The disappearance of British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian indigenist Bruno Pereira in Vale do Javari highlighted this remote Amazon region on the border with Peru and Colombia, with a strong presence of drug trafficking.
The place where the two men were last seen as they were sailing the Itaquaí River on the morning of Sunday, June 5, is near the second largest indigenous land in Brazil, with a population of 6,300 people from 26 ethnicities, 19 of whom live completely isolated.
In recent years, the region has seen an increase in crime, which, according to sources consulted by the AFP who worked in the region and continued to visit it, is due to looser supervision by the Brazilian State, which is used by drug trafficking and other illegal mining organizations. , hunting, fishing and logging.
This led the regional superintendent of the Federal Police of Amazonas, Eduardo Alexandre Fontes, to describe it as a “very dangerous” region, when he began the search for the disappeared.
“Privileged” Region
“The Amazon region has always presented itself as a privileged space for drug trafficking actions (…) because the dynamics of nature, of the forest, contribute to the very camouflage of the drug”, explained Aiala Colares, geographer at the Federal University of Pará (north) and a researcher specializing in the Amazon at the NGO Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública.
In the immensity of the dense Amazon rainforest, cut by rivers that for a few months a year inundate part of the vegetation, indigenous peoples are facing growing threats and invasions by criminal groups.
Drug traffickers have been betting since the 1990s on the region’s waterways to transport drugs, mainly cocaine from Peru and skunk-type cannabis and marijuana from Colombia, Colares said.
Traffic has grown substantially in the last decade, said the expert, explaining that this route ends up supplying the Brazilian market or continues abroad.
Colares defined the action of the gangs that operate there as “multidimensional”, as they combine both drug trafficking and environmental crimes, such as wood smuggling.
The main one, “Os Crias”, emerged in 2021 as a dissent from the Northern Family, one of the largest organizations in the Amazon. The faction dominates the triple border on the Brazilian side and the Javari routes, he added.
Inequality problem
Bárbara Arisi, an anthropologist and professor at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, has been working with Javari peoples since 2003 and says she has seen a deterioration in the last decade.
“More and more criminals, more organized and armed, have taken advantage of the lack of state structure” in this region, said Arisi, highlighting the penetration of drug trafficking in some indigenous peoples, such as the Tikuna.
The anthropologist compared the insertion of drug trafficking in indigenous communities to the penetration of communities in cities such as Rio de Janeiro.
“Drug trafficking offers jobs for young people and a life they have no choice to achieve. He offers them money and many end up turning into mules or scouts”, explained the anthropologist.
For example, Atalaia do Norte, the city where Phillips and Pereira were based during their expedition, has the third worst Human Development Index in all of Brazil among more than 5,000 municipalities, according to the latest census.
History of impunity
President Jair Bolsonaro came to power in January 2019 with a promise to develop the Amazon, a territory, in his words, occupied by “poor Indians” in “rich lands”.
The president changed the direction of the National Indian Foundation (Funai) and put an evangelical pastor in charge of the entity’s department of isolated tribes, accused by activists of ignoring the interests of these peoples.
The Funai base located on the banks of the Itaquaí River has been shot at on several occasions in recent years.
Pereira himself, who as a Funai licensee helped indigenous people organize to defend their territory, had been threatened by loggers and prospectors who tried to invade protected lands.
“What happened with Bruno and Dom is the result of all this mafia that exists in the region and the organized crime that is only possible to be constituted by the absence of the State”, said Antenor Vaz, president of Funai in Javari between 2006 and 2009.
Vaz was pessimistic about the possibility that, after more than a week of his disappearance, the authorities will find the material and intellectual responsible for the case.
He recalled the murder of Maxiel Pereira dos Santos, responsible for operations against loggers and illegal fishermen at Funai, shot dead in 2019. Three years later, no suspects have been denounced or arrested.
“Any citizen who raises their voice against illegality is exposed,” he added.
