BRASÍLIA: Hundreds of indigenous people demonstrated on Wednesday against draft legislation that would let Brazil's Congress, instead of the federal government, demarcate traditional lands.
"If they approve this, there will be war. Because we are not going to let agribusiness, ranchers, illegal loggers, and people doing illegal mining, invade our land," said Kayapo tribal leader Paulinho Payakan.
"We will defend it," he told AFP.
The law, known as PEC 2015, is a constitutional amendment that could be crucial in the long-running struggle over control of huge areas of Latin America's largest country.
Native peoples say that PEC 2015 would deprive them of the relative objectivity of government bodies and put their fate in the hands of the notoriously corrupt legislature, where the powerful agricultural lobby could further weaken tribes' already shaky territorial rights.
Brazil estimates just under one million people, of its population of 203 million, belong to indigenous tribes.
Under the constitution, indigenous Brazilians have "native rights on the lands that they traditionally occupy."
In addition to protesting in the federal capital, native groups have threatened to block federal highways over the issue.
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