Pre-candidates for president talk about Funai’s performance in the Amazon

English journalist Dom Philips, from the British newspaper “The Guardian”, and indigenist Bruno Araújo Pereira, a licensed employee of the National Indian Foundation (Funai), have been missing since last Sunday (5), when they were in the Javari Valley region. , in the Amazon.

Funai was created as an organ for the promotion and protection of the rights of indigenous peoples. Pereira took leave from Funai in 2019, after he was dismissed from the General Coordination of Isolated and Recent Contact Indigenous Peoples.

The current president of the agency, Marcelo Xavier, defends the regularization of illegal mining on indigenous lands.

According to the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (Apib), in a lawsuit sent last month to the STF, the government has not yet complied with the Court’s order to remove miners from the land of the Yanomami people in Roraima.

THE CNN asked the pre-candidates for the Presidency of the Republic what they think about Funai’s work in the Amazon.

Check out the answers below:

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT):

The pre-candidate was approached and said he will not comment.

Jair Bolsonaro (PL):

The president has not responded at the time of publication.

Ciro Gomes (PDT):

The pre-candidate has not responded at the time of publication.

André Janones (Avant):

The pre-candidate has not responded at the time of publication.

Simone Tebet (MDB):

The pre-candidate did not respond at the time of publication.

Pablo Marcal (Pros):

What is happening in Vale do Javari, in Amazonas, is a complex situation. First of all, it is worth saying that I defend life, so my first concern is to locate the British journalist Dom Phillips and the indigenist and former Funai employee Bruno Pereira. Their lives come first.

Funai’s great mission, created in 1967, is to guarantee the rights of native peoples and defend them from predatory actions that pose any kind of danger to life, their ecosystem and the culture of the indigenous people. Unfortunately, for ulterior motives for all of us, she has been experiencing a great dance of chairs since the beginning of the current government, which has generated great discomfort for her employees and, in a way, contributed negatively to the expected result of her work.

With regard to Funai’s activities in the Amazon, it is regrettable what we have seen in the press in recent years, including with great international repercussion. I understand that the problem is old, but the protection of indigenous peoples and areas is of vital importance, while at the same time it is necessary to guarantee the rights of all Brazilians, including property, and the balance necessary for Brazil to produce. The role of the State in “governmentalism” is to take care of lives and seek balance for sustainable growth. This implies being the mediator in the resolution of these conflicts and means that the current government has failed to fulfill its mission.

I am attentive with great concern for the conservation and recovery of the environment in indigenous lands for the protection of these peoples, but without losing sight of the fact that that region is of vital importance for national sovereignty.

I remember that in the not-so-distant past, that region was the scene of numerous revolts and attempts to disrupt the current order, such as in the case of Cabanagem and very recently in the Jacareacanga and Aragarças revolts, under the JK government, or in the Araguaia guerrilla in the middle of the 70s. Of course, it is also necessary to combat deforestation, the theft of wood, the illegal extraction of minerals and drug trafficking, a reality in that region. The federal government, through Funai’s actions, needs to act strongly in its mission, together with the other protection agencies.

Felipe d’Avila (New):

The pre-candidate has not responded at the time of publication.

Jose Maria Eymael (DC):

The pre-candidate has not responded at the time of publication.

Leonardo Pericles (UP):

The pre-candidate has not responded at the time of publication.

Luciano Bivar (Union Brazil):

The pre-candidate has not responded at the time of publication.

Sofia Manzano (PCB):

Bruno Araújo was not a Funai employee, he still is. He was only on leave to deal with private matters, which is permitted by the legislation governing federal civil servants. I would add that his dismissal from the position of General Coordinator of Isolated and Recent Contact Indigenous Peoples was due to clashes with the Foundation’s top management, which, in turn, did not demonstrate – as it does not, in fact – demonstrate any effective responsibility for the subject, operating in continuous demobilization of the bases for the protection of the Javari territory, as well as others – see the daily arrivals of Yanomami to urban areas of the Amazon, in search of help, as they are being expelled from their communities –, as has been systematically denouncing indigenous and indigenist organizations since the Bolsonaro government took over.

Funai, throughout its history, has never fully fulfilled its role as an agency for the protection and defense of the rights of indigenous peoples, either due to a lack of human and material resources to do so – which stems from a political option of the governments – or, in recent years, as a result of the profound dilapidation of the Foundation, with a great worsening of the lack of staff and working conditions.

There have been several complaints of moral harassment at work by the management of Funai to career employees and outsourced workers who seek to fulfill the institutional role of the body, in an evident demonstration of the neglect with which the indigenous issue is treated by the Bolsonaro government, including reports of illnesses and absences due to health problems caused by this type of behavior at the highest levels of the Foundation.

Funai’s work in the Amazon is not different from the Foundation’s way of acting across the country today: a continuous disregard for legal and constitutional rights and decisions of international human rights bodies and the Brazilian justice system. It is enough, therefore, to see that, even in the face of repeated decisions of the Federal Supreme Court regarding the disintrusion of miners and loggers in indigenous lands – decisions aimed at Funai and other organs of the Brazilian State -, the body continues with denials and half-hearted compliments. of these court orders, without the STF adopting measures of greater coerciveness and imposition so that its determinations are actually complied with.

It is a sum of misdeeds that affects not only the indigenous peoples of the Amazon, but the entire country, with the complicity by action or omission of the State agency that should be the first to watch over the original rights of the indigenous peoples of Brazil.

Vera Lucia (PSTU):

As part of the Bolsonaro government’s policy of attacks on native peoples, Funai lost prominence and was emptied of its functions. Right at the beginning of the government, through a provisional measure, Bolsonaro transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture, then headed by Tereza Cristina da Costa, leader of the agribusiness bench in the Chamber, the task of identifying and demarcating indigenous lands. This is an explicit demonstration that this government is a declared enemy of indigenous peoples. No wonder, throughout his government, Bolsonaro has acted against indigenous demarcations and defended the time frame.

This dismantling policy by Funai is the same implemented at the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra) and at the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama). This is part of the “passing the herd” in the environmental area, which has led to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and the genocide of native peoples.

We defend the strengthening of Funai and that it be coordinated by a council formed by representatives of the ethnic groups of the indigenous peoples of our country, with autonomous and independent action, with employees who are public and committed to the defense of indigenous peoples.

Photos – The pre-candidates for the Presidency