Amazon killings raise fury among Brazilian indigenous agency employees.

• Workers of Brazil’s national indigenous agency (FUNAI) went on strike on Thursday.
• These crimes frequently result in violence as offenders clash with activists for indigenous rights.
• Global Witness has placed Brazil as the fourth most dangerous nation in 2020.

In response to the murders of indigenous specialist Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips, employees of Brazil’s national agency for indigenous people went on strike on Thursday. They cited long-standing worries about crime and violence in the Amazon jungle.

The FUNAI staff said that working in the Amazon has become risky and, in some cases, lethal. FUNAI is the government agency in charge of protecting the rights and interests of indigenous Brazilians.

Prior to the action, protesters issued a statement demanding Marcelo Xavier, president of FUNAI, resign and calling for “the immediate protection of our indigenist comrades, Indigenous Peoples and their leaders, organisations and territory.”

One striking FUNAI employee told CNN that they didn’t think their safety was being taken seriously.
The worker, who spoke under the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to communicate with the press, stated that they travelled in rickety boats without equipment like radios or satellite phones. A “lack of essential infrastructure, transport, protective equipment, and inspection staff,” the worker claimed.

CNN has gotten in touch with FUNAI to get their opinion on the strikes and the participants’ allegations.

The inquiry into the murders of Pereira and Phillips was criticised by employees as well for its delays and lack of attention to the connections between organised crime and unlawful behaviour in the Amazon.

No investigation has been abandoned, according to the Brazilian Federal Police. At least five other suspects are being looked into for allegedly helping to hide the bodies, and many individuals have already been detained in connection with the murders.

Before they were slain, Phillips and Pereira were travelling in the secluded Javari Valley. Their deaths were widely denounced and ignited a contentious discussion about the safety of the Amazon. According to a report from the Civil Police, their boat was later discovered capsized with six bags of sand to make it more difficult to float.

Pereira had gone with Phillips to study conservation efforts in the remote Javari Valley. Phillips is a seasoned journalist who has written extensively about Brazil’s most marginalised tribes and the destruction that criminal actors are wreaking on the Amazon.

Despite being formally protected by the government, illegal mining, logging, hunting, and international drug trafficking plague the wild Javari Valley, as well as other Brazil’s designated indigenous lands.

These crimes frequently result in violence as offenders clash with environmentalists and activists for indigenous rights.

According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), which cited statistics from the Pastoral Land Commission, a non-profit connected to the Catholic Church, more than 300 persons were killed in Brazil between 2009 and 2019 as a result of land and resource conflicts in the Amazon.

Based on the reported murders of environmental activists, Global Witness placed Brazil as the fourth most dangerous nation for environmental action in 2020. According to the report, the Amazon region was the site of about 75 percent of these attacks in Brazil.

Indigenous people in Brazil have frequently been the victim of such assaults and have also endured harassment campaigns. Three environmental activists from the same family who had created a programme to replenish local waters with baby turtles were discovered dead in the northern Brazilian state of Pará at the beginning of January. Police are still looking into the matter.