Indigenous groups in Brazil and their supporters demonstrated Tuesday ahead of a supreme court ruling on a vast native reserve in the north of the country that has been the focus of racial and political tensions.
The country's supreme court will on Wednesday hand down a judgement on whether to keep the boundaries set by the government for the Raposa do Sol reserve, an Amazon forest territory half the size of Belgium that abuts Venezuela and Guyana.
The decision is important because it will also lay down a legal precedent for 144 other indigenous land claims in Brazil.
"There is a lot of anticipation. The indian chiefs are gathered in the city and indian villages," Terencio Wapixana, deputy coordinator for the indigenous council in the Brazilian state of Roraima, told AFP.
The 17,000-square-kilometer (6,500-square-mile) Raposa reserve is home to 18,000 indigenous people, most of Macuxi or Wapixana ethnicity.
In the Brazilian capital Brasilia, several lawmakers sympathetic to the indigenous claims to Raposa were to meet to express solidarity, according to a statement from the Landless Workers' Movement.
The court's decision could fan a conflict that has been running between the indigenous tribes in the Raposa area and white rice farmers who have been living there for decades and who refuse to leave.
Brazil's military also has expressed unease with the idea of a huge autonomous native reserve along national borders. It would prefer to see a fractured reserve allowing access between protected indigenous enclaves.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government created the reserve in 2005 following a three-decade legal struggle between the indians and the white farmers.
It had given an April 30 deadline for the farmers to leave, but the supreme court suspended the eviction order pending its examination of the reserve's total area.
Several of the farmers had burnt bridges in the region to prevent police forcing them out, and threatened to resist with force if necessary.
Paulo Cesar Quartiero, mayor of the town of Pacaraima, a community of 9,000 people which would be cut off if the reserve's boundaries are upheld, is also the head of the rice growers' association.
In May, he was arrested after police found an arsenal of guns and ammunition on his farm, but was released days later. The state governor is backing the farmers, affirming they contribute to six percent of the region's economy.
The potential for armed conflict is real.
Wapixana said that "if the supreme court's decision goes in our favor, we will leave our 'malocas' (indigenous community huts) and take over the rice plantations. We have mobilized 2,000 indians. Our plan to replant the entire zone."
He acknowledged that the white farmers "are going to react with all means possible" but said "we are counting on more than 400 federal police officers and elite troops to guarantee our safety."
If the decision goes against the indigenous community, "we will continue to fight to save our land," he vowed.
Brazil has a population of 190 million people, including around 460,000 indigenous people.
A UN special rapporteur on indigenous rights, US legal scholar James Anaya, on Monday said Brazil's indians suffered "critical" health and educational deficiencies and "frequently do not control the decisions that affect their everyday lives and their lands."
He questioned the effectiveness of social programs offered to the indigenous community and urged the government to launch a public awareness campaign about indigenous issues.
