Bruno and Dom: Impunity is standard in crimes in the Amazon – 06/05/2023 – Daily life

The script of murders of human rights and environmental defenders in the Amazon has been practically the same for 40 years: in places with economic vulnerability, brutal crimes are committed against those who interfere in social relations and, after deaths, comes impunity.

The case of Brazilian indigenist Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips, murdered in the Javari Valley a year ago, is similar to other crimes of great repercussion in recent decades in the region, point out experts heard by the Sheet.

Bruno and Dom were shot, dismembered and burned on June 5, 2022, by fishermen accused of invading indigenous land. A year later, the killers changed their version and claimed to have killed to defend themselves against the indigenist, who was chasing and threatening them.

The defense maintains that indigenous people and fishermen lived in peace until Bruno intervened. He also says that the first version of the accused was extracted through torture by the Military and Federal police in Amazonas. Bruno’s history and conflicts in the Javari Valley contradict the version against him.

Of the highly publicized murders in the last four decades, only that of the rubber tapper Chico Mendes, in 1988, and that of the Catholic missionary Dorothy Stang, in 2005, resulted in the punishment of the entire chain of crime: from the principals to the executors.

Even so, friends and family of Chico Mendes and sister Dorothy believe that other names involved in the murder escaped justice.

In both cases, there was international pressure during the investigation and trial. Both acted in defense of rural and forest workers, respectively, in Xapuri, in Acre, and Anapu, in Pará.

Federal prosecutor Felício Pontes, assistant to the prosecution in the trial of the murder of Dorothy Stang, says that there is a pattern in the crimes of command —and the objective is to convince the jury to see the murder as something without premeditation, where, in fact, there is pistol . For him, these allegations are made to protect the principals.

“It’s to say that the status quo is the legitimate one, that things are fine the way they are and those who dare to change end up dying. It’s often used in conflicts in the Amazon”, says he, who has 20 years of legal experience at region.

The scenario is confirmed in a 2022 report by the NGO Global Witness on rural violence. In it, Brazil appears as the most lethal country for defenders of the environment and land.

From 2012 to 2021, there were 342 murders, more than 85% of them in the Amazon. About a third of the dead were indigenous or of African descent. The study also notes that few cases gain media attention.

In 1982, the lawyer of the Rural Workers Union of Marabá (PA), Gabriel Pimenta, was murdered with three shots in the back. Last year, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights condemned Brazil for impunity for the masterminds and murderers. The sentence says that the country has serious flaws in the justice system.

Also in Marabá, lawyer and former state deputy Paulo Fonteles (PCdoB) was executed with three shots to the head on June 11, 1987. With national media attention, the case went to trial, and the organizer and perpetrators of the crime were convicts. The masterminds escaped.

On December 8, 1988, another defender of rural workers in conflicts with landowners, state deputy João Batista (PSB) was murdered in Belém.

He had left a session of the Legislative Assembly of the State of Pará and was killed, in front of his wife and children, at the entrance of the building where he lived. The masterminds went unpunished. The crime took place 14 days before the murder of Chico Mendes, in Acre.

“From there, the political and economic power said that they were killed for getting into a dangerous area: defending rural workers who suffered even slave labor. The socio-environmental leaders murdered in the Amazon, in general, dared to denounce the injustices of the economic model”, evaluates the prosecutor.

Rubber tapper Chico Mendes denounced, inside and outside the country, the devastation in Acre, the pressure on rural workers and the death threats he received. He was killed by a shotgun blast in his backyard.

Earlier, in June 1988, the rubber tapper and Chico Mendes’ right-hand man, Ivair Higino, was murdered. In the same region, in Brasileia (AC), in June 1980, rubber tapper leader Wilson Pinheiro was shot in the back during a meeting of the city’s rural workers union and did not resist.

Legitimate defense as a strategy

The public prosecutor of Pará Edson Cardoso de Souza says that one of the obstacles to overcoming impunity is to convince the jury. The prosecutor has been working in the criminal area for 20 years and was responsible for prosecuting those convicted in the murder of the missionary Dorothy.

Cardoso claims that, in cases with clear evidence of authorship, the defense assumes the homicide. For him, recognizing what cannot be denied becomes a credibility bargain with the jury and works to protect the principals.

“The principal is something more abstract. And convincing the jury is the most harrowing part of avoiding impunity. As much as the jury agrees that they are dead and [que aqueles] are the perpetrators, an acquittal may occur. The defense will say: ‘These people are not from the region, they wouldn’t accept that they cut down a tree, that they caught a fish'”, says Cardoso.

The self-defense strategy was used in the Dorothy case and it didn’t work. “The defense tries to use what it has at hand. But, in the case of Sister Dorothy, the principals, the intermediary and the executors were condemned. One of the phrases they used was that it was too dangerous to get into those matters, that she was guilty of her own death”, recalls Felício Pontes.

Prosecutor Cardoso claims that the allegation of self-defense requires a minimum of evidence. In the Javari Valley, he points out, there is a second crime which is hiding a corpse, common in intentional and premeditated homicides.

The disappearance of Bruno’s weapon is another negative point for the defense. “His vessel was pierced by Bruno’s bullets? What about Bruno’s gun? If they buried the body, did they have access to the gun”, he questions.

For Pontes, in addition to punishing the principals and executors, these crimes require the effective presence of the State in areas mapped with conflicts.

“The death of Dom and Bruno would have been avoidable if Funai and the justice system were functioning”, he opines.

The prosecutor also assesses that, in a region with natural riches and absence of the State, the “law of the strongest” prevails, and the value of life and death takes on other contours.

The murder of Dorothy Stang cost R$50 to the perpetrators.

In the case of Bruno and Dom, in his testimony to the Court, the fisherman Amarildo Oliveira, who confessed to having killed, dismembered and burned the indigenist and the journalist, when asked about the concealment of the corpses, replied: “I would not let a human being for vultures to eat. I would never let a vulture eat a human being. For me, that was not right”.

Remember crimes against human rights and environment defenders in the Amazon

June 21, 1980, Brasileia, Acre

Wilson Pinheiro, 47, was president of the Union of Rural Workers of Brasileia and of the Municipal Commission of the PT. His work is considered the embryo of the Alliance of Peoples of the Forest, created by Chico Mendes.

He was murdered in the back, when he was meeting with workers at the union headquarters. The crime went unpunished.

Then-union leader and now President Lula and Chico Mendes were prosecuted under the National Security Law for inciting workers to participate in protests over Pinheiro’s murder.

Last year, the MPF asked the state of Acre and the Union to be condemned for failing to investigate the case.

July 18, 1982, Marabá, Pará

Gabriel Pimenta, 27, was a lawyer for the Union of Rural Workers in Marabá. He was shot three times in the back as he left a bar days after winning a lawsuit against ranchers.

The crime completed 41 years without any conviction.

In October last year, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights classified Brazil as a country with “serious bankruptcies” in the justice system due to the lack of punishment for the lawyer’s principals and killers.

June 11, 1987, Marabá, Pará

Lawyer and former state deputy Paulo Fonteles (PCdoB), 38, was murdered with three shots to the head in broad daylight at a gas station.

Threatened with death, he tried for a seat in Brasilia and was left without a mandate. He was killed afterwards. Organizer and executors of the crime were arrested. The masterminds escaped.

June 18, 1988, Brasileia, Acre

Trade unionist Ivair Higino was considered Chico Mendes’ “strong arm” and fought with him for workers’ rights and defense of the forest.

He was murdered almost at the door of his house, when he went out to get milk for his son who was about a month old. The case remains unpunished.

December 8, 1988, Belém, Pará

Lawyer and state deputy João Batista, 36, worked in defense of human rights and rural workers.

After three assassination attempts, he was shot dead at close range in front of his wife and children at the entrance to the building where he lived. He had left a session in the Legislative Assembly. The masterminds went unpunished.

December 22, 1988, Xapuri, Acre

Rubber tapper, trade unionist and environmentalist Chico Mendes, 44, was shot dead in the chest while taking a shower in his backyard.

Chico denounced the attacks against the forest and the rubber tappers abroad. He was honored at the UN and participated as the only Brazilian in international meetings in defense of the environment.

Threatened with death, he had a police escort. His murder had an international demand for justice, which led, in two years, to the conviction of the executor and the ordering party.

February 12, 2005, Anapu, Pará

The Catholic missionary Doroty Stang, 73, was killed with six shots at a cost of R$50 to the principals on a dirt road.

He had been active in the Amazon since 1970 and, since 1997, in the political organization of settlements for agrarian reform and forest conservation. Commander and executor were arrested and convicted.

September 6, 2019, Tabatinga, Amazonas

Funai employee Maxciel Pereira dos Santos was murdered around 6 pm on one of the busiest avenues in Tabatinga, on the border with Peru and Colombia, a few hours after leaving Atalaia do Norte (AM), where the Funai base he worked.

The base had been attacked at least four times since the previous year. Maxciel worked in the inspection of illegal fishing in the Javari Valley.

He was shot twice in the back of the head while riding a motorcycle with his wife. The killers, who approached him on another motorcycle, were not identified and the case remains unpunished.

June 5, 2022, Atalaia do Norte, Amazonas

The indigenist Bruno Pereira, 41, and the journalist Dom Phillips, 58, were killed with shotguns, dismembered, burned, and buried twice in an area of ​​igapó, as a way to hide their corpses.

They were found thanks to denunciations and searches by indigenous people in the region. Bruno was one of the most important indigenists of his generation and a specialist in isolated indigenous peoples.

Persecuted by Funai, he began to work as a contractor for Univaja (Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley) in training indigenous people to monitor invasions of their territory.

Dom Phillips, who wrote a book about the Amazon, accompanied him on the trip to collect content. Bruno’s performance bothered the previous management of Funai and the people who worked in illegal fishing in the region.

_{The Planeta em Transe project is supported by the Open Society Foundations.}