Wave of indignation and criticism of Jair Bolsonaro for the killings in the Amazon

The United Nations, indigenous organizations, various NGOs and people close to the victims have expressed their outrage at the murder in the Brazilian Amazon of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira, which linked the impunity that reigns in the region encouraged by President Jair Bolsonaro, promoter of the commercial exploitation of protected areas.

The investigation into the disappearance of the British journalist and the indigenist on 5 June was reversed on Wednesday with the confession of one of the two detainees: Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, who led the police to the place where he said he buried the bodiesnear the town of Atalaia do Norte, in the remote region of the Javarí Valley, bordering Peru.

The Federal Police (PF) found you human remains, who flew to Brasilia airport on Thursday evening for identification. Two brown coffins were discharged from the body members. The results will come out next week.

Doubts

The case still has a lot to clarify: the motive for the crime, the circumstances of his death, apparently with a firearm, the exact role played by the two inmates, Amarildo and his brother Oseney, and their possible accomplices and orderers.

Phillips, 57, who he had worked as a reporter for Guardian and other prestigious media outlets, he was working on a book on the conservation of the Amazon.

Pereira has been a guide in this region where 26 indigenous peoples live, many of them isolated, and in which they operate illegal drug traffickers, miners, fishermen and loggers.

He had received the expert from the Brazilian government agency for indigenous affairs (Funai). threats of these groups for their work in defense of protected lands.

Faced with this “brutal act of violence”, the United Nations urged Brazil to “increase its efforts to protect human rights defenders and indigenous peoples” by “state and non-state actors,” he said. Geneva the spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner Ravina Shamdasani. for human rights.

The Amazon is “at the mercy of the law of the strongest, according to which brutality is the common currency,” the WWF deplored.

Criticism of the President of Brazil

The disappearance of both has revived the criticism of Bolsonaro, who, since coming to power in 2019, has been accused of favoring invasions of indigenous lands with his speech in favor of the economic exploitation of the jungle.

Greenpeace assured this Thursday that for the past three years Brazil has configured itself as the land of “all is well”, fueled by the “actions and omissions” of its government.

In Brussels, seven Brazilian indigenous leaders denounced the climate of violence and “impunity” in the Amazon in front of the European Union headquarters. One of them, Dinamam Tuxa, told AFP that “Bruno and Dom Phillips have been victims of government policies”.

Phillips’ family in the UK said they were “heartbroken” by the deaths and thanked the research participants, “especially the natives”.

“Now that Bruno’s spirits are walking in the jungle and scattered among us, our strength is much greater,” wrote Beatriz Matos, the wife of the indigenist, on Twitter.

On Thursday, the Brazilian president reacted to the deaths of Phillips and Pereira with a concise tweet: “Our condolences to the families and may God console the hearts of all.”

In the last few days it has caused indignation assuring that Phillips and Pereira’s foray was “a not recommended adventure” and that the reporter was “frowned upon” in the region for reporting illegal activities.

The Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javarí Valley (Univaja), whose members actively participated in the research, described “political crime” the murder on the grounds that they were “human rights defenders”.

The Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji) said the work of journalists and environmentalists in recent years has served to show the “records” of environmental crimes in the Amazon, as well as the killings of activists.

Research

The PF said in a statement Thursday that, after being analyzed, the traces of blood found last week on Oliveira’s boat belong to a man, but do not match Phillips, and that “complementary tests” are needed to determine if they come from. from Pereira.

Furthermore, in the viscera found in the river “no human DNA was detected”, which according to the PF could be due to the degradation or “non-human” origin of the sample. Bolsonaro said Monday that “human viscera were found floating in the river.”

On the ground, the Civil Police complied with three search warrants, which ended without detainees. The authorities were unsuccessfully looking for the boat where Phillips and Pereira were sailing when they were last seen on the Itaquaí River in the direction of Atalaia do Norte.

The local press says there would be three other suspectsincluding a possible offender.

Source: AFP

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