A dozen soldiers in camouflaged green uniforms, war helmets and enormous machine guns waited in front of the offices of the indigenous organization Univaja, in Atalaia do Norte, in the Brazilian Amazon.
But the protection lasted only a few hours. It was a punctual deployment of security for the delegation of four senators and eight deputies who are members of the commission that is investigating the murder on June 5 of indigenous rights defender Bruno Pereira and journalist Dom Phillips. They had arrived by helicopter from the Tabatinga airport, in the so-called Triple Border of Brazil, Colombia and Peru.
That afternoon they would return to Brasilia and the indigenous people, mainly of the Marubo, Matís and Kanamary ethnic groups, from the enormous Vale de Javari reserve would once again be exposed to the violence endemic in this remote area of the Brazilian Amazon. “The brutality against Bruno and Dom already existed before this tragedy; it is not an isolated issue; all activists here are under threat,” stated a spokesman for Marubo of Univaja – the Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Vale do Javari – the oenegé for which Pereira worked.
Nor were many of the national and international journalists left who, during the days of the search for the bodies, had arrived en masse in Atalaia do Norte, generating ephemeral income for taxi drivers who come and go from the port of Benjamín Constant, connected to Tabatinga. by a collective boat service that runs through the immense Amazon River and its tributary the Javari.
When La Vanguardia arrived in the area the first week of July, everything returned to the precarious normality of a region half abandoned by the State where life is worth very little and the trickle of deaths of indigenous people and their defenders does not end.
The huge indigenous conservation area, 85,000 square kilometers -an area almost equal to Portugal-, where the largest number of uncontacted indigenous people in the world is found, coexists with a criminal economy of smuggling, sale of meat of coveted species, such as Amazon turtle or the huge pirarucu fish, illegal hunting, precious wood extraction, illegal gold and diamond mining and drug trafficking. Many of these illegal activities occur within the Vale do Javari reserve and on the Itaquai River, where Pereira and Phillips were shot to death with a hunting rifle.
In this wild west of the Brazilian Amazon, attacks against the few surveillance posts of NGOs, such as Univaja, and federal institutions, such as the National Indian Foundation (Funai), are frequent. The murders of workers and volunteers, too. Three years ago, the Funai official Maxciel Pereira da Silva was murdered in front of his wife and child after conducting an investigation into illegal hunting in the reserve. The murder did not cause as strong an impact in the international media as the deaths of Pereira and Phillips. But the widow of Maxciel Pereira da Silva, who now sells cakes in the center of Atalaya do Norte, has not been compensated. “I haven't received any psychological help,” she said in a conversation from her shop window. No one was arrested after the death of her husband.
The alleged killers of Pereira and Phillips arrested last month are illegal fishermen. But it is suspected that drug trafficking is behind it. A fish vendor nicknamed Colombia with alleged links to drug traffickers born across the border, in Leticia, Colombia, has already been arrested and is suspected of being the intellectual author of the murder.
For this reason, when two Colombians visited the offices of Univaja and Funai in Atalaia‚ last week, and inquired about the death of Pereira and Phillips, “a panic was generated,” said a foundation official, quoted in local media. “They smelled like alcohol,” said another. The Funai office in Atalaia has just closed its doors to the public as "there is a feeling of being exposed (...) and a real risk of acts of physical violence," according to the official statement.
The Triple Frontier has always been a crossroads for illegal activities. But, since Jair Bolsonaro came to the Brazilian presidency, in 2019, the illegal has a blind eye from the highest power. Bolsonaro opposes the demarcation of indigenous lands and constantly winks at illegal hunters, fishermen and miners.
At the same time, all environmental protection institutions, from Funai –created during the military dictatorship (1964-84) to look after the interests of the million Brazilian indigenous people–, to the Ibama environmental protection institute, have been deprived of funds. and purged of qualified technicians, including Bruno Pereira.
After being ousted from Funai three years ago, Pereira had dedicated himself to fighting, through Univaja, the invasions of the indigenous reserve by illegal fishmongers, hunters, loggers and miners, many with links to drug trafficking.
He collected evidence of the crimes –sometimes using drones– and reported them to the federal police station in Tabatinga. He received constant threats from criminal groups. "Bruno was doing the work that Funai, Ibama and the federal police would have done before," said another Marubo indigenous organizer, linked to Univaja.
According to a report by the Socio-Economic Institute, the dismantling of Funai is such that there are more empty positions in its workforce –2,300– than employed officials. Bolsonaro has appointed a series of presidents, none prepared for the job, dismissed depending on the scandal of the moment. The current one, Marcelo Xavier, is under pressure to resign after his reaction to the disappearance of Pereira and Phillips: in a tweet he accused them of having committed a crime by entering the indigenous reserve without permission (in reality, they remained on the sidelines of the territory of Vale do Javari).
Hundreds of Funai officials went on strike last month and called for Xavier's removal. But Bolsonaro echoed the statements of the Funai president by accusing Pereira and Phillips of "launching an adventure."
Paradoxically, while Funai has abandoned its protection and security responsibilities, the top bureaucracy of the federal organization has become militarized in the Bolsonaro years. Only two of the 39 Funai regional office directors are specialized officials, while 19 are Armed Forces officers and two are federal police officers, including the president.
“Bruno and Dom are two of the many victims of a modus operandi based on the deliberate negligence of the state,” said Fabiano Contarato, one of the congressmen who visited Atalaia do Norte. They are not the only ones. According to the Pastoral Land Commission, 109 indigenous people were killed in 2021 in clashes with invaders of their lands in the Brazilian Amazon. There were 27 assassination attempts, 132 death threats, 75 assaults, and 13 instances of torture.
Pereira and other technicians had already drawn up a plan to restore security measures for indigenous people and their defenders. “All the problems had been documented. (...) All the risks caused by the weakening of Funai's bases were known. Sadly, nothing was done,” he laments in a judicial report sent this week to the president of Funai.
In Atalaia do Norte many are afraid to speak. No one trusts the other in communities that live with the reality of crime on a daily basis. The police suspect that the confessed murderer of Pereira and Phillips, a fisherman known as "El Pelado", who lived on the river bank, worked for the already arrested alleged drug trafficker "Colombia". At the police station in this town of 20,000 inhabitants, where “El Pelado” remains imprisoned, the policemen refused to answer questions. Meanwhile, in the towns along the river, few spoke ill of "El Pelado." On three occasions during conversations with people who live in the area, the same description of the confessed murderer was repeated: "He is a normal guy, regular, quite poor."
