The cacique Raoni had invited him to a face-to-face meeting. A meeting between chefs. But the president of Brazil never responded. This time, Raoni Metuktire meets Jair Bolsonaro before international justice. On January 22, his lawyer, Frenchman William Bourdon, lodged a complaint with the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, on behalf of Chief Kayapo and his counterpart, Almir Surui, chief of the Paiter-Surui and President of the Articulation Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB). She accuses Jair Bolsonaro and several of his ministers of crimes against humanity for murder, extermination, forced population transfers, enslavement and persecution against the indigenous people of the Amazon.
“I don’t like conflicts, I don’t like problems between chefs”, warned, in a video interview in early December 2020, through an interpreter, chef Raoni. “I don’t want to have a conflict with the white leaders. But the problem is that Bolsonaro attacks the natives too much. “
The 65-page document, to which are annexed 21 exhibits, is now on the desk of prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, and denounces the policies of Jair Bolsonaro since coming to power in January 2019. A policy aimed at “Plunder the riches of the Amazon” by imposing “Unbearable living conditions for the natives of certain regions, in order to force them to move from areas coveted by farmers”, written Me Bumblebee. The natives have already paid the heavy price of a forced deforestation, underlines the complaint, with in particular the assassination of at least seven native chiefs.
“Criminal” policy
“Jair Bolsonaro’s political project is to reduce the area of indigenous territories in order to expand the area available for agro-industrial exploitation”, we read in the complaint, which tries to dismantle the cogs of a policy “Criminal”. There was, first, this « militarisation » environmental issues by the government, including the ministers targeted by the complainants, Ricardo Salles for the environment, Tereza Cristina for agriculture, Paulo Guedes for the economy and Sergio Moro for justice (he left office in April 2020 ), would be responsible.
The document is accompanied by several testimonies and analyzes a series of reports from NGOs, international organizations and decisions taken since the coming to power of Mr. Bolsonaro. It includes in particular a report published by Amazon Watch, affirming that“A dominant and conservative faction of the country’s powerful agro-industrial sector, known as the “Ruralistas”, helps pilot the Bolsonaro program for the Amazon ”.
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