EDITORIAL – The dictatorship of drug trafficking in the Amazon, by Paula Litaiff

Amazon Rainforest (Photo: Gustavo Frazao)

Vulnerable corridor for international drug trafficking with an area in the triple border (Brazil, Peru and Colombia), Amazonas has seen the formation – for decades – of a drug trafficking dictatorship with its own laws, economy, political system: a “parallel state” that suffocates and kills those who try to expose this reality and join the struggle of the native and traditional peoples.

Undercover investigations by the Federal Police (PF) show that these organizations are the main funders of crimes against the Amazon Rainforest and the people who live there, with arms in illegal mining, unauthorized fishing, deforestation, and land grabbing. The deaths of Bruno da Cunha Araújo Pereira and Dominic Mark Phillips were not the product of a personal fight, but of interests that went against the crime that finances environmental violations.

The basis for this line of investigation began long before the executions of the indigenous activist and the journalist and has been studied for more than ten years. The system starts in neighboring countries, follows the state border, enters the interior communities, passes through the capital and goes on through Brazil and the world. Despite the efforts of the regional police of each state (Military and Civil), only the coalition of all security forces, including the international ones, can contain these groups.

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Before they were killed, in Javari Valley, municipality of Atalaia do Norte (AM), Bruno Pereira had picked a fight with people who work in illegal pirarucu fishing, among whom there are those who answer for the crime of drug trafficking. The fishing, in this case, could be used for the process of money laundering and legalization of a resource that comes from drugs, according to data obtained from the Federal Police in Brasilia (DF).

There is no legal and defined deadline for the conclusion of the investigations into the connection of drug trafficking with environmental crimes and against the people of the Amazon, because it is not known to what extent the arteries of this group are interconnected in the body of this parallel state.

Until we get the answer about the true origin of the financing for the environmental crimes in the Amazon Region and how to contain it, every day, we fear to see “the monster of the lagoon emerge,” an expression used in the work of Chico Buarque and Gilberto Gil, “Cálice” or “Cale-se”, (‘Shut Up’ in english) during the Military Dictatorship (1964-1985), to talk about the bodies of disappeared people that emerged in seas or rivers for fighting against the system.

The subject was the cover story and journalistic special in the new issue of CENARIUM MAGAZINE for the month of June 2022. Click here to read the complete content:

The June cover features images of those who gave their lives for the Amazon (HugoMoura Graphic Design)
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