Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro heavily watered down a law on Wednesday that would have forced the government to provide indigenous people with access to clean water and medical care during the coronavirus pandemic. According to the initial text approved by Congress, the traditional indigenous peoples and quilombolas (communities of descendants of fugitive slaves) must be considered as "groups in a situation of extreme vulnerability".
But the head of state exercised his right of veto to remove several articles from the law, believing that it entailed additional expenses "contrary to the public interest".
Bolsonaro removed 16 items
A total of 16 items have been removed, including those providing access to clean water for the natives, intensive care beds specially reserved for them, and free distribution of essential items.
The Socio-environmental Institute (ISA), an NGO specializing in environmental and social issues, has called "criminal" the removal of important articles from the law supposed to help the natives, accusing Bolsonaro of having a "posture genocidal ”.
Thousands of natives already infected with Covid-19
After the law was published in this watered-down version in the Official Gazette, the Supreme Court demanded that the government present a plan to protect indigenous communities. According to the Indigenous Health Secretariat (Sesai), more than 8,000 indigenous people living in villages have been infected with Covid-19 and 184 have died.
The Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), which also takes into account indigenous people living in urban areas, has 12,408 confirmed cases and 445 deaths.
In total, the virus has reached more than 1.7 million people and caused nearly 68,000 deaths in this country of 212 million inhabitants, which has around 900,000 natives of more than 300 ethnic groups. President Bolsonaro, himself infected with the coronavirus, had also recently watered down laws approved by Congress on the wearing of mandatory masks.
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