One year after the murders of the indigenist Bruno Pereira and the English journalist Dom Phillips, little has changed in the western part of Amazonas, where the Vale do Javari Indigenous Land is located, the second largest area destined for the exclusive use of indigenous people in the country and home to the largest concentration of isolated peoples around the world. The conclusion is drawn up by lawyer Eliesio Marubo, legal attorney for the Union of Indigenous Peoples of Vale do Javari (Univaja), a non-governmental organization where Bruno started working after requesting permission from the National Foundation for Indigenous Peoples (Funai) – where, according to people nearby, he had been suffering political pressure for his work in defense of the rights of native peoples. “We have felt some kind of recent improvement”, Eliesio told Agência Brasil, last Thursday (1). “But we expected the State to present a plan capable of making public policies happen, in fact, in the region. Ostensive policing along the lines we proposed and the priorities we indicated to the current federal government during the transition did not happen. This makes the region increasingly vulnerable,” added Eliesio. When consulted on the subject, the Ministry of Justice and Public Security did not comment until the publication of this report. The president of the National Foundation for Indigenous Peoples (Funai), Joenia Wapichana, told Agência Brasil that, despite recent efforts, the region still lacks “structuring actions” and more security. Mainly to protect the approximately 8.4 million hectares of the Vale do Javari Indigenous Land (each hectare corresponds, approximately, to the measurements of an official soccer field). This Friday (2nd), the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples announced the creation of a working group to promote security and combat crime in the Javari Valley. The group will be made up of ten ministries, which will work in partnership with Funai and the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama) to propose concrete measures to combat violence and with the aim of guaranteeing the territorial security of indigenous peoples. who live in the area. Entities of indigenous peoples will also participate in the discussions. Memory “Public authorities need to understand that there is an urgency, an emergency in the region. And that we cannot wait until more deaths are counted. If the authorities understand this, we will be honoring the life and memory of Bruno and Dom”, said the Univaja attorney. Dom and Bruno were last seen alive, on June 5, 2022, when they were visiting riverside communities around the Vale do Javari Indigenous Land, close to Atalaia do Norte (AM). A correspondent for The Guardian newspaper, the 57-year-old English journalist was traveling through the region interviewing community leaders and other characters for a future book-report on the preservation of the Amazon rainforest. The 41-year-old indigenist coordinated meetings with communities served by Univaja, the organization for which he had worked since he left Funai in February 2020, a few months after being dismissed from the position of general coordinator of Isolated Indigenous Peoples and Recent Contact. People close to him allege that Bruno’s dissatisfaction with the direction that the government team of then-president Jair Bolsonaro was imposing on indigenous policy was decisive for him to ask for permission to “deal with personal matters”. When he started to work in Univaja’s community self-protection projects, Bruno started to receive new death threats – something he already lived with in public service. On July 22, 2022, the Federal Public Ministry (MFP) denounced Amarildo da Costa Oliveira, known as Pelado; Jefferson da Silva Lima, known as Pelado da Dinha, and Pelado’s brother, Oseney da Costa de Oliveira, known as Dos Santos, for double homicide and concealment of corpses. The three are in jail awaiting trial. For the prosecutors, “the elements collected during the investigations point out that, in fact, Bruno’s homicide would have a correlation with his activities in defense of the indigenous community. Dom, in turn, was executed to ensure the concealment and impunity of the crime committed against Bruno.” Already in January of this year, the Federal Police appointed Ruben Dario da Silva Villar, known as Colombia, as the mastermind and intellectual mastermind of the crime. Villar is also suspected of association with illicit activities, such as illegal fishing, and was detained twice as part of the investigation into the murders of Bruno and Dom – the second time, last December, for violating the conditions that the Federal Court imposed on the release. it in the first detention. “We spoke with the minister [da Justiça e Segurança Pública] Flávio Dino and we asked him to do a more detailed investigation on some points. Like, for example, the group that gives political support to the set of illegal activities that operate in the region. Another point on which it is necessary to deepen investigations is the path of crime in the Amazon region. Investigating these two points is necessary to ensure the safety not only of the indigenous land, but of the entire population around it”, commented Eliesio Marubo.
Agência Brasil
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