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Watchtower of the North (Brazil) (AFP) – The UN, indigenous people, NGOs and relatives expressed their outrage at the murder of British journalist Dom Phillips and expert Bruno Pereira while they were working in defense of native communities and the environment in the Brazilian Amazon, where the investigation of the case continues.
After ten days of intense search, the investigation into the disappearance of both turned around on Wednesday with the confession of one of the two detainees, Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, who led the police to the place where he said he had buried the bodies, near from the city of Atalaia do Norte, in the remote region of Valle del Javarí, bordering Peru.
The Federal Police (PF) found human remains there, which will arrive in Brasilia this Thursday for identification.
The motive for the crime, as well as the circumstances of the death apparently with a firearm, have yet to be determined.
Phillips, 57, was working on a book about preserving the Amazon. Pereira acted as his guide in this region where 26 indigenous peoples live, many of them isolated, and where drug traffickers, miners, fishermen and illegal loggers operate.
The expert from the Brazilian government agency for indigenous affairs (Funai) had received threats from these groups for his work in defense of protected lands.
Faced with this “brutal act of violence,” the UN urged Brazil to “increase its efforts to protect human rights defenders and indigenous peoples” by “state and non-state actors,” spokesman Ravina Shamdasani said in Geneva. of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The Amazon is “at the mercy of the law of the strongest, under which brutality is common currency,” deplored WWF.
Greenpeace assured that in the last three years Brazil has been configured as the land of “anything goes”, fueled by the “actions and omissions” of the far-right government Jair Bolsonaro, in power since 2019.
“It’s okay to invade and grab land, it’s okay to proliferate mining, it’s okay to illegally extract timber, it’s okay to do any territorial conflict… and it’s worth killing to make sure none of these criminal activities are prevented,” he added. the NGO.
Bolsonaro, reaction in a tweet
The disappearance of Pereira and Phillips, who had worked as a reporter for ‘The Guardian’ and other prestigious media, fueled criticism against Bolsonaro, who reacted to their deaths on Thursday with a terse tweet: “Our condolences to the families and may God comfort everyone’s heart.”
The president, accused of encouraging the invasion of indigenous lands with his speech in favor of the economic exploitation of the jungle, caused outrage these days by assuring that the incursion of Phillips and Pereira was an “adventure not recommended” and that the reporter was ” frowned upon” in the region for its informative work on illegal activities.
The Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javarí Valley (Univaja), whose members actively participated in the searches, described the murder as a “political crime”, considering that they were “defenders of human rights”. “We know they are part of a larger group,” they added.
The Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji) stated that the work of journalists and environmentalists in recent years has served to show the “records” of environmental crimes in the Amazon, as well as the murders of activists.
In 2020, 20 murders of activists linked to the environmental cause were committed in Brazil, according to Greenpeace.
“In parallel, the president and his allies became protagonists of the attacks on the press,” said Abraji.
Speaking to AFP in London, Jonathan Watts, Phillips’s colleague at The Guardian, said he hoped these “monstrous” killings would encourage, not deter, the media from continuing their work on environmental crimes.
“Heartbroken”
The head of the PF in the state of Amazonas (northwest), Eduardo Alexandre Fontes, assured on Wednesday that it is very probable that the mortal remains “correspond to Phillips and Pereira”, although to confirm this they must undergo identification tests.
Phillips’ family in the UK said they were “heartbroken” by the deaths and thanked search participants, “especially indigenous people.”
The investigation continues to determine the exact role played by the two detainees, who are brothers, and their possible accomplices.
The local press affirms that there would be three other suspects, including a possible order of the crime.
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