RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In the north-eastern state of Maranhão in Brazil, Rodrigues Zezico Guajajara was murdered by unknown men near the village of Zutiua. This was the fifth leader of the Guajajará Indians to be killed in only five months.
Zezico Guajajara had denounced the continuing occupation of the Amazon by illegal mining and logging. He worked as a public school teacher and ran the Azurú indigenous school in the Amazon village of Arame, in the indigenous territory of the Arariboia ethnic group.
According to the Maranhão State Human Rights Secretariat, his body was found on the road leading to his reserve with fatal gunshot wounds.
The murder was also confirmed by Sonia Guajajara, one of the leaders of the Amazon ethnic group and vice-presidential candidate of the Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL) in the 2018 elections.
The exact motives and circumstances of the crime are yet to be determined. The 47-year-old had filed formal complaints with the federal police and the National Indigenous Authority under the Ministry of Justice for having received repeated death threats.
The murder took place in the Araribóia area, a 413,000-hectare reserve shared by some 12,000 indigenous peoples of three different ethnic groups, including the Guajajara, where conflicts between its inhabitants and loggers are recurrent.
According to the Maranhão Human Rights Society, 13 indigenous people were killed in the reserve between 2016 and late last year.
Paulo Paulino Guajajara, a member of the “Guardians of the Forest”, fell victim to one of these conflicts in November 2019. This group of indigenous people has made a name for itself worldwide because they are dedicated to protecting the Amazon.
The 26-year-old died in an ambush by loggers who had been expelled from the reserve a few days earlier by the ‘guardians’. Three more murders of Guajajara members were recorded in December in the indigenous Terra Brava Guajajara, also in Maranhão.
The violence against the Guajajara people prompted the government to send members of the National Public Security Force, an elite police unit, to the region to strengthen security in the indigenous areas.
Their presence was extended for a further 90 days in February but is only concentrated on the land of the Cana Brava Guajajara Indians.
For several years, the indigenous reserves in Maranhão have been the target of attacks by illegal landholders and loggers. This is clear from reports by human rights organizations, which also denounce the impunity of these crimes and the inaction of the Brazilian authorities.
According to the Indigenous Missionary Council of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference (CIMI), invasions of indigenous lands throughout Brazil have increased by almost 44 percent since January 2019, when the far-right politician Jair Bolsonaro became President. Bolsonaro recently approved mining on indigenous lands.