As the diesel generator rumbles to life in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, teenagers scramble to charge their phones and watch music videos -- an ordinary pastime in an extraordinary setting.

The teens are members of the Arara indigenous group -- and they had to travel eight hours round-trip by boat to the nearest city, Altamira, to download those video clips.

They live with about 200 others in Laranjal village on the edge of the Iriri River in Brazil's northern state of Para.

On a daily basis, they are isolated and off the grid. They are also part of an 800,000-strong indigenous community that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro says he wants to "integrate into society."

"The Indian cannot continue to be trapped within a demarcated area as if he were a zoo animal," he once said.

"My plan is to make Indians our equals," the far-right leader said in December, a month before taking power.

"They have the same needs as us -- they want doctors, dentists, television, internet."

Bolsonaro's remarks have alarmed the Arara, who like other indigenous groups across Latin America's biggest country of 209 million people have long battled to protect their traditional way of life, away from towns and cities.

Their fears have been heightened by the uptick in illegal logging since the arrival of the new Brazilian leader -- and what that means for their land.

"Bolsonaro wants the Indians to live like the whites, but we will never give up our customs," says Mouko, 43, wearing a T-shirt and shorts.

"We live on fishing and hunting. We must preserve nature and stop tearing down the trees."

Thousands of indigenous people converged Wednesday on the nation's capital Brasilia at the start of their annual three-day lobbying effort to defend their land rights.

- A simple life -

The Arara live in single-story wooden houses, many of them painted blue, that form an almost perfect arc around a well-used grass football pitch.

Roosters and hens roam freely around the homes, which were built by the company managing the nearby Belo Monte hydroelectric power plant as compensation for environmental damage to their ancestral lands.

While they enjoy some of the trappings of modern life, the Arara say they are fiercely attached to their traditional culture.

Some decorate their faces and bodies with motifs inspired by local plants or animals using pigments extracted from jenipapo fruit.

Unlike residents of many indigenous villages in Brazil, everyone in Laranjal can speak their ancestral language. Some of the elders even refuse to use Portuguese, the mother tongue of Brazil's colonizers.

Children's names and birth dates written on colored paper decorate the walls of the four classrooms in the school that goes up to the seventh grade (about age 12).

"Young Indian people are not very different from other children," said teacher Janete Carvalho, 35, as she prepared for the new academic year.

"They are usually very good at math and love art classes."

Subsidies from Brazil's "Bolsa Familia" (Family Fund) anti-poverty program encourage Arara parents to send their children to classes.

- Sickness and the city -

A concrete dispensary offering basic health care is staffed by nurse Karina Silva Marcal, who does two-month rotations in Laranjal.

"The worst scourge is the flu," says Marcal.

"When they go into town, they often come back sick and if we don't pay attention to it, the whole village is infected."

The local supermarket? It's the rainforest, where Arara men hunt wild animals, including pigs and monkeys, and catch fish in the river for their wives to cook.

"I don't like spending too much time in the city -- there are too many diseases," says Munenden, 23, as his wife prepares a meal of cassava, corn and fish.

"I only go when it's necessary."

Indigenous protesters march on Brazil Congress over land rights
Bras�lia (AFP) April 24, 2019 - Thousands of indigenous people decorated with traditional feathers and body paint converged on Brazil's capital Wednesday to defend hard-won land rights many fear could be eroded by far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.

Heavy security, including riot police, has been deployed for the annual three-day lobbying effort in the heart of Brasilia, where representatives from various tribes have set up camp along the broad avenue leading to Congress.

Next to tents pitched on the grass, demonstrators displayed posters declaring "Our land is sacred," "No mining on indigenous lands" and "We demand the demarcation of our lands" as others sang and danced during the first such protest under Bolsonaro, a champion of farm businesses, mining and logging who took power on January 1.

"We do not just fight for constitutional rights, we fight for the right to exist," indigenous leader Sonia Guajajara told reporters.

Around 2,000 indigenous people have arrived so far, according to AFP journalists.

Organizers of the tribal camp said nearly 4,000 had turned up to the event that was given little coverage by major local media outlets.

"We came here for an important cause -- it was very difficult for us, our ancestors, to win these rights and little by little they are decreasing," said Camila Silveiro, 22, from the southern state of Parana.

"We came here to ask for more respect."

Luana Kumaruara, an anthropology student from the northern state of Para, accused Bolsonaro's government of attacking "all" the rights of indigenous people, including education and health.

- A long fight -

There are more than 800,000 indigenous people and more than 300 different tribes in the country of 209 million people, according to Brazil's FUNAI indigenous affairs agency.

They have long fought to preserve a way of life imperiled since European colonialists arrived in South America more than 500 years ago.

But the situation has deteriorated dramatically under Bolsonaro, an indigenous alliance has warned.

"We are experiencing the first stages of an apocalypse, of which indigenous peoples are the first victims," 13 signatories said in a piece published in French daily Le Monde earlier this month.

Bolsonaro has vowed to "integrate" Brazil's indigenous people, in part with new roads and rail lines through the Amazon and clearing more areas for agriculture.

"The Indian cannot continue to be trapped within a demarcated area as if he were a zoo animal," the populist leader once said.

Guajajara on Wednesday rejected his comments, telling reporters: "We don't want the society that Bolsonaro wants to introduce us to."

Bolsonaro has been less than welcoming to the protesters in Brasilia.

In a Facebook Live broadcast last week, he suggested Brazilian taxpayers would foot the bill for the "10,000 indigenous people" who take part -- a claim rejected by organizers who said they were using their own funds to pay for the event.

"This government that is in power today is trying to exterminate the indigenous people, but our people are warriors," indigenous leader Cacique Dara told reporters.

"We don't care about wealth, what's important is nature."

Protesters at the "Acampamento Terra Livre", or "Free Land Camp", hope to meet with members of Congress and the Supreme Court in the coming days as they push for greater protection of their lands.

Bolsonaro has already stripped FUNAI of the power to define native land, giving that authority instead to the agriculture ministry.

There are more than 400 demarcated territories across the vast country, established in the 1980s for the exclusive use of their indigenous inhabitants. Access by outsiders is strictly regulated.

Bolsonaro vowed during last year's election campaign that he would not give up "one centimeter more" of land to indigenous communities in Brazil, home to around 60 percent of the Amazon rainforest.

According to conservation group Imazon deforestation increased 54 percent to 108 square kilometers (42 square miles) in January -- the first month Bolsonaro was in office -- compared with 70 kilometers a year earlier.

Arara indigenous people in Para state told AFP recently that illegal logging on their lands had intensified in the opening months of Bolsonaro's presidency.

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