Indigenous leader complains to Barroso about the situation in the Javari Valley

Minister Luís Roberto Barroso, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), met, this Tuesday afternoon (21), with Beto Marubo, one of the leaders of the Union of Indigenous Peoples of Vale do Javari (Univaja), and with the secretary general of the Federal Public Ministry, Eliana Peres Torelly de Carvalho.

At the meeting, Marubo told the minister information about the situation in Vale do Javari (in the Amazon) after the murders of indigenist Bruno Pereira and journalist Dom Phillips.

Beto Marubo denounced three points:

• The abandonment of the region by the State, with the dismantling of Funai (a body that should prevent the dismantling), constant allegations by the Armed Forces of lack of resources for necessary operations and the difficulty of the Federal Police in articulating actions without support from the Armed Forces;
• The consequences of the actions of international gangs involving Brazilians, Peruvians and Colombians who exploit illegal fishing (pirarucu and flatfish, as well as ornamental fish) and illegal hunting;
• That Bruno was killed for having mapped these illegal activities and the logistics adopted by the members of the gangs and handed them over to the MPF, in addition to informing the Federal Police in Tabatinga.

Marubo has been one of the leaders involved in the search for Pereira and Phillips since June 5, when the two disappeared.

THE CNN found that the indigenous leader told Barroso that, since last Wednesday (15), when the bodies of the indigenist and the journalist were found, there was a demobilization in the place and that there is a growing sense of fear and insecurity about possible new episodes of violence.

Also according to Beto Marubo, there is another death that may be associated with the crime involving Bruno and Dom, that of Maxciel Pereira dos Santos in 2019. He headed, for five years, the Environmental and Territorial Management Service of the Regional Coordination of Vale do Javari , and died with two shots to the head in Tabatinga.

For the indigenous leader, it is not possible to determine who ordered the deaths of Bruno and Dom – and eventually of Maxciel –, but for him it is clear that the context lies in these international gangs that involve illegal fishing and hunting. Beto Marubo asked: “We need to investigate these gangs, this criminal network, to protect our land.”

In addition, Marubo got emotional during the hearing. The indigenous leader told the minister about the work that Bruno Pereira de Araújo had as an indigenist, about his leadership in defending native peoples and also about the threats he had already received because of his work.

Beto Marubo said that, over the last few years, Bruno Pereira has trained indigenous people to use current resources and technologies in order to qualify information, in a technical way, about the increase in invasions of the Vale do Javari indigenous territory, noting the performance of organized gangs in illicit activities in the region.

The bodies of Pereira and Phillips were sent to Brasília for tests. The forecast is that the Criminalistics Institute of the Federal Police (PF) will make the release until Thursday (23), after finishing the ballistics exams to determine the distance from which the shots were fired.

Minister Luís Roberto Barroso is the rapporteur of an action in the STF that deals with the safety of indigenous peoples during the Covid-19 pandemic. The process, however, has received addenda from cases involving indigenous peoples, including the death of Pereira and Phillips in the Amazon region.

On the 10th of this month, faced with the disappearance of the indigenist and the journalist, Barroso ordered the government to take all possible measures to help with the investigations, which culminated in the location of the bodies of the duo.

Last week, the Attorney General’s Office (AGU) sent documents to the Supreme Court that show that, in a meeting held on June 10, the Institutional Security Office of the Presidency of the Republic (GSI) questioned whether Bruno Araújo Pereira and Dom Phillips arrived to enter an indigenous area and if they made contact with the (Funai) Fundação Nacional do Índio beforehand. Funai reported that there is no news that they have entered indigenous territory.