World

The far-flung Amazon region where a British journalist and a Brazilian Indigenous expert disappeared has become a haven for drug trafficking and environmental crimes because of increasing lawlessness and an absent state, experts say.

The Javari Valley, where veteran correspondent Dom Phillips and respected indigenous specialist Bruno Pereira went missing on June 5, is one of the remotest places on Earth, a vast expanse of thick jungle in northwestern Brazil near the Peruvian and Colombian borders.

Phillips, 57, and Pereira, 41, were last seen boating up the Itaquai river just outside the Javari Valley Indigenous Reservation, a territory bigger than Austria that is home to an estimated 6,300 Indigenous inhabitants, including 19 uncontacted tribes.

The region is suffering from a surge of illicit activity, blamed on drug gangs with links to other crimes including illegal fishing on Indigenous lands — something Pereira had long fought, making him a target of death threats.

The men’s disappearance remains unsolved, but investigators have found their belongings and are analyzing suspected human remains, fueling fears they were murdered.

Two suspects have been arrested.

Experts on the Javari Valley told AFP drug gangs and illegal mining, logging and poaching rings have capitalized on weaker enforcement by Brazilian authorities in recent years to expand their presence.

“What happened to Bruno and Dom is the result of an increase in organized crime, which is in turn explained by the absence of the state,” said Antenor Vaz, head of Brazilian Indigenous affairs agency FUNAI’s operations in the region from 2006 to 2009.

– Attractive base –

The very things complicating the investigation are what make the region an attractive base for criminal operations.

The region is hard to reach, and harder to patrol: huge, remote, densely forested and criss-crossed by meandering rivers that flood the surrounding area for several months a year.

“By its very nature, the forest has always been an attractive space for drug traffickers, since they can camouflage drugs so easily,” said Aiala Colares, a geographer and Amazon expert at the Federal University of Para.

Since the 1990s, drug gangs have used the region’s rivers to ship cocaine and other drugs from Peru and Colombia, for both the Brazilian and international markets, he said.

That traffic has increased substantially over the past decade.

Drug gangs in the region are “multidimensional” outfits, with operations that also include illegal logging and fishing, Colares said.

The main group, “Os Crias,” emerged in 2021 as a splinter from the Northern Family, one of the biggest criminal organizations in the Amazon basin.

They now dominate the triple border on the Brazilian side and the Javari trafficking routes, Colares said.

– Poverty, impunity –

The gangs feed off a long history of poverty and impunity in the region, now exacerbated by a power vacuum left by the state, said anthropologist Barbara Arisi of Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, a specialist in the indigenous peoples of the Javari Valley.

“A growing number of criminals, more and more organized and better-armed, are taking advantage of the lack of state structure,” she said.

The gangs have even penetrated some Indigenous groups, such as the Tikuna, she said.

Just like in big-city slums, “drug trafficking offers lots of young people a life they could never attain otherwise,” she said.

Poverty has helped the gangs thrive.

The small city of Atalaia do Norte, the local outpost Phillips and Pereira were returning to, has the third-worst human development index in Brazil.

Enforcement operations by environmental authorities have meanwhile been reduced since President Jair Bolsonaro took office in 2019.

The far-right president, who has pushed to develop the Amazon — “rich lands” with “poor Indians,” in his words — has also brought upheaval at FUNAI.

Since he replaced the agency’s leadership, many veteran officers have been forced out or quit.

That includes Pereira, the one-time head of FUNAI’s Javari operations and its programs for isolated tribes, who was placed on administrative leave.

FUNAI’s base in the area has meanwhile been a target of several shooting attacks in recent years.

In 2019, FUNAI’s anti-logging and anti-poaching chief for the Javari Valley was shot dead in the city of Tabatinga.

The case remains unsolved.

Ecuador police clashed with protesters Tuesday hours after authorities arrested the leader of an Indigenous movement, as his organization called for a popular uprising following nationwide roadblocks to protest high fuel prices.

The arrest of Leonidas Iza, leader of the powerful Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie), sparked outrage, with authorities deploying police in riot gear and soldiers to stand guard outside the public prosecutor’s office where he was in custody awaiting a hearing.

Demonstrators gathered outside the building holding signs reading “Freedom for Iza!” and “We are not violent people, we are people in resistance.” 

In the capital Quito police vehicles were set ablaze and protesters burned fires in the streets. 

Unrest also broke out in the Andean city of Latacunga, where members of the Indigenous movement said several people were injured when police deployed tear gas.

Police said a group of officers was attacked and being held captive, although officials did not say how many. “Their whereabouts are unknown,” police said on Twitter.

Iza, a leader of the Kichwa-Panzaleo community, had been arrested in Pastocalle, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Quito, on suspicion of “sabotage,” according to the interior ministry.

Pastocalle has been a flashpoint of protests called by Conaie against rising fuel prices and living costs, which saw demonstrators block roads across the country on Monday, some of which remained obstructed the following day.

Conaie confirmed the arrest of the 39-year-old Iza, condemning his detention as “arbitrary and illegal” and calling for a “radicalization” of protests.

“We call our organizational structure to a great Indigenous and popular uprising,” Conaie tweeted after Iza’s arrest. “Long live the social struggle!”

In 2019, Conaie-led protests resulted in 11 deaths and forced then-president Lenin Moreno to abandon plans to eliminate fuel subsidies. The group is also credited with helping topple three presidents between 1997 and 2005.

Oil producer Ecuador has been hit by rising inflation, unemployment and poverty — strains exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.

President Guillermo Lasso warned Sunday the government would not allow roads or Ecuador’s oil installations to be taken over by protesters.

But Iza insisted the demonstrations would continue for as long as necessary.

– ‘Disorder, chaos, vandalism’ –

Starting early Monday, protesters burned tires and barricaded roads in at least 11 of Ecuador’s 24 provinces, authorities said, partly cutting access to Quito.

Authorities estimate 6,000 people took part in Monday’s protests, although Iza had accused them of “minimizing” the demonstrations.

Lasso denounced “acts of vandalism,” including “the burning of patrol cars, invasions of farms, the breaking of windshields on private and school vehicles, an attack on an oil pumping facility, the cutting off of community water supplies, the closure and serious damage to state roads.”

Several security ministers denied there was an attack on the oil pumping facility in Ecuador’s Amazon region.

Chinese company PetroOriental said Tuesday protesters had occupied and paralyzed some of its wells in the Amazonian Orellana province, causing a loss of 1,400 barrels of crude per day.

Interior Minister Patricio Carrillo said five people, including Iza, had been detained.

He could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

Iza’s lawyer Lenin Sarzosa told journalists the arrest had been “violent.”

Carrillo accused protesters of “paralyzing, looting, kidnapping, attacking” in such a way that “the disorder, the chaos, the vandalism causes social unrest.”

– Fruitless talks –

Conaie has taken part in several rounds of fruitless talks with Lasso’s government.

Fuel prices have risen sharply since 2020, almost doubling for diesel from $1 to $1.90 per gallon (about 3.78 liters) and rising from $1.75 to $2.55 for gasoline.

Lasso froze fuel prices last October after a round of protests led by Conaie that saw dozens arrested and several people, including police, injured in clashes.

But the freeze failed to assuage simmering anger in a country that exports crude but imports much of the fuel it consumes.

The protesters are also demanding the government address price controls on agricultural products and mining concessions granted in Indigenous territories.

They have also called on government to create more jobs and to renegotiate farmers’ debts with banks.

Indigenous peoples make up over a million of Ecuador’s 17.7 million inhabitants.

Shanghai’s lengthy Covid-19 lockdown pushed a quarter of US firms in the city to cut investment plans and nearly all to drop revenue forecasts, a business group said Wednesday.

The downbeat findings of the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) Shanghai survey were the latest sign of the impact of virus controls in China — the only major economy still pursuing a zero-Covid strategy, using lockdowns and mass testing to eliminate all outbreaks.

But such measures left its biggest city Shanghai sealed off for around two months, with a shortage of truckers leaving goods piled up at its port and business closures battering firms.

Over 90 percent of US companies in the metropolis surveyed by AmCham Shanghai have cut their revenue projections for the year, the group said in a report on Wednesday.

The survey of 133 companies also found a quarter were expecting revenues to be more than 20 percent lower than projected.

Nearly 25 percent of companies surveyed have cut investment plans, AmCham Shanghai said.

The commercial hub of 25 million people was closed in sections from late March, when the Omicron variant fuelled China’s worst Covid outbreak in two years.

Signs of resentment and anger emerged throughout the lockdown, with some residents struggling to receive fresh produce or access non-Covid medical care.

Although authorities drew up a “white list” of companies that could continue production, this was generally with limitations to minimise virus spread and many smaller firms continued to grapple with restrictions.

AmCham said around a quarter of manufacturers surveyed were speeding the localisation of their China supply chains while moving production of global goods out of the country.

As of early June, only 35 percent of the manufacturers polled were operating at full capacity and close to three-quarters of all firms surveyed had yet to enjoy economic support measures since Shanghai’s lockdown.

AmCham Shanghai president Eric Zheng said the lockdown’s impact on businesses has been “profound”.

“The Shanghai government must act quickly to ensure unhindered supply chains, logistics and worker mobility and to accelerate the provision of financial support to businesses,” Zheng said.

This week, analysts at Fitch ratings downgraded China’s growth predictions for the year to 3.7 percent based on “the cautious pace at which pandemic-related restrictions have been eased”.

This would be far below China’s target of around 5.5 percent full-year growth.

Police in Brazil said Tuesday they had arrested a second suspect in the disappearance earlier this month of British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian indigenous specialist Bruno Pereira.

The federal police said in a statement they had arrested a 41-year-old man identified as Oseney da Costa Oliveira, whom they said was “suspected of participating in the affair.”

Brazilian media said he was the brother of the first suspect to be detained in the case, fisherman Amarildo da Costa Oliveira, also 41 and nicknamed “Pelado.”

Witnesses said they saw Amarildo pass at high speed onboard a boat going in the same direction as the boat in which Phillips and Pereira were traveling before their disappearance. 

Traces of blood on his boat are being analyzed, and personal effects of the two missing men were found underwater near the home of “Pelado,” who was arrested on June 7 and has denied any involvement. 

Police said Tuesday they had also seized firearm cartridges and an oar, without specifying whether the objects were found in the same place where the latest suspect was arrested.

Veteran freelance journalist Phillips, 57, has worked in Brazil for the past 15 years.

Pereira, 41, is an expert who was on leave from his job with the Brazilian government’s Indigenous affairs agency Funai, and a well-known advocate for these communities. 

He was accompanying the Briton as a guide on Phillips’ second trip to the region since 2018 when they disappeared June 5.