Brazil's Bolsonaro says no evidence of murder of a tribal leader



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Emyra Wajãpi was found dead on 23 July in Amapa, a region of northern Brazil, according to the tribe and the country's National Indigenous Foundation (FUNAI). The tribe claims to have been stabbed to death by "non-natives" after "15 armed invaders" entered the area.

But Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro told reporters on Monday that he was not convinced that Wajãpi had been murdered.

"So far, there is no indication that this native (the chief) has been murdered, there are several possibilities," he said. "The federal police is there, is sent there to get to the bottom of things and find out the truth about it."

At a press conference Monday, the Attorney General of Brazil, Rodolfo Soares, said: "We still do not know what is the cause of death nor whether there are minors, hunters, non-Aboriginal people or even if the dispute has taken place between aboriginal groups. "

He warned that nothing had been ruled out and that the investigation was ongoing.

Contradictory stories emerged as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, had decried the murder and described it as part of a wider problem of 39 "encroachment on indigenous lands".

"The killing of Emrya Wajãpi, leader of the Wajãpi indigenous people, is tragic and reprehensible in itself," she said in a written statement on Monday. "

"It is also a worrying symptom of the growing problem of encroachment on indigenous lands – especially forests – by miners, loggers and farmers in Brazil," she added.

Ms. Bachelet called on the Brazilian government to end mining in indigenous territories, which could "herald a new wave of violence to scare people from their ancestral lands."

Since Bolsonaro took office in January, he has been striving to keep the promises of the campaign to restore the country's economy by exploring the economic potential of the Amazon.

He proposed to open more areas of the Amazon to mining and took $ 23 million from the country's environmental protection agency. It also deprived FUNAI of its ability to identify and badign titles to indigenous territories.

    The destruction of Amazon accelerates 60% to a football field and a half every minute

"My intention is to regulate mining, to legalize it even for indigenous people who have the right to mine on their property.The land is indigenous and that is their land", Monday told the Bolsonaro press.

"Of course, NGOs and other countries do not want it, they want the natives to be trapped, like in a zoo, as if they were a prehistoric human being," he said.

Carlos Rittl, executive secretary of the NGO network for the environment Observatorio do Clima (Climate Observatory), told CNN that loggers, farmers and miners were already benefiting from reduced monitoring for take control of a growing land area in the Amazon rainforest.

According to Amazon Watch, a nonprofit rights organization working for the protection of the rainforest and the rights of indigenous peoples, at least 14 cases of illegal advancement in indigenous territories by land grabbers, loggers and Wild miners were documented in Brazil during the first three months of the year. l & # 39; year.

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