“Agromilitia” is synonymous with a country that naturalizes the war against Indigenous peoples
The Indigenous man leaves behind his wife and two children. He had been living in the community for just over a year and worked in the fields to support his family
by Rafaela Collins
The attack that murdered Vicente Fernandes Vilhalva Kaiowá e Guarani, 36, in the early hours of November 16, is not an isolated event. It is part of a historical machinery of violence legitimized by the omission of the Brazilian State. In Pyelito Kue, within the Iguatemipeguá I Indigenous Territory, in Iguatemi (MS), about 20 armed men opened fire on families who were simply trying to reclaim part of their traditional territory from which they had been expelled. Vicente’s execution, with a gunshot to the head, confirms what the Guarani and Kaiowá have repeated for decades: they live under a permanent state of exception, where land, life, and the future are negotiated at the price of a bullet.
With every attack, the same plot resurfaces: gunmen from nearby farms, suspicions of police involvement or connivance, destruction of homes, people injured—including, this time, teenagers—and the haste to erase evidence. It is significant that three of the wounded were hit by rubber bullets, a type of ammunition restricted to public security forces. For years, similar denunciations have been ignored or dragged through the justice system, while demarcation decisions remain paralyzed. The Iguatemipeguá I Indigenous Territory, identified since 2013, remains undemarcated. The retaking of Pyelito Kue, an Indigenous occupation within an area already officially recognized as belonging to the Guarani and Kaiowá, should be treated as the legitimate exercise of a right. Instead, the opposite occurs: the criminalization of the victim and the empowerment of the armed aggressor.
It is essential to state clearly that Vicente was not “an invader,” as ruralist sectors tried to claim. He was a father, a farmer, a field worker, the provider for his family, and had lived for just over a year in the community, which now buries yet another one of its dead in the name of a wait that has lasted 40 years. With each retaking, attacks repeat. With each attack, statements of repudiation repeat. What never repeats is the enforcement of the law: demarcate Indigenous lands, protect lives, guarantee safety. Meanwhile, “agro-militias” continue to operate with high firepower, infrastructure, logistics, and, often, complicity. Violence in the Southern Cone of Mato Grosso do Sul is not a matter of disorder—it is a political project of expulsion.
During COP30, as Brazil seeks to present itself to the world as a defender of the forest and ecological transition, Vicente’s death exposes the central contradiction of Brazilian environmental policy: there is no climate preservation without guaranteeing Indigenous territories, and there is no territorial guarantee while gunmen circulate with impunity. The Guarani Kaiowá are the most violently targeted people in the country. According to data from the Violence Atlas by the Institute of Applied Economic Research (Ipea), released in May this year, in conflicts involving Indigenous lands, the Guarani-Kaiowá were the most affected by hospitalizations caused by assaults, totaling 574 cases. They live confined to small strips of land while large estates advance over areas already recognized by the State itself. With every retaking, with every village rebuilt, they affirm that their resistance is also a way of keeping the forest, rivers, and biodiversity alive. But resisting should not be a death sentence.
The National Force has been deployed, the Federal Police are investigating, and Funai has confirmed the attacks. But these emergency responses—which always arrive after the tragedy—do not replace what must truly be done: immediately demarcate Iguatemipeguá I and guarantee the permanent presence of the State to prevent new massacres. The violence that killed Vicente did not begin at dawn on Sunday; it is fed daily by delays in demarcation, the absence of oversight, the State’s historical negligence, and the normalization of rural militia activity.
This is not merely a matter of public security. It is a matter of democracy. When Brazil allows Indigenous territories to be governed by guns, the very meaning of the country is lost—including the ability to discuss climate issues, since it is widely known that climate justice depends on the protection of Indigenous territories, the primary guardians of the standing forest.
In Belém (PA), the vigil “We Are All Guarani Kaiowá” was held—an action by Apib in solidarity with the Guarani Kaiowá people after the murder of yet another defender of the forest. The hope is that the world finally realizes that there is no climate justice without justice for Indigenous peoples.
