Brazil’s Senate Covid CPI members split over genocide accusation against Bolsonaro

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A part of the Brazilian Senate parliamentary inquiry committee (CPI) investigating the government’s management of the pandemic is ready to accuse the president, Jair Bolsonaro, of genocide for the oblivion to which he relegated indigenous people and communities during the most challenging stages of the health crisis.

The rapporteur of the CPI, Senator Renan Calheiros, firmly supports this thesis. A few days ago, he already anticipated that Bolsonaro would be accused of up to eleven charges, among them crimes against public health and humanity.

According to Calheiros, all the data and analyses that have been collected during these six months of the commission are “unanimous” regarding Bolsonaro’s negligence towards these peoples, where the coronavirus disease has been more virulent, with a mortality of 6.8 percent, almost two points more than the rest of the Brazilian communities.

However, Calheiros has come up against the reluctance of some of the senators who make up the majority group of the CPI, such as the president of the commission, Omar Aziz; and Eduardo Braga, who argue that to frame Bolsonaro in such a position it is necessary to demonstrate that he intended to exterminate the indigenous peoples and their communities.

In case the debate continues before the imminent presentation of the conclusions, the matter will have to be debated within the commission, which does seem, on the contrary, willing to accuse Bolsonaro of crimes against humanity, recalls the newspaper ‘Folha de São Paulo’.

Pending the resolution of this new situation, the leading organization of the indigenous peoples of Brazil (APIB), which in August went to the International Criminal Court (ICC) with a report detailing how 1,162 people from up to 163 native communities were killed by the mismanagement of the authorities, has already filed a complaint of genocide against Bolsonaro.

The complaint argues that Bolsonaro allowed genocide to take place by omission – represented by the dismantling of government social protection services, and by allowing the takeover of their lands, illegal deforestation, and arson.