BRASILIA (Reuters) – Armed men backed by farmers in trucks and tractors attacked Indigenous people reclaiming land in Brazil’s farming state of Mato Grosso do Sul at the weekend, injuring 11 of them, government officials and a rights group said on Monday.
The Ministry of Indigenous Affairs said five of the 10 people injured on Saturday were taken to hospital to be treated for wounds from gunshots and rubber bullets as a result of the first attack in the Douradina district.
“The Guarani-Kaiowa people are retaking land in the Panambi-Lagoa Rica territory,” the ministry said in a statement, blaming the violence on the uncertain legal situation surrounding Indigenous land claims.
On Sunday night, the farmers broke through a rope put up by the Indigenous group to mark the land they claim and set fire to their tents, police said.
At least one person was injured by a rubber bullet in Sunday’s incident, said the Indigenous Missionary Council, a rights group linked to the Catholic Church. It said police had failed to stop the farmers.
As Brazil’s farm frontier has advanced toward the Amazon, mainly to plant soy for export or raise cattle to produce beef, disputes over land claimed by Indigenous people have multiplied.
Violent land disputes have become more frequent with the ongoing debate over the movement to limit Indigenous claims to ancestral lands in a Conservative Congress backed by Brazil’s powerful farm lobby.
Lawmakers have proposed an amendment to Brazil’s constitution to limit claims to lands that were lived on by Indigenous communities no later than 1988, even though the Supreme Court has ruled that setting such a time framework was unconstitutional.
The ministry said in its statement that “the instability generated for land claims not only causes legal uncertainty for Indigenous peoples, but also opens the door for acts of violence in which they are the main victims.”
(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Helen Popper)
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