Bolsonaro blamed for Amazon murder

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Nature activists, colleagues, and the family of British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira expressed outrage Thursday as evidence mounted that they were murdered in the Amazon, blaming the Brazilian government.

Phillips, 57, and Pereira, 41, went missing on June 5 in a remote area of the rainforest known for illegal mining, fishing, and logging, as well as drug trafficking.

Ten days later, on Wednesday, a suspect named Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira led police to a location where he claimed to have assisted in the burial of bodies near the city of Atalaia do Norte, where the pair had planned to stop.

Human remains discovered at the site were to be transported to Brazilia on Thursday and officially identified by experts. The results should be available by next week.

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Late Wednesday, the federal police chief of Brazil's northern Amazonas state said the remains "corresponded" to the missing men with "a 99-percent probability." They had apparently been shot.

Phillips, a long-time contributor to The Guardian and other leading international newspapers, and Pereira were working on a book about sustainable development in the Amazon when they went missing.

Pereira, a FUNAI expert, had received numerous threats from loggers and miners attempting to infiltrate remote Indigenous land.

'Heartbroken' 

The discovery of two bodies on Wednesday, which they interpreted as proof that the pair were murdered, left Phillips' family "heartbroken".

According to Greenpeace Brazil, the deaths were "a direct result of President Jair Bolsonaro's agenda for the Amazon, which opens the way for predatory activities and crimes to be replicated in broad daylight."

The Javari Valley, where the men went missing, is home to about 20 isolated Indigenous groups, as well as drug traffickers, loggers, miners, and illegal fishermen.

"In the last three years, our country has increasingly become a land where the only valid law is that of 'anything goes'," said Greenpeace of the Bolsonaro term.

Read next: Fears around UK journalist, indigenous expert missing in Amazon

"It has become a land of invasion and land grabbing; of mining and illegal logging; of territorial conflicts, and where it’s worth killing to ensure that none of these criminal activities are prevented from happening. All this is fueled by the actions and omissions of the Brazilian government." 

Bolsonaro has advocated for the development of the Amazon, the world's largest tropical rainforest, since taking office in 2019. He drew new criticism on Wednesday for saying Phillips' reporting on the region was "disliked" and that he should have been more cautious.

"The level of violence applied to Bruno and Dom makes clear how the Amazon is at the mercy of the law of the most powerful, under which brutality is the rule," said WWF Brazil.

"The State abandoned the Amazon due to a meaningless project of destruction of the forest and extermination of its peoples."

 'Political crime' 

The Univaja Indigenous Peoples group, which was involved in the search, called the suspected killings a "political crime", while the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism stated that "the president and his allies have become protagonists of attacks on the press" in order to expose environmental crimes.

Jonathan Watts, Phillips' colleague at The Guardian, told AFP in London that the "monstrous" crime should not deter journalists and others from seeking the truth.

"People dead for defending Indigenous lands and the environment. Brazil cannot be that," said ex-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who will face Bolsonaro in the October elections.

The investigation into the motive for the crime, as well as the roles played by Oliveira and fellow suspect Oseney da Costa de Oliveira, is still ongoing.

According to Brazilian media, three more people may be involved. The information has not been confirmed by police, but more arrests are not ruled out.