Thousands of indigenous people marched through Brasilia to the seat of the Government, where President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva received a delegation that demanded greater speed in the regularization of the lands they have occupied for centuries.

Those and other demands were turned into a document delivered by about forty leaders of the indigenous peoples, who were received by Lula and the Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sônia Guajajara, along with other members of the cabinet in the Presidential Palace of Planalto.

“I have a moral duty and a lifelong commitment to do everything possible, and even the impossible, to minimize the suffering of indigenous peoples and guarantee their rights,” Lula said on his social networks after the meeting.

The text also asks the Government for “greater political commitment” in the face of the conservative majority of Parliament. He accuses of promoting an “agenda” contrary to the indigenous people and the protection of the Amazon and other biomes inhabited by the indigenous peoples.

The Articulation of Indigenous Peoples (Apib) calculated that in the march, which took place peacefully, about 9,000 indigenous people who left the Free Land Camp participated. About two kilometers from the presidential palace and that brings together representatives of about two hundred ethnic groups this week.

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While the meeting with Lula lasted, the demonstrators remained at the doors of the government headquarters in the midst of indigenous rituals. In a festive but also combative climate, in defense of their territories.

The main object of protests was a thesis known as a “time frame,” approved last year by the conservative majority of Parliament. It only recognizes as indigenous territories those that the original peoples effectively occupied on October 5, 1988, when the current Brazilian Constitution was promulgated.

The approval was after the Supreme Court had declared that thesis unconstitutional, which has generated a conflict, yet unresolved, in the face of which the court has urged a “conciliation”, to which the indigenous people oppose.

The camp, the largest annual event of the indigenous peoples, has been held since 2004 and this time has as its motto the phrase “Our framework is ancestral. We were always here,” alluding to the thesis defended by conservatism and the agricultural sector.

According to official data, indigenous people occupy about 14% of the national territory. It is represented by about 600 already delimited areas, to which can be added another 120 that are still being analyzed.

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The demarcation of indigenous lands, an obligation of the State under the Constitution, was suspended between 2019 and 2022, during the administration of the then far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, and was resumed last year by Lula’s government.

However, of the fourteen territories ready for demarcation, the Government has so far regularized ten and the other four are pending negotiation. They are currently occupied by landowners who, in the past, expelled the indigenous people.

Lula pointed out in his message in X that it was not “easy to rebuild indigenous politics” after Bolsonaro’s mandate. He was “satisfied with what has been done so far” and guaranteed that his Government will work “even harder” for the indigenous peoples.