During World Environment Week, Agência Brasil interviewed journalist and sociologist Lúcio Flávio Pinto. Born in Santarém, Pará, 73 years ago, Lúcio knows the Amazon in depth. As a contributor to important press vehicles, he has witnessed some of the main transformations that have taken place in the region over the last almost six decades. Author of several books and creator of alternative newspapers such as Jornal Pessoa – a fortnightly publication between 1987 and 2019 –, Lúcio has received the most important awards in Brazilian journalism, including four Essos (or Exxon Mobil, as it came to be called in 2015) and the Vladimir Herzog. He was also honored with the International Press Freedom Award, given by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). When talking to the reporter about the challenges of informing citizens about what is happening in the Amazon, the former professor at the Federal University of Pará (UFPA), who still maintains a news blog and collaborates with the Amazônia Real website, said that he is pessimistic, a feeling made worse by the fact that, on that same day (5th), the brutal murders of the English journalist Dom Phillips and the indigenist Bruno Pereira completed a year without the perpetrators having been judged.“Today, the insecurity of journalists is visible. and I am sure that, if I were to repeat what I did between 1970 and 1990, I would not be alive”. Read below some of the main excerpts from the conversation: Agência Brasil – How did you react to the news of the murders of journalist Dom Phillips and indigenist Bruno Pereira, in June 2022? Lúcio Flávio – In 1987, I created Jornal Pessoa precisely because a friend, who was a deputy for the PCdoB [Partido Comunista do Brasil], was murdered. He told me he was going to tell the true story of that murder, whatever the cost. I spent three months investigating the facts and wrote a text pointing out the names of everyone, from the principal to the executor of the crime, passing through the intermediary. But nobody wanted to publish it. So, I think that when an opinion maker is murdered, when human rights are violated, the crime has to be fully clarified. It cannot go unpunished. [Sob risco de] repeat yourself. The guys who killed Dom over at Vale do Javari seem to have the same mentality as those who killed Dom. [líder seringueiro e ambientalista] Chico Mendes [em 1988], in Xapuri (Acre). For Chico Mendes’ killers, he was just a nuisance that prevented them from felling trees and expanding pasture. So they killed him, counting on impunity. They kill stupidly, without thinking, just like the policeman who killed [ o padre [João Bosco Penido] Burnier with a shot in the back of the head, [em 1976]in a police station [de Ribeirão Cascalheira, Mato Grosso.
Agência Brasil – Quais as causas dessa violência que o senhor diz ser “primitiva”? O que motiva tantas ameaças, agressões e assassinatos de líderes comunitários, defensores dos direitos humanos e jornalistas que atuam na Amazônia?
Lúcio Flávio – É uma violência estrutural. Sempre houve problemas e conflitos, mas acho que eles se intensificaram a partir do governo de Juscelino Kubitschek [1956/1961], when the State decided to integrate the region into the rest of the country. For this, he built the Belém-Brasília roads [BR-153] and the BR-29 [atual BR-364], which connects Brasilia to Rio Branco. This represented a brutal change. Until then, the occupation of the region was restricted to the navigable areas close to the riverbeds, a range of a few dozen kilometers. The most distant lands, with difficult access, where most of the indigenous populations were concentrated, were practically ignored. The roads imposed another civilization rhythm, changing the region’s occupation axis and favoring the biggest deforestation process in the history of mankind. Never had so much forest been cut down [em tão pouco tempo], with all the resulting environmental, social and political effects. That is, regional violence is not the product of an individual psychology, of an individual pathology. It is the product of a philosophy of occupying the region. The development model in the Amazon is chaos: chaos ensues and all the developments we are talking about follow from this. Agência Brasil – And many of the arguments presented to integrate the Amazon, not necessarily to the rest of the country, but to an economic development project, are still being repeated today, aren’t they? Lúcio Flávio – Yes. Because it is too extensive; underpopulated and threatened by external greed, the Amazon was considered a problem region. Its own natural characteristics were considered an obstacle to the expansion of economic fronts that advanced from other parts. So, the guideline was to occupy the Amazon. Including to ward off the risk of a foreign invasion – this conversation that goes back a long time and which, in 2002, motivated the creation of Sivam [Sistema de Vigilância da Amazônia]. However, integration required establishing a value [financeiro] down to earth. And, initially, he only had the right to expand his property that [posseiro] to cut down the forest, establishing improvements. So, those who came from other regions to settle, saw the forest as a hindrance and considered that they had to deforest. Add to that the fact that the local culture was despised, it was considered [expressão de] a pre-capitalist, primitive culture that lacked scale and market value. The rest is history. Did they want the region to be just like the rest of the country? But what is Brazil [em termos ambientais] beyond the Amazon? It is the country of deforestation, which exploited the natural resources of other biomes, such as the Atlantic Forest, almost to extinction. O [dramaturgo alemão] Bertold Brecht has a wonderful phrase that helps us think about the causes of this violence: “everybody condemns a river for being violent, but nobody condemns the banks that compress it”. Agência Brasil – In this context, what are the main challenges for news coverage in the Amazon? Lúcio Flávio – Precisely because the region is extremely violent. A violence that can manifest itself explicitly, as in murders, but also in a subtle way. Whatever the case, it is responsible for a permanent state of tension. This would require a strong presence of the State, with technical and impartial action, which does not occur. Over time, the State has assumed a position of frank hostility to rights – whether people’s right to nature or the right to life. The fact worsened enormously in the government of Jair Bolsonaro, during which there was, in [agosto de] 2019, the infamous Fire Day, when [um grupo de] farmers from Novo Progresso, in Pará, decided to burn the forest. There has never been anything like it. Agência Brasil – You said that, historically, knowledge, local intelligence, was neglected. Does this apply to journalistic practice, which many claim to treat the Amazon in an episodic and reductionist way? Lúcio Flávio – I have here with me some editions from 1975 of the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo, for which I worked for 18 years. Well, in just one week, we published 12 pages about the Amazon. At the time, the newspaper was an indispensable source [de informações] for academic works and for the government itself. If you read many of the articles that the newspaper published until the early 1980s, you will see that they attack the economic development model [que se buscava implantar na] region, defend the squatters and the Indians. Even so, in the middle of the dictatorship, high-ranking military said that they would not let us be censored because they understood that we offered another way for them to know more about what was happening in the region. Today, in my opinion, the articles contain much less information. In part because the journalist’s insecurity is visible. I myself have been threatened with death, attacked, sued, but I am sure that if I were to repeat what I did between 1970 and 1990, I would not be alive. And there are also economic factors. To deal with reality, the journalist has to travel a lot. And traveling through the Amazon is expensive. In 1976, I spent 12 days traveling on a boat chartered by the newspaper. I often traveled to places we could only get to by chartered planes. This structure no longer exists in journalism. Generally speaking, companies [de comunicação] are no longer willing to spend that money. So they resort to archival material, interviews, films. However, even with the facilities created by modern communication tools, what guarantees the strength of journalism is being in the place of the facts, at the time they happen. This is getting more and more difficult. Agência Brasil – What about coverage by regional media vehicles, which have fewer resources and, in general, are even more subject to pressure and local interests? Are regional vehicles able to inform the population of the Amazon about the region’s challenges? Lúcio Flávio – The worst coverage of the Amazon is done by the vehicles of the Amazon itself. First, because they don’t want [ou não têm como] to spend money. Most of the articles about events that occurred in the interior of the Amazon come from the big news agencies, that is, from outside, and not from the local newspapers. And then there are those outlets that are beholden to governments and other advertisers. For me, the regional press has simply lost touch with its coverage of the Amazon. At least when it comes to the topics we’re discussing here. Who is the great Amazon reporter? Dom, for example, was from the [jornal britânico] The Guardian. Today, I often read in The New York Times [dos Estados Unidos} ou no El País [da Espanha] news that doesn’t come out in vehicles in the Amazon and even in Brazil. Agência Brasil – What can be done to reduce this violence which, as you said, is not only explicit, it has intensified over the years and affects everyone, indistinctly, to a greater or lesser degree? Lúcio Flávio – If the enclaves in Carajás, in Trombetas, in Canaã, continue to produce intensive goods accepted in the international market, successive governments will not care about episodic conflicts, for the death of Indians and journalists. The role of the Amazon will continue to be exporting primary products that generate income. Even with all the worldwide receptivity to the discourse in favor of protecting the Amazon, I see the future of the region with extreme pessimism. I have been working in the Amazon for 57 years. Before, I traveled alone through inhospitable areas, facing difficulties of all kinds. Today, I wouldn’t do that anymore. Because, today, if a journalist bothers the rural lords of the region, he runs the risk of being brutally killed, like Dom Phillips, Bruno Pereira and many others.
Agência Brasil