Government entourage and security forces visit Vale do Javari

The Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Vale do Javari (Univaja) will receive, next Monday (27), in Atalaia do Norte (AM), a delegation with representatives of the federal government and security forces. The objective of the meeting is to strengthen the presence of public authorities in the region, where there is the highest concentration of isolated indigenous peoples in the country and where the indigenist Bruno Araújo Pereira and the British journalist Dom Phillips were murdered, in June 2022. ministries of Indigenous Peoples, Justice and Public Security, Human Rights and Citizenship, in addition to the National Foundation for Indigenous Peoples (Funai) and the Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health (Sesai). The Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama), the Federal Police (PF), the Federal Highway Police (PRF), the National Force and the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) also confirmed their presence. As reported by Agência Brasil, indigenous leaders of the Javari Valley have been receiving death threats from invaders in the region, after the execution of Dom and Bruno, killed precisely for denouncing socio-environmental crimes. One of the leaders’ requests is that the federal government improve the protection program for threatened people. According to the report Começo do Fim, released in 2021 by the organizations Justiça Global and Terra de Direitos, Brazil is the fourth country with the highest number of murders of human rights defenders in the world. In the document, the institutions highlight that the Program for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, Communicators and Environmentalists, during the Bolsonaro government, faced “a serious crisis”. According to a survey by Global Witness, 1,733 land and environmental defenders were killed worldwide between 2012 and 2021. Of this total, 342 murders took place in Brazil, which topped the list. For the meeting with the federal government, Univaja prepared a list with four goals and 23 activities considered urgent, such as the fight against mining, illegal hunting and fishing, and illegal deforestation and timber trade. In a note, the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples signaled agreement with the entity’s demands, saying that it seeks “speed of investigations of threats against socio-environmental defenders, based on the elaboration of an integrated operational plan for the federal government’s action in the Javari Valley”. Crime Although three accused of the murder and concealment of the bodies of Bruno and Dom are under arrest (Amarildo da Costa Oliveira, Oseney Costa de Oliveira and Jeferson da Silva Lima), for Univaja there are still aspects of the crime that must be clarified, such as , who would be the principal of the action. The MPF and the PF considered it necessary to remove the accused from Manaus due to the risk of fleeing, as well as the risk of the accused being killed by the principals. The three were transferred to maximum security prisons.

Agência Brasil