'Bolsonaro's fingerprints are all over this': how president's war on Amazon played part in double ki
‘Bolsonaro’s fingerprints are all over this’: how president’s war on Amazon played part in double killing
Andrew Downie in São PauloSat 18 Jun 2022 11.00 EDT
The Amazon river in Brazil. Photograph: mantaphoto/Getty Images/iStockphoto
Brazil’s leader has steadily attacked those defending the region where journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira lost their lives
Andrew Downie in São Paulo
Sat 18 Jun 2022 11.00 EDT
If Jair Bolsonaro had not been elected Brazilian president in October 2018, the relationship between Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira might have been different and so might their fateful last trip to the Amazon.
When they first met, Phillips was a British journalist and Pereira a senior figure with the Brazilian government’s Indigenous agency, Funai. The explorer opened doors to jungle communities for Phillips to research a book on sustainable development.
As head of Funai’s isolated Indians division, Pereira helped Indigenous peoples under threat of invasion delineate their land and set up fences, guard posts and warning signs.
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But when he was fired in 2019, just days after leading a successful operation to destroy an illegal mining operation inside the Yanomami Indian reservation, Pereira was forced to start afresh. Working with the Indians of the Javari Valley, close to Brazil’s border with Peru, he began a similar job, this time without the protection of the state.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/18/bolsonaro-president-war-amazon-killing-brazil-dom-phillips-bruno-pereira
