Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Monday said that there was no evidence an Aboriginal chief, whose death was decried by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, was killed by wildcat miners said to have invaded protected tribal lands.
Bolsonaro has repeatedly criticized the existence of protected lands, saying that there are too many of them and that they prevent Brazil from profiting from its natural resources.
Emyra Wajapi, a leader of the Wajapi tribe who lives on a reservation near Brazil’s northwestern border with French Guiana, was found dead last week.
The Brazilian National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), headed by a Bolsonaro appointee, on Monday said that the most recent police report on Wajapi’s death showed no evidence of the “presence of an armed group” on the reservation at the time.
However, an internal memo from FUNAI’s office in Amapa State said that 10 to 15 armed men had invaded Wajapi land and occupied a village last week.
The memo sent on Saturday evening said it was not yet clear how Wajapi died.
Federal police are investigating the death and allegations by tribe members that their lands were invaded by wildcat miners.
“There is no solid evidence as of now that that Indian was murdered,” Bolsonaro told reporters in Brasilia.
Bachelet, a former president of Chile, called for an investigation, calling Wajapi’s death “a disturbing symptom of the growing problem of encroachment on indigenous land — especially forests — by miners, loggers and farmers in Brazil.”
She also urged Bolsonaro to reconsider his government’s proposal to open more of the Amazon rainforest to mining.
Under Bolsonaro, deforestation of the Amazon has accelerated, according to a state-run agency.
Bolsonaro has called the deforestation numbers false.
“Brazil lives from commodities,” Bolsonaro said on Monday. “What do we have here in addition to commodities? Do people not remember this? If the business fails, it will be a disaster.”
Bolsonaro said he was planning to regulate and legalize wildcat miners, who critics say heavily pollute rivers and clear forests in their search for gold and other minerals.
He also said that he wants regulations to allow Aborigines to mine their reservations.
The Indigenous Missionary Council rights group called on Bolsonaro to defend the constitutional rights of Brazil’s native people to their tribal lands.
“Aggressive hate speeches by Bolsonaro and members of his government are encouraging the invasion and pillage of land and violence against indigenous peoples,” it said in a statement.
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