Brazil’s indigenous defender, who was marginalised by Bolsonaro, gave his life for ‘abandoned’ tribes

Six tribes from Brazil’s remote Javari Valley gathered in a hall on June 11 to mourn the disappearance of Bruno Pereira, a collective advisor, and Dom Phillips, a British journalist reporting on his work.

 

Native patrolmen led by Pereira, a former senior official with the indigenous affairs agency Funai, were still looking for the missing men on an Amazon tributary that runs through their reservation.

 

But the assembly was certain of their fate.

 

‘Bruno died as our shield, protecting us and our territory,’ Manoel Chorimpa, a Marubo tribesman and organiser for the Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley, told the hall, which was crowded with pierced and painted faces, feathered headdresses, and warriors clutching spears.

 

Three days later, a fisherman who had confronted the indigenous patrols confessed to the murders of Pereira and Phillips.

 

Shock at their fate has echoed across Brazil and around the world, highlighting President Jair Bolsonaro’s overhaul of indigenous agency Funai, as well as a rising tide of violence and criminal incursions on native lands.

 

‘How come the government did not intervene before what happened to our brother Bruno and the journalist?’ At the Univaja assembly, Chief Arabonah Kanamari demanded angrily.

 

‘It is now our responsibility to police our own territory. Funai has effectively abandoned us ‘he said.