June 14, 2022

07:06

Ívina Garcia – From Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – The disappearance of the journalist and indigenous activist Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips highlights the omission of the federal government in the Amazon and exposes attacks on the freedom of the press. In a technical note, the Center for Studies in Human Rights Systems of the Federal University of Paraná (NESIDH/UFPR) points out the delay in starting the search and reveals evidence that the disappearance is a forced disappearance.

Forced disappearance is the deprivation of freedom of one or more people, carried out by agents authorized or not, by the State, which instead of helping in the search, ends up hindering and depriving access to information about the whereabouts of these people.

In the case of the indigenous expert and the journalist, who were on a 15-minute expedition from one stretch to another, the violation of rights began the moment the search was not carried out efficiently from the first day, according to the report.

“The elements that substantiate enforced disappearance are all found in the present case. The deprivation of liberty is clear, […] just as there is no news that could provide information about the detention, fate or whereabouts of both during this period”, the document explains.

Attacks and persecution

The Center also points out the problems experienced by activists and journalists, targets of persecution and censorship attempts since Bolsonaro took office as president of the Republic. According to a report from the Brazilian Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters (ABERT), there was a 22% increase in the number of attacks, aggressions, threats, and intimidations in 2021, among which, 46 came directly from the president, being him the main author of the occurrences.

As for the case of Bruno and Dom, Bolsonaro took two days to make a statement about the missing, and when he did, he called it an “adventure” and stigmatized the region as being a “wild” place, referring to the newly-contacted indigenous people living there. However, the duo had the support of indigenous people during the trip. These, being the main witnesses and interested in the location of the activists.

So far, information indicates that the disappearance has the involvement of riverine people, and one of them was arrested on the last day 9, identified as Amarildo da Costa Oliveira, the “Pelado”, however, there was an ‘unjustified delay’ for the beginning of the searches by the government, and Bolsonaro’s speeches showed, according to the study, a refusal to recognize the deprivation of freedom of the victims, without making efforts to discover their fate or whereabouts.

“A team of 13 indigenous who were circulating with the journalist and the indigenist through the region of Vale do Javari, in Atalaia do Norte, in the state of Amazonas, on the border with Peru, claims that they were victims of an ambush. This same group has, incessantly, conducted searches without success in finding them”, says an excerpt from the document where the indigenous claim to have spotted “a group of riverside dwellers who were travelling in a boat whose engine is considered unusual for navigating narrower waterways, and demonstrated hostility by carrying firearms and intimidation” days before the disappearance of the activists.

History of impunity

The text recalls that Brazil has a history of impunity for individuals who commit crimes against activists and people who defend minorities. There are, currently, countless cases like this, which due to the State’s omission end up being filed or end up being dragged until the crime prescribes.

“The fear caused by these situations directly reduces the chances that other defenders will exercise their right to defend human rights. Especially because the aggressors seek to produce an ‘exemplary’ effect, that is, they aim at reducing the denunciations of violations and provoke the removal of defenders from certain areas”, he points out.

The invasion of Vale do Javari is already reported in documents dating from before 2017, but which worsened during the pandemic, with the invasion of religious missionaries inside the indigenous land where the isolated Indians live, in addition to the actions of miners outside and inside the Indigenous Land, having direct contact with indigenous of still unknown ethnicities and languages.

“The São Rafael community, where Bruno had his last meeting before disappearing, is known to suffer the financial influence of drug traffickers, miners, and other exploiters who invade the preserved territory”, says an excerpt from the initial petition of the Argument of Noncompliance with Fundamental Precept 709, a joint study by the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) and the Socio-environmental Institute.

The study, in addition to dealing with the transmissibility of Covid-19 in Yanomami land, also reported the murder of at least 20 indigenous people from an isolated village in Vale do Javari by illegal miners from the municipality of São Paulo de Olivença and another murder of indigenous people from the isolated community of Warikama Djapar.

For the nucleus, the absence of the state regarding the control of the borders located between key drug trafficking points is clear. “The Javari Valley is a region located on the border with Peru and Colombia, with restricted access by river and air routes, the region, of 85,000 km², is home to 6,300 indigenous people from 26 different groups, 19 of them isolated, considered the largest concentration in the world”, reports.

The former regional coordinator of Funai, Bruno Pereira, had authorization to enter the indigenous land which expired on May 31. According to the Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley (Univaja), Bruno left the TI on May 30 and met with Dom on May 31, outside the domains of the isolated indigenous people, to accompany the interview with an indigenous surveillance team, near the Jaburu Lake. 

“Bruno Pereira, as well as the journalist Dom Phillips, fit into professions that demand special state protection, in view of the risks involved”, the document points out.

The forced disappearance of Bruno and Dom, as the file points out, is considered a multiple and continuous violation of human rights, because “since it is a plurality of acts that, united by a single purpose, endure in a continuous or permanent manner, while the whereabouts of the victim or his or her remains are not known, or even when the identity of the individual has not been precisely determined”, it writes.

“Bolsonaro’s contempt is not limited only to his speeches. In the face of the contempt he has for indigenous populations, he omits to take effective measures to prevent the massacre that occurs with the indigenous population, with dead families, young indigenous women raped until their bodies are disfigured or even killed by men who illegally mine and invade and contaminate their lands, with a silent endorsement from a government that thinks that minorities should bow down or disappear”, concludes the text.

Read the full technical note: