Funai president says that indigenist and reporter made a mistake by not communicating travel

The president of the Fundação Nacional do Índio (Funai), Marcelo Xavier, said on Wednesday night (8), that the indigenist Bruno Pereira and the British journalist Dom Phillips erred in not informing the security agencies about the trip to Vale do Indio. Javari, in Amazonas, and not asking Funai for authorization to access the site.

The statements were given to the official journalistic program Voz do Brasil, broadcast by Empresa Brasil de Comunicação (EBC).

“This was not a mission communicated to Funai. Funai has not issued any entry permits. It is important for people to understand that when you enter an area like this, there is a whole procedure”, said Xavier, who is a delegate of the Federal Police and supported by the agribusiness bench in the National Congress.

According to him, it is “very complicated when two people just decide to enter the indigenous land without any communication to the security agencies and Funai”.

Xavier also said that Funai is participating in the searches in the region – there are about 15 employees of the agency involved in the searches, according to him. Bruno Pereira is a Funai employee, but he had been on leave from the agency since January 2020, when he started working for an entity founded by the indigenous people of Vale do Javari, Univaja.

He left Funai because he considered that he would no longer be able to work at the agency after being dismissed from the post of coordinator of Isolated and Recent Contact Indigenous Peoples (CGIIRC), according to former colleagues.

Earlier, Xavier had already criticized Phillips and Pereira in another interview with Jovem Pan radio.

“The problem is that, unfortunately, people know about the risk and insist on going there knowing these risks. Now, what Funai has to do is act effectively to try to locate these people and make it very clear to people who intend to go to the areas of isolated indigenous peoples, that they do the correct procedure, which is to ask for authorization from Funai and do not put themselves in risk,” he said.

According to the association Indigenistas Associados (INA), which brings together Funai employees, Marcelo Xavier’s statements are “mistaken”, since the pair did not even enter the area of ​​Vale do Javari demarcated as indigenous land – therefore, it would not be necessary to ask for any permission.

“It is not true that Bruno and Dom were careless with their request for authorization to enter indigenous lands. Simply because they did not enter indigenous land. The expedition carried out took place in the immediate vicinity, but not inside the Vale do Javari Indigenous Land,” the organization said in a statement.

Pereira has been missing along with the British journalist since the morning of this Sunday, the 5th. Only on the morning of this Tuesday, the 07th, the Military Command of the Amazon, of the Army, and the Navy mobilized aircraft to intensify the search for the two disappeared.

The two disappeared during a boat trip between the riverside community of São Rafael and the city of Atalaia do Norte. As Estadão showed, Pereira was mentioned in an apocryphal note with threats, written by illegal fishermen who worked in the area and addressed to the entity for which the indigenist worked.