Federal deputy and indigenous leader Sonia Guajajara has been chosen by Brazil’s president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to be the new Minister of Indigenous Peoples, pending the official appointment this Thursday.
Guajajara and Lula met this Wednesday and agreed that the new ministry will go on to manage the Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health (Sesai) and the National Indian Foundation (Funai), the latter body highly questioned by collectives and organizations of native peoples during the government of Jair Bolsonaro.
Deputy for the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL), Guajajara was one of the indigenous leaders who denounced the ineffectiveness of the Funai, as well as of the Bolsonaro government in the management of the coronavirus pandemic within these communities.
Guajajara, who appeared in May in Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people, is with Célia Xakriabá one of the two indigenous women who for the first time in history were elected to Congress.
Faced with the possibility of the native peoples losing one of their representatives in Congress, several of their leaders, according to the newspaper ‘O Globo’, maintain that the idea is that Guajajara would return to her seat after one year leading this portfolio.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
