BRASILIA (AP) — Raoni Metuktire, the Amazon’s most internationally famous Indigenous leader, on Wednesday said he still supports President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and will campaign for his reelection in October, despite opposing projects backed by the government that are contested by him and Indigenous peoples.
The Indigenous chief’s reaffirmation of his support for Lula comes after he stood beside Brazil’s leftist president in January 2023 as he walked into the presidential palace on the first day of his third, non-consecutive term.
“I like his work and am thinking about meeting him so we can address demarcation of Indigenous territories,” Raoni told journalists on Wednesday at the Free Land encampment, Brazil’s largest Indigenous mobilization. The protest has brought together about 7,000 Indigenous people from 200 groups from across the country who have camped in Brasilia for a week to press their demands.
Indigenous leaders sought to apply pressure on Lula, who has supported Indigenous rights and environmental stewardship in Latin America’s largest nation while also pushing projects that appear to go against those aims.
One of such projects is the Ferrograo railway project, which would transport commodities including corn and soybeans nearly 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) across the Amazon rainforest. Indigenous have long protested against it.
The Brazilian government hopes to move forward with the railway once the Supreme Court rules on the legality of changing a national park’s borders to allow construction and a congressional watchdog approves the plans.
The trial is expected to resume on Wednesday, and the Indigenous at the encampment, including Raoni, deployed to the court to protest in the afternoon.
The Indigenous chief said Ferrograo could cause “great harm.”
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