Brazil Indigenous agency staff strike over Bruno Pereira disappearance
Employees walk off the job amid anger over statements criticising the former Funai employee who went missing with Dom Phillips
Andrew Downie in São Paulo
Tue 14 Jun 2022 15.00 EDT
Employees with Brazil’s national Indigenous foundation (Funai) have launched a one-day strike, amid anger over what they say is the dismantling of a key government agency and official statements criticising Bruno Pereira, the former Funai employee who went missing along with the British journalist Dom Phillips last week.
Funai staff and related civil service employees walked off the job at 9am on Tuesday in Brasília, Florianópolis and Dourados, and others are voting on whether to launch a wider strike next week, officials with the unions said.
They had demanded that Funai’s president, Marcelo Augusto Xavier da Silva, increase security for staff working in the Amazon as well as retract Funai statements criticising Pereira in the days after his disappearance. No response was forthcoming.
Pereira and Phillips were in the Vale do Javari region in western Brazil when their boat disappeared on 5 June. They had been interviewing Indigenous people for a book Phillips was writing on sustainable development in the region.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/14/brazil-indigenous-agency-staff-strike-over-response-to-disappearance-of-bruno-pereira