SAO PAULO (AP) – Before disappearing into Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, Bruno Pereira was laying the groundwork for a colossal venture: a 350-kilometer (217-mile) trail that marked the southwestern border of the valley’s indigenous territory. of Javari, an area the size of Portugal.
The aim of the route is to prevent farmers from invading Javari territory, and it was only Pereira’s last effort to help indigenous peoples protect their natural resources and traditional lifestyles.
Although Pereira had long pursued these goals as an expert at the Brazilian Indigenous Affairs Agency, known as FUNAI, in recent years he has worked as a consultant for the indigenous organization in the Javari Valley. This is because after Jair Bolsonaro became President of Brazil in 2019, FUNAI began to take a freer approach to protecting land and indigenous people, and the government unabashedly promoted development above environmental protection. environment.
Deeply frustrated, Pereira left the agency and embarked on a more independent – and dangerous – path.
He was last seen alive on June 5 on a boat on the Itaquai River, along with British freelance journalist Dom Phillips, near a border area with Peru and Colombia. On Wednesday, a fisherman confessed to killing Pereira, 41, and Phillips, 57, and took police to a place where human remains were recovered; they have since been identified as the two men.
Pereira spoke to The Associated Press several times over the past 18 months and talked about his decision to leave FUNAI, which he considered had become an obstacle to his work. After Bolsonaro came to power, the agency was full of faithful and people with no experience in indigenous affairs, he said.
“It’s no use being there while these cops and army generals are in charge,” he said by telephone in November. “I can’t do my job under them.”
As a technical consultant for the Javari Valley Indigenous Peoples Association, or Univaja, Pereira helped the group develop a surveillance program to reduce illegal fishing and hunting in a remote region of 6,300 people. of seven different ethnic groups, many of whom have had little. without contact with the outside world. He and three other non-indigenous people trained indigenous patrolmen to use drones and other technologies to detect illegal activities, photograph them and present evidence to authorities.
“When it came to helping indigenous peoples, he did everything he could,” said Jader Marubo, former president of Univaja. “He gave his life for us.”
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Like Pereira, Ricardo Rao was an indigenous FUNAI expert who, in 2019, prepared a dossier detailing illegal logging on indigenous lands in the state of Maranhao. But fearing being so outspoken under the new regime, he fled to Norway.
“I applied for asylum in Norway, because I knew that the men I was accusing would have access to my name and kill me, as happened to Bruno,” Rao said.
Bolsonaro has repeatedly advocated the exploitation of the great riches of indigenous lands, especially their mineral resources, and the integration of indigenous peoples into society. He has pledged not to grant any more protection to indigenous land, and in April said he would challenge a Supreme Court decision, if necessary. These positions were directly opposed to Pereira’s hopes for the Javari Valley.
Before leaving, Pereira was fired as head of the FUNAI division for isolated and recently contacted tribes. The move came shortly after he launched an operation that expelled hundreds of illegal gold diggers from indigenous territory in Roraima state. His position was soon occupied by a former evangelical missionary with a background in anthropology. The election sparked outcry because some missionary groups have openly tried to contact and convert tribes, whose voluntary isolation is protected by Brazilian law.
Pereira’s key colleagues at FUNAI either followed suit and were fired, or were shuffled to bureaucratic positions away from the demarcation of protected lands, according to a recent report by the Institute for Socioeconomic Studies and the Associated Indigenists non-profit association, which includes and former FUNAI staff.
“Of the 39 FUNAI regional coordination offices, only two are headed by FUNAI staff,” the report says. “Seventeen military personnel, three police officers, two federal police officers and six professionals with no previous ties to the public administration have been appointed” under Bolsonaro.
The 173-page report released Monday says many of the agency’s experts have been fired, unfairly investigated or discredited by their leaders while trying to protect indigenous people.
In response to questions from the PA about the report’s allegations, FUNAI said in an emailed statement that it operates “in strict compliance with current legislation” and does not prosecute its officers.
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The day they disappeared, Pereira and Phillips slept in an advanced place at the entrance of the main clandestine route in the territory, without passing through the permanent base of the indigenous agency at its entrance, the locals said in the AP.
Two indigenous patrolmen told the AP that the couple had been carrying mobile phones from the surveillance project with photos of places where they had been illegal fishermen. Authorities have said an illicit fishing net is the focus of police investigations into the killings. Police said in a statement Saturday that Pereira’s death was caused by three gunshot wounds, two to the abdomen and one to the head, with ammunition typical of hunting.
Pereira was not the first FUNAI-related person to be killed in the region. In 2019, an active FUNAI agent, Maxciel Pereira dos Santos, was shot dead while riding his motorcycle through the city of Tabatinga. He had been threatened for his work against illegal fishermen before being shot down. This crime remains unsolved.
Pereira’s assassination will not stop the Javari border demarcation project from advancing, said Manoel Chorimpa, a Univaja member involved in the project. And it is another sign that Pereira’s work will continue, the surveillance efforts of indigenous patrolmen have begun to lead to the investigation, arrest and prosecution of violators of the law.
Prior to his career at FUNAI, Pereira worked as a journalist. But his passion for affairs and indigenous languages - he spoke four of them – led him to change careers. His anthropologist wife, Beatriz Matos, encouraged him in his work, although this meant long stretches away from his home in Atalaia do Norte and his children. Most recently, they lived in the Brazilian capital, Brasilia.
The natives of the region have mourned Pereira as a couple, and an old photo widely shared on social media in recent days shows a group of them gathered behind Pereira, shirtless, while showing them something on their laptop. A child leans gently on his shoulder.
In a statement on Thursday, FUNAI mourned Pereira’s death and praised his work: “The public servant leaves a huge legacy for the protection of isolated indigenous people. He became one of the country’s leading specialists in this field and worked with the utmost commitment. “
Before the bodies were found, however, FUNAI had issued a statement stating that Pereira had infringed the procedure by exceeding its authorization within the territory of Javari. He pushed the FUNAI base to strike, alleging that the agency had defamed Pereira and demanding that his president be fired. A court ordered FUNAI on Thursday to withdraw its statement “incompatible with the reality of the facts” and to stop discrediting Pereira.
Rubens Valente, a journalist who has covered the Amazon for decades, said Pereira’s job became inherently riskier when he felt the need to work independently.
“The fish thieves saw Bruno as a fragile person, without the status and power that FUNAI gave him in the region where he was FUNAI coordinator for five years,” Valente said. “When the criminals realized that Bruno was weak, it became an even bigger target.”
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Maisonnave reported from the Atalaia do Norte. AP writer Débora Álvares contributed from Brasilia.
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