib, Maurício Terena, presented the minister with the situation of violence against indigenous peoples in the country and asked that the process be scheduled for trial.
“We understand that it is a need for the STF to resolve this issue of the demarcation of indigenous lands in the country,” he said.
According to Terena, the minister said during the meeting that the judgment is a “commitment of her management”. “She did not give a definitive date, but she was open to guide this judgment, which is so important to us”, she said.
Yanomami
Maurício Terena also said that he met this week with members of Minister Luís Roberto Barroso’s cabinet to reiterate the request for removal of indigenous lands.
“In 2020, when this action was filed, we were already denouncing to the Supreme Court the situation that was befalling the Yanomami indigenous peoples,” he said.
Through the action filed by Apib, the STF has been monitoring the situation for almost three years. According to minister Sônia Guajajara, there is already a removal plan drawn up by the Federal Police (PF) and which is being updated by the new management. According to estimates by the minister, a population of around 30,000 indigenous people live in the Yanomami territory, some of them isolated, and the number of invaders has already reached 20,000 people.
During the government of Jair Bolsonaro, two processes were opened that deal with the protection of indigenous people against covid-19 and the determination of a plan to expel miners and loggers from seven indigenous lands, including the Yanomami Indigenous Land, in Roraima.
The STF’s determinations involved sending food, medicine, fuel and the use of police force to protect communities.
According to the Court, the measures adopted by the previous government did not follow the planning approved by the STF and “occurred with deficiencies”. According to data from the processes, the government would have carried out “cycles of operations to repress illegal mining in Yanomami land”.
Understand
At the trial, ministers discuss the so-called time frame. According to the thesis, defended by landowners, the indigenous people would only be entitled to the lands that were in their possession on October 5, 1988, date of enactment of the Federal Constitution, or that were in legal dispute at that time.
The process that motivated the discussion deals with the dispute over the ownership of the Indigenous Land (TI) Ibirama, in Santa Catarina. The area is inhabited by the Xokleng, Kaingang and Guarani peoples, and ownership of part of the IL is questioned by the state attorney’s office.
The judgment score is tied at 1 to 1. The rapporteur of the case, Minister Edson Fachin, voted against the timeframe for the demarcation of indigenous lands. Minister Nunes Marques, on the other hand, opened a divergence in favor of the time frame to limit the expansion of indigenous lands in the country.
