Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (STF) on Monday ordered the opening of an investigation against the government of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro “for crimes of genocide” committed by indigenous communities.
In a statement, the STF ordered “the Office of the Attorney General, the Military Prosecutor’s Office, the Ministry of Justice and Public Security and the Regional Supervision of the Roraima Federal Police to investigate the possible participation of authorities of the government of Jair Bolsonaro in the practice investigating, in theory, the crimes of genocide, disobedience, breach of legal secrecy and environmental crimes related to the life, health and safety of diverse indigenous communities”.
The decision was announced ten days after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government declared a “health emergency” in the Yanomami Reserve, the largest in Brazil, home to about 27,000 indigenous people on nearly 10 million hectares, due to the “abandonment suffered and the growing number of deaths and hospitalizations of indigenous peoples due to hunger and various diseases.
The magistrate cited a report he received from the Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil on the “serious humanitarian situation” the Yanomami endure due to malnutrition, the spread of malaria, high mortality rates, and the pollution of their rivers by the mercury used by illegal miners.
Judge Luis Barroso said in his decision that several documents he analyzed “suggested an absolute situation of insecurity for the indigenous peoples concerned, as well as actions and omissions on the part of the federal authorities that exacerbated this situation.”
The magistrate cited possible acts of disobedience to Supreme Court decisions ordering the government to remove the nearly 20,000 miners illegally operating on the reserve, as well as leaks of the dates when the operations that enabled the miners to escape would be carried out . from.
In the same decision, Barroso reiterated the order he gave to the government in 2020 to deploy the army and police to remove all illegal miners operating in the reservations of the Yanomami, Karipuna, Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau , Kayapó, Arariboia, Mundurucu. and Trincheira Bacaja.
This decision was issued to prevent the spread of covid-19 on indigenous reservations and was never enforced by Jair Bolsonaro’s government.
In this regard, Barroso has given the government of Lula da Silva 30 days to diagnose the situation of the indigenous communities and a plan, with a timetable, to comply with the order to remove illegal miners from the remove reservations.
Ahead of the Supreme Court decision, the Federal Government Ministry (MPF) announced Monday that it had opened a new investigation to determine whether the state’s actions or inactions contributed to the humanitarian crisis the Yanomami are experiencing.
Source: DN
