Justice for Maxciel! Stop the killings of IPHRDs!

Justice for Maxciel! Stop the killings of IPHRDs!

The International Indigenous Peoples Movement for Self-Determination and LIberation (IPMSDL) strongly condemns the murder of Indigenous Peoples Human Rights Defender (IPHRD) Maxciel Pereira dos Santos last September 9 in the city of Tabatinga, in the Brazilian state of Amazonas, near the border with Peru and Colombia.

Maxciel, who worked for at least 17 years in the protection of indigenous rights under the government’s National Indian Foundation or FUNAI, received two gunshots in his head while driving a motorcycle with his wife and daughter on a busy street.

The murder of Maxciel is said to be a retaliation of the illegal hunters, loggers and miners who were arrested with illegal 300 tracajás turltes and 40,000 eggs. Last July, suspected hunters shot their office headquarters at Ituí-Itacoaí base.

Maxciel has worked in Tierra Javari Valley Indigenous Area, 8.5 million hectares of protected area with about 5,000 Indians of seven different ethnicities, as well as 11 isolated groups. According to reports, the area has been a permanent target of the criminal organizations operating on illegal hunting, fishing, wood and mining.

IPMSDL holds the Jair Bolsonaro government, the big businesses, and imperialist plunderers who collaborate to continuously endangers and murder IPHRDs fighting against the exploitation of ancestral lands and the destruction of the Amazon. Under Bolsonaro, government funding for the environment and IP protection shrunk by 25% while more protected IP territories are opened to big multinational and transnational companies. Indigenous communities have been the target of discriminating remarks by Bolsonaro, and the victim of violence by ranchers, loggers, miners paramilitary and private militias.

The killings of Maxciel comes while the vast Amazon Rainforest remains ablaze and massive outrage by the international community for the irreparable damage to the environment and IP communities are happening. It’s unforgivable to stay idle as the alarming situation perpetuates across Latin America and the whole world.

We demand immediate and swift justice for Maxciel and all victims of attacks on IPHRDs!

We hold the Brazilian government accountable, with its policies and actions that enable and encourage greater danger to the Amazon and indigenous communities!

We call on our networks, members and the international community to stand up to the challenge to demand for justice and accountability!

Stop the attacks on IPHRDs!

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