After the Federal Police confirmed the murder of indigenous activist Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips, protests by employees of the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) took the country by storm. Of the 52 units of the agency, 42 hosted demonstrations during the national strike of the category. The group demands the resignation of the president of FUNAI, Marcelo Xavier, the deepening of the investigation into the death of Bruno and Dom, and more security in the Javari Valley (AM), where the crime occurred.

On the same day and in alliance with the movement of public employees, the indigenous movement occupied the streets of São Paulo and Brasília in protest against the postponement by the Federal Supreme Court (STF) of the vote of the “Marco Temporal” [Temporal Landmark], a trial that could define the future of indigenous lands demarcation. The trial was scheduled to resume on the 2nd, but Minister Luiz Fux, president of the STF, announced its postponement indefinitely.

With the active participation of indigenous people in the search, the Federal Police (PF) confirmed that the mortal remains found on June 15th are those of the activist and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips, who have been missing since June 5th in the region of Vale do Javari in the Amazon.

So far, three suspects have been arrested: Amarildo da Costa Pereira, known as Pelado, Jefferson da Silva Lima, and Oseney da Costa de Oliveira, known as Dos Santos. Pelado was the only one to confess to the crime. In a note, the PF a indicated that there may be more suspects involved in the crime and ruled out the possibility of an organization behind the crime. “The investigations also point out that the executors acted alone, and there was no criminal organization behind the crime,” the text says.

The Union of Indigenous Peoples of Vale do Javari (Unijava), responsible for initiating the searches, repudiated the statement and said it had already presented to the PF evidence of the actions of a criminal organization in the region.  “With this statement, the PF disregards the qualified information, offered by UNIVAJA in numerous letters, since the second half of 2021, the period of implementation of the EVU. Such documents point to the existence of an organized criminal group acting in the constant invasions of the Vale do Javari Indigenous Land, of which Pelado and Do Santo are part,” says the note.

The case has generated strong mobilization from civil society and the international press, which have demanded clarifications and justice. After the remains were found, Brasília, Belém and São Paulo hosted demonstrations in solidarity with Bruno and Dom and against Bolsonaro’s management of the Amazon region.

Bruno Araújo Pereira, an indigenista [an indigenous expert], who’s a member with the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), and a British journalist, Dom Phillips, disappeared last weekend on the way from the riverside community of São Rafael to Atalaia do Norte, in the Javari Valley in the Amazon, on the border with Peru. According to information from the Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley (Univaja), which was in contact with the missing, Bruno is under constant threats from loggers, illegal gold diggers, and fishermen in the region.

According to Amazônia Real, Bruno and Dom were the victims of an ambush. An indigenous source interviewed by the portal reports that “around 4 a.m. on Sunday (5), the expert and the journalist warned that they were going to talk with “Churrasco”, president of the São Rafael community association. Days before, they had already crossed paths with another group in a 60 HP boat, a motor considered unusual for navigating narrower waterways (boreholes and streams). This group that crossed paths with them made a point of showing that it they were armed and intimidated them”, says the report.

The news mobilized various indigenous and environmental organizations, which drew attention to the vulnerable context of the region and called for a speedy search. Reports from the region indicate that the government was slow to take action and sent insufficient teams, denying even the support of a helicopter. The Army, in a note, said it had the means to help but was “awaiting an order from the higher echelon”. The search has been carried out largely by indigenous people and Univaja.

The Ministry of Justice and Public Security awarded President Jair Bolsonaro the Medal of Indigenist Merit, “a recognition for his services related to the welfare, protection and defense of indigenous communities.”

Another 25 people received the homage, including the Ministers Braga Netto (Defense); Tereza Cristina (Agriculture); Damares Alves (Women, Family and Human Rights); Augusto Heleno (Institutional Security); Luiz Eduardo Ramos (Secretary General); Tarcísio Gomes (Infrastructure); João Roma (Citizenship); Marcelo Queiroga (Health), as well as the General Attorney, Bruno Leal, the president of the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), Marcelo Xavier, and officials from other agencies.

The Indigenous Peoples of Brazil Networl (Apib) rejected the award due to the “constant violations committed against the indigenous peoples in Brazil” since the beginning of the current government. In response, Apib symbolically presented Bolsonaro with the Indigenous Genocide Medal.

The Federal Supreme Court (STF) has set aside March 30 for the trial of seven lawsuits with socio-environmental themes, signed by opposition parties. According to the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo, the initiative to close a “green package” is led by the ministers Cármen Lúcia and Rosa Weber, with the support of the president of the STF, Luiz Fux. The movement comes after the Act for the Earth, which brought together, on March 9, artists, activists, indigenous leaders, along with thousands of people, in front of the Esplanade of the Ministries in Brasilia (DF), against the set of bills being considered in Congress that threaten the country’s environmental policy.

The actions are about fighting deforestation and fires, protecting the Amazon, air quality standards and environmental licenses. With the exception of ADI 6148, filed by the Attorney General’s Office (PGR), which questions the resolution of the National Council on the Environment (CONAMA), all the actions have opposition parties as authors, with the support of NGOs that participate as amicus curiae (friend of the court), offering subsidies for a technical opinion on the agenda.

A new measure of the Ministry of Justice and Public Safety (MJSP) which is in charge of the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) may represent the end of the possibility for agents to carry out field work in indigenous lands. The analysis is from the investigative project “Amazonas: lies have a price”, from the news platform InfoAmazônia.

The letter No. 118/2022 /, February 2nd, announces the non-payment of per diems for field work “when the Administration provides directly to the agent means of travel, food and accommodation, i.e. all expenses arising from the travel on duty”. For government employees, this is a loophole the government has found to try to paralyze the actions in indigenous territories, since, when traveling to these locations, the employees use the funds made available to buy food for themselves during their stay and to pay for work equipment to sleep in the forest, such as hammocks and raincoats.

“Funai has created a mechanism to discourage the work of employees in the field and thus reduce actions to combat illegal activities within indigenous lands and, at the same time, explicitly favor criminals,” says Márcio Meira, former president of the official Brazilian indigenous body.

For the first time in history, indigenous people have appealed directly to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands, to denounce a government for genocide. The action against Jair Bolsonaro was filed by a group of indigenous lawyers led by Eloy Terena, representing the Indigenous People of Brazil Network (Apib), of which he is the legal coordinator.

“We believe that acts are underway in Brazil that can be seen as crimes against humanity, genocide and ecocide. Given the inability of the current justice system in Brazil to investigate, prosecute and judge this, we denounce these acts to the international community, mobilizing the International Criminal Court,” Terena said.

Since 2019, the indigenous people of in Brazil have suffered from a record increase in environmental crimes and cases of rights violations. Because of state negligence during the Covid-19 pandemic, there are nearly 58,142 confirmed cases of the disease among the indigenous population and 1,175 recorded deaths, according to Apib data updated on August 12, the largest of any demographic.

Karapiru Awá Guajá (“Gavião”) of the Awa indigenous people died on July 16 in Maranhão state. Described as a skilled hunter, gentle and caring, Karapiru survived the massacre of his people, who were murdered after the discovery of iron ore deposits in their ancestral territory. The invaders killed his wife, son, daughter, mother, brothers, and sisters.

Karapiru then lived for 10 years in the forest alone. Years later, after taking shelter on a farm, the Funai (National Indigenous Foundation) brought an interpreter to communicate with him. Xiramukû, the translator, was his son who had survived. His life was portrayed in the award-winning film, “Mountains of Disorder”, by Andrea Tonacci.

Until the end of his days, Karapiru lived in the Awá community of Tiracambu. He remarried and taught others, using his deep knowledge of the forest. He also, whenever possible, joined the protests against the advance of predatory extractivism on indigenous lands. He died after contracting a Covid-19 infection.

A protest of indigenous people at the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) was attacked with tear gas and pepper spray by the Military Police of Brasilia, the nation’s capital. The protest was set against Bill 490/2007, which makes the demarcation of indigenous lands almost impossible.

The mobilization was part of the “Levante Pela Terra” [Rise for Earth], which brings together about 800 indigenous people from over 35 ethnicities in protest against anti-indigenous measures. In a letter after the event, the protesters called for the removal of Marcelo Xavier from the presidency of FUNAI. “This is the worst management in the history of the Foundation, which no longer fulfills its function of protecting and promoting the rights of indigenous peoples, but rather negoatiates our lives and instrumentalizes them in favor of the interests of agribusiness and illegal mining,” says the text.

PL 490/2007 is being discussed in the Constitution and Justice Commission (CCJ) of the House of Representatives, chaired by Bia Kicis, a Bolsonarist congresswoman.

The National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), the federal agency responsible for ensuring the rights of the indigenous peoples, spent only half of the resources available for fighting the coronavirus among the indigenous until early December. The figure comes from an unprecedented survey by the Institute of Socio-economic Studies (Inesc). Also, the government program “Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”, also had only 46% of its budget applied in the period. “The low budget usage rate is emblematic of the undermining of the indigenous policies, which, deprived of staff, technical staff and political priority, fails in fulfilling its constitutional duties”, points out Leila Saraiva, political advisor to the NGO.

The data reinforce the claim made by the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil Network (Apib) with the report “Our fight is for life”, which details the impact of the pandemic among the indigenous population. By December 9, the National Committee for Indigenous Life and Memory registered 41,250 indigenous people infected and 889 deaths because of Covid-19.

The indigenist Rieli Franciscato, 56, died on September 9 when he was hit by an arrow in the chest while monitoring a group of isolated indigenous people in the State of Rondônia. Rieli was a renowned active indigenist in the country, with over 30 years at the service of the National Foundation of the Indian (Funai). He worked to avoid friction between non-indigenous and a indigenous non-contact group known as “Isolados do Cautário[Cautário Isolates]” that appeared near Seringueiras (RO) in June; he was also engaging in preventive actions to avoid exposing the isolates to the coronavirus pandemic.

That day, Rieli went to the scene with two military policemen and an indigenous colleague. The team found and followed footprints that led to Indigenous Land (TI) Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau; already inside the indigenous territory, Rieli was hit in the chest with an arrow and was taken to the hospital, but did not resist the wound. Rieli’s death shocked sertanistas, indigenistas and Funai’s workers. It also exposed the precarious and vulnerable situation of isolated peoples. Ivaneide Bandeira, coordinator of the Association for Ethno-Environmental Defense Kanindé, which she founded together with Rieli in 1992 to protect the indigenous peoples of Rondônia drew attention, in an interview to DW Brasil, to the risk of silent ethnocide among isolated peoples amid the fires. “With the dismantling of the Rio Madeira teams and the entire Funai structure, we don’t even know if they are alive,” she said.

Two weeks later, on September 22, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office (MPF) of Rondônia recommended that Funai and the Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health (Sesai) should create health and safety barriers on the lines of access to the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous Territory to protect the isolated peoples of the Cautário River region.

Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, on March 17th, the National Indigenous Foundation (Funai) issued the Ordinance nº 419, that suspends for 30 days the issuing of permits for entering indigenous territories. The Indigenous Missionary Council (Cimi), however, identified critical excerpts in the text of the ordinance that open the possibility to contact isolated indigenous people amid the pandemic.

Cimi pointed out that the 3rd and 4th articles of the ordinance have serious problems. “The 3rd article in the ordinance conceives that the ‘Regional Coordinators will be able to issue permits in exceptional cases to take forward essential activities in indigenous communities’. The 4th article suspends all activities that may cause contact with isolated indigenous communities; however, following up, the paragraph opens an exception: “If the activity is essential to the survival of the isolated population, the authorities must allow their entrance through justifiable excuse”. The Council said it was “baffled” and “disgusted” at the possibility opened by the ordinance that would allow contact with isolated communities and reaffirmed the vulnerability of these populations facing “a grave and lethal virus”.

An indigenist (expert on indigenous issues) connected with FUNAI was killed in front of his family in the city of Tabatinga, Amazonas state, on the border with Colombia. Maxciel Pereira dos Santos was executed with a shot to the back of his head in a busy street, according to information from INA (the association of public servants for FUNAI). Maxciel worked in the Javari Valley, a region that concentrates dozens of uncontacted indigenous groups and a highly sensitive ecological area suffering increasing invasions by illegal loggers, miners and hunters. INA requested protection for Funai workers, but many indigenists left the region due to death threats. “The invaders already sent their message: they will not stop. FUNAI people already left. Who wants to be killed for nothing?”, declared Adelson Korá, coordinator for the Kanamary Indigenous Association of the Javari Valley.