June 22, 2022

08:06

Ívina Garcia – From Amazon Agency

MANAUS – In audios shared with Veja columnist Matheus Leitão, the indigenous activist Bruno Araújo Pereira, 41, assassinated in Atalaia do Norte at the beginning of June of this year, reported a take over in the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI).

At the time of the reports of the indigenous activist to Veja journalist, the Coordination of Isolated Indians of FUNAI was under the responsibility of Ricardo Lopes Dias, a figure who caused great dissatisfaction to the indigenous and the foundation’s employees during the 9 months that he was at the head of the body. In an audio, the activist even mentioned the name of the pastor and former Minister of Human Rights, Damares Alves, and the president of the institution, Marcelo Xavier.

“In Funai, he [Ricardo Lopes Dias] is a laughingstock. Who holds him is the evangelical bench, together with Damares, right? And a bombardment was already being built on the issue of isolated indigenous. [He] doesn’t even know how to deal with it”, reported Bruno.

Ruralist support

For three years at the head of FUNAI, Xavier has the support of the rural bench, which even praised the agency’s actions in the search for Bruno Araújo Pereira, 41, and journalist Dominic Mark Phillips, 57. For Bruno, this relationship was not unknown. The indigenist even commented to journalist Matheus Leitão about Xavier’s dissatisfaction with then-coordinator Ricardo Lopes.

“And I think, behind the scenes here too, that he doesn’t deliver what the president [Marcelo Xavier] wants, the products that the president wants. The president is linked to the ruralists, right? And that’s where the enterprises come in, right? So, the guy [Ricardo Lopes Dias] is ‘overcabo’.”

Listen:

Marcelo Xavier

The current president of Funai took office in July 2019, and since then he has been receiving criticism from indigenous leaders and associations, this because the policies adopted by Xavier go against the needs of indigenous peoples. He has even collected numerous requests for investigations against defenders of environmental agendas.

On Tuesday, 21, employees of Funai were in front of the agency, in Brasilia, protesting against the current president and calling for his removal from office. The INA (Indigenistas Associados – Association of Funai Servers) published a dossier entitled “Anti-Indigenous Foundation: a portrait of Funai under the Bolsonaro Government” on the 13th of this month, where they claim that under the command of delegate Xavier “the structure of Funai began to serve mainly anti-indigenous interests, in disrespect to the institutional mission of the body.

In the dossier, INA accuses Xavier of corroborating policies of opening demarcated indigenous lands for third-party exploitation. “[Marcelo] advertises himself as the manager of the ‘New Funai,’ which would be based on the tripod of promoting ‘legal security’, ‘pacification of conflicts’, and ‘indigenous dignity and autonomy’, which translates, however, into putting the institution to work for the weakening of indigenous territorial guarantees and the opening of TIs to economic exploitation by third parties”, it writes.

Read the complete dossier:

Threatened Servers

“This is the third time we have lost a colleague”, says Guilherme Martins, a Funai employee. In an interview to AMAZON AGENCY, the employee criticized the current president, Marcelo Xavier, and said that the delegate “does not have the moral dignity to occupy the position of president of FUNAI”.

“Instead of guaranteeing security to the workers, the president has been persecuting and criminalizing not only Bruno. This is already the third indigenous person from FUNAI who has died as a direct result of his work in the field. This is the third companion we have lost”, he comments.

For Guilherme, the attempt against Dom and Bruno is a political crime, the result of the omission of the brazilian State in the current administration of the federal government. “If President Marcelo Xavier had listened to a series of complaints, a series of reports, a series of requests, requests from civil servants, especially those who work in the area of territorial protection, clamoring for more security, this could have been avoided”, he says.

Just as other indigenous people, employees, and leaders have already reported, Guilherme says he lives in fear, both of the threats from the invaders and of the absence of the State. “So, we have to fight against the environmental criminals and against the leaders of the current management of FUNAI, who are also persecuting and criminalizing us, while we are doing our job. It is very sad, it is very difficult, and that is why we can’t stand it anymore”, he says.

In his view, the current management does not have the experience and “credentials” to lead such an important position that deals with lives. “We, Funai employees, provide services for the indigenous people. If the indigenous people are mobilized, nationally, asking for the resignation of the president of FUNAI, it is because it is clear that FUNAI is not serving the interests of the indigenous people themselves”, and continues stating that it is necessary “a sensitive person, an indigenist, a person trained in the area to do this intraspecific work that is the indigenism of the State. And what we find is someone who does not have the least experience, the least preparation to deal with the indigenous issue. And more, he doesn’t have, as I said, the minimum moral dignity”, concludes Guilherme.

Drug trafficking

Bruno and Dom had already traveled together, in 2018, along the same route on the Itaquaí River, near the Vale do Javari indigenous reserve, where the indigenist was carrying out work for Univaja at the end of May.

The area where the crime happened is of dense forest and dangerous river paths At the site, there are 26 indigenous peoples, some isolated and others of recent contact. Located on the triple border, Brazil-Peru-Colombia, the region has the constant presence of drug trafficking and illegal fishing that feed off each other.

“Drug trafficking today is interconnected with several other crimes, not only illegal fishing, but also illegal mining, money laundering, and several other crimes that end up financing the drug trafficking itself and vice-versa”, says the chief of the Federal Police’s Drug Enforcement Division, Victor Motta, in an interview with AMAZON AGENCY.

He explains that drug trafficking in the Amazon, especially in areas far from the urban center, differs because it does not use roads, as occurs in the rest of the country, but by rivers.

“The inspection of a highway is much simpler than the inspection of a river, such is the extension of our hydrographic basins. And there is, mainly, the logistical difficulty for this”, he says.

Motta says that traffickers take advantage of the immensity of the state to intensify crimes, especially in places of difficult access, where trafficking is interconnected with other criminal spheres, but even so, the actions of the Federal Police remains focused on dismantling these gangs.

“Only the Federal Police seized more than 5 tons of drugs in 2022, in Amazonas, and arrested about 50 people for trafficking, so the Federal Police is very focused on the leaders of these criminal organizations and the people responsible for trafficking in our state”, he says.

Defender of the cause

Bruno was known for his engagement in indigenous issues and served as general coordinator of isolated and recently contacted indigenous (during which time he was in charge of one of the largest contact expeditions with isolated Indians in the last 20 years), staying in the position until October 2019, when he was dismissed by Xavier, due to “political persecution” within FUNAI itself, according to Univaja.

The indigenist had been suffering pressure and threats from miners, loggers and ruralists who want to exploit the Javari Valley region illegally. Two months before he was killed, Bruno had denounced his killer, Amarildo Costa de Oliveira, known as “Pelado”, for money laundering with drug traffickers.

In the document of the Union of the Javari Valley Peoples (Univaja) sent to the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office in Tabatinga, Amarildo was pointed out as one of the authors of several gun attacks against the Funai Protection Base between 2018 and 2019, the place where Bruno taught courses to indigenous people.