The first World Indigenous Games on Friday got off to a rocky start after the opening ceremony’s colorful parade was marred by technical hitches and a noisy protest against the Brazilian government.
Billed as indigenous peoples’ answer to the Olympics, the nine-day event has drawn about 2,000 people from dozens of Brazilian groups and nearly 20 countries to Palmas, a steamy agricultural outpost in central Brazil.
The opening ceremony was a rich, theatrical affair. Orchestrated by a producer who is helping plan the opening ceremony for next year’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, the event included a parade of people in native dress ranging from tropical-friendly straw skirts and feathers to Artic furs.
Photo: Reuters
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was on hand for the ceremony, and although she did not address the crowd, she was initially greeted by boos and hisses.
When a traffic jam kept busloads of participants from reaching the venue, sparking a long and uncomfortable mid-ceremony delay, several groups of spectators unfurled protest banners and broke into anti-government chants.
“Dilma’s not good for Brazil and she’s not good for us,” said Jose Cicero da Silva, a farmer from the Wassu Cocal nation from Brazil’s impoverished Alagoas State. “For a supposedly leftist government, she has done nothing to help the indigenous cause.”
Rousseff, who has seen her popularity ratings plummet to single digits amid a tanking economy and unfurling corruption scandal at state-run oil giant Petrobras, has long had frosty relations with Brazil’s indigenous communities.
They regard her as too friendly with big agriculture and slow to designate indigenous territories. A proposal to amend the Brazilian constitution to put the power to designate indigenous lands in the hands of the Brazilian Congress, which is heavily influenced by agricultural interests, has outraged some.
“Brazilian politicians are increasingly against indigenous peoples,” said Jaira da Silva of the Tingui-Boto people. “There’s a super conservative congress that’s trying to take away indigenous rights that are enshrined in the very constitution.”
Still, for many in the audience, the event transcended politics.
Many spectators and participants alike were moved to tears by the ceremony, which featured people from as far afield as the Philippines, New Zealand and Russia. The latter’s single delegate defied the tropical heat in a bespangled black cat suit with fur accents.
“I’m at a loss for words,” said Reinaldo Quispe, an Aymara Indian in the Bolivian delegation. “I never in my life thought I would meet my brothers from the different tribes around the world.”
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