SÃO PAULO AND RIO DE JANEIRO — Despite government efforts to halt violence in the Amazon region where British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira were killed three years ago, the threats remain, prominent Indigenous leader Beto Marubo said. “Unfortunately, I can say that if Dom and Bruno were in the Javari Valley today, they would be killed again,” Marubo told Mongabay in an interview in São Paulo, referring to the lack of permanent presence of the federal government in Amazonas state. On June 5, 2022, Phillips and Pereira were brutally killed in the Javari Valley; none of the perpetrators have been brought to trial. According to Marubo, authorities did make an effort to take some specific actions in the Javari Valley, including raids and investigations led by the Federal Police and by the federal environmental agency, IBAMA, in addition to opening channels of dialogue with the community, but it didn’t solve the problem. “It didn’t have the impact we expected that all the repercussions of the case would have on those in power, unfortunately. So, the factors that caused the killings remain the same: drug trafficking and the increase in invasions of Indigenous lands”, said Marubo, who represents the Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Vale do Javari (UNIVAJA) in Brasília, Brazil’s capital. Portrait of prominent Indigenous leader, Beto Marubo, by renowned Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado. Image courtesy of the Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Vale do Javari (UNIVAJA). In a news release published in June,…This article was originally published on Mongabay
Dom Phillips & Bruno Pereira ‘would be killed again,’ Indigenous leader says
