‎Brazil News

 

The Federal Public Defender's Office (DPU) and the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) requested, this Sunday (3/7), that the Union be condemned for the dismantling of the National Indian Foundation (Funai) and for the lack of protection for indigenous peoples in the region of Vale do Javari, in Amazonas. The bodies stated in the document that the problems that led to the death of indigenist Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Philips had already been predicted since 2018.

 

In 2018, the bodies filed a lawsuit asking the Union to regulate the provision of Funai services, providing human, material and financial resources for the protection and inspection of indigenous peoples. In the petition filed this Sunday, the DPU and the MPF argue that the dismantling of Funai directly reflects the lack of implementation of public policies and the guarantee of fundamental rights to isolated and recently contacted indigenous peoples.

 

For Renan Sotto Mayor, federal public defender and member of the DPU Indigenous Communities working group, nothing has changed since the filing of the action and the Union has not presented arguments capable of contesting the facts narrated by the DPU and the MPF.

 

 

The bodies state, in the document, that the problems that led to the death of Bruno da Cunha Araújo Pereira, a federal civil servant and a specialized indigenist at Funai, and Dom Philips, a British journalist, were already foreseen in the lawsuit filed in 2018. sad events of recent days, in which the

murder of two great human rights defenders is a direct reflection of the

deepening of the State's structural omission in relation to isolated indigenous peoples”, they observe. And they continue: “The referred indigenist and journalist are the most recent and tragic face of the scenario detailed in the opening of the present demand. They gave their lives to record and face the threats facing indigenous territories and their peoples. They fought for this cause and died for it.”

 

English journalist Dom Philips and indigenist Bruno Pereira disappear in Amazonas

 

 

 

On June 14 this year, the Federal Court granted a request from the Public Defender's Office and ordered Funai to provide public security measures for its employees and indigenous peoples in Vale do Javari (AM). In a demonstration filed this Monday (4/7), the DPU informs that the indigenist agency has not yet complied with the decision. “It is observed that even after the tragedy of the murder of Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips, when the whole world verified the situation of structural omission of the Brazilian State in the region, even after a judicial decision determining that Funai should take measures, it seems, there was no measure in this regard”, the agency highlights.

 

In the action, in which the Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley (Univaja) also participates with amicus curiae, the DPU and the MPF request that the Union be ordered to pay compensation for collective damages, in the amount of R$ 50 million, that would be reversed for the benefit of isolated and recently contacted indigenous peoples.