President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) said this Wednesday (15) that “many people” did not like the English journalist Dom Phillips, who disappeared 10 days ago in the Amazon.
“In that region, which is an isolated region, a lot of people didn’t like him. He had to have more than redoubled his attention to himself. He decided to go on an excursion. We don’t know if someone went after him,” Bolsonaro said in an interview with journalist Leda Nagle on Youtube.
For the president, Phillips is “badly regarded” in the region for reporting on illegal mining and in defense of the environmental cause.
“We regret all this. This Englishman is frowned upon in the region, because he did a lot of reporting against prospectors, on the environmental issue,” Bolsonaro said.
The president once again said that Dom Phillips and the indigenist Bruno Pereira — who had disappeared since June 5 — were irresponsible in traveling through the Javari Valley, in Amazonas, without the necessary security.
“The two decided to enter a completely inhospitable area, alone, without security, and the problem happened. Since the first day, last Sunday, they are looking for these people in the region. And we are not succeeding,” she said.
“There are pirates in the river there. There is everything imaginable. It is very reckless for you to walk in that region without being properly prepared, physically, and with weapons.”
Also according to the president, if Phillips and Araújo were killed, the bodies must have been thrown into the river and, with that, “little will be left”.
“Traces have appeared, a piece of human body viscera, it is being made [exame de] DNA here in Brasilia. A place has already arisen where they could have picked up these guys and taken them to the riverbank. From the looks of it, if they killed them both, I hope not, they’re in the water. And, in the water, little will be left, fish eat, I don’t know if there are piranhas there in Javari.”
Responsibility for disappearances
Bolsonaro also said that he cannot be held responsible for the disappearances. According to the president, about 60,000 people disappear in Brazil every year.
“There is a parliamentarian, from a political party that I won’t say which one, who wants to sue me because I should have found the body by now. I don’t know for sure, but around 60,000 people disappear in Brazil every year. This congressman never worried about these disappearances.”
*Posted by Renan Porto
Source: CNN Brasil
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