Federal Police Turn a Blind Eye to Complaints Regarding Crimes in Vale do Javari, Say the Indigenous People

Peoples in the region react to a police statement affirming that there is no mastermind behind the killings

Ribeirão Preto

The Federal Police ignored documents presented by the indigenous people regarding the activities of organized crime in the Vale do Javari indigenous land, in Amazonas, where indigenous activist Bruno Pereira, 41, and British journalist Dom Phillips, 57, were murdered.

The statement is from Univaja (União dos Povos Indígenas do Vale do Javari) and was made this Friday (17) in response to a statement from Federal Police saying that there are indications of multiple people having participated in the crime, but it also states that the investigations "suggest that the executioners acted alone, with no mastermind or criminal organization behind the crime".

"With this position, the Federal Police disregards the qualified information shared with them by Univaja in countless letters, since the second half of 2021 [...] Such documents point to the existence of an organized criminal group, of which Pelado and Dos Santos are members, acting in the continuous invasions of the Vale do Javari indigenous land", says the indigenous organization.

Still, according to Univaja, this group is made up of professional hunters and fishermen. They are involved in the murder of Bruno and Dom and have been described in documents sent to the Federal Public Ministry, the Federal Police, and Funai (National Foundation of the Indigenous People).

Translated by Cassy Dias