(Brussels) Seven Brazilian indigenous leaders denounced Thursday in Brussels the climate of violence and “impunity” in the Amazon, after the disappearance of a British journalist and an expert, castigating the Bolsonaro government’s inaction in the face of environmental crimes .
Posted at 2:19 p.m.
A suspect admitted on Wednesday, according to police, having buried the bodies of British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian expert Bruno Pereira, ten days after their disappearance in the Javari Valley, a region bordering Peru and Colombia and where prosper drug trafficking and illegal fishing and gold panning.
In traditional clothes, wearing necklaces, pipes and colorful feathered ornaments, seven members of the Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (Apib), the most important organization representing the interests of indigenous Amazonians, pointed, during a demonstration near the EU institutions, the shared responsibility of the Brazilian government and criminal organizations active in the forest.
Jair Bolsonaro’s government “shows no desire to fight against environmental crimes, it feels like there is impunity”, at the risk of encouraging aggression from activists or locals who dare to denounce criminal activities in the Amazon, one of the chiefs, Dinamam Tuxa, told AFP.
According to him, “hundreds” of indigenous people and environmental activists have been killed in recent decades in the Amazon after denouncing the exploitation of rare woods, deforestation, mining or illegal fishing.
“We demand justice for Dom, for Bruno, for the indigenous leaders and for the environmental activists who were murdered because they were attacking these illegal practices”, continued Dinamam Tuxa, speaking in Portuguese.
The Javari Valley area is a strategic axis for drug trafficking gangs who transport cocaine or cannabis produced in neighboring countries by river.
Author of dozens of reports on the Amazon, Dom Phillips, 57, who has lived in Brazil for 15 years, was doing research there for a book on the preservation of the environment.
Bruno Pereira, 41, who was guiding him, was a recognized expert on indigenous rights and worked for the government’s indigenous affairs agency (Funai) for a long time.
Far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who favors the mining and farming of indigenous reserves in the Amazon, has been heavily criticized for calling their expedition an “unsavory adventure”.
The Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley (Univaja) described the alleged murder as a “political crime”, recalling that it had already alerted the authorities on several occasions to the presence of illegal groups of fishermen and hunters linked to drug traffickers without that action be taken.