Taskforce to protect Amazon tribe from loggers after guardian's death

Brasilia: The government of the Brazilian state of Maranhao has set up a police task force to protect the Guajajara tribe from illegal loggers that killed one of its warriors in a clash over deforestation on their Amazon reservation.

Illegal loggers ambushed an indigenous group that was formed to protect the forest and shot dead one of its leaders and wounded another on Friday, the tribe said. It said a logger also died in the shootout.

Paulo Paulino Guajajara, 26, a Forest Guardian in Maranhao state, Brazil, was killed in an ambush by illegal loggers on Friday.Credit: Guarioes da Natureza/AP

Paulo Paulino Guajajara, or Lobo (wolf in Portuguese), was hunting inside the Arariboia reservation when loggers opened fire and shot him in the neck. Another Guajajara, Laercio, was wounded in the arm and back but managed to escape.

Law enforcement on indigenous reservations is a federal responsibility, but the Guajajara "guardians of the forest" have taken on the task in the absence of federal protection and in the face of increased invasions by armed loggers since right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro took office in January.

Maranhao Governor Flavio Dino decreed the creation of a police taskforce to protect the Guajajaras and train them in security strategies to defend their reservation, though not firearm instruction.

Dino said that given the absence of federal agencies protecting indigenous people in his state, the task force would cooperate in emergencies and in fighting illegal logging on reservation lands.

"We take the defence of indigenous rights seriously and want to help. We do not condone ethnocide," the governor tweeted.

Federal Justice Minister Sergio Moro deplored the killing and vowed a thorough investigation in a Twitter post. Federal police were sent to investigate.

"Maranhao state understood how the urgency of the situation in view of the federal government's failure to act, almost in connivance with the attackers by encouraging the invasion of reservations," said national indigenous leader Sonia Guajajara.

Kayapo tribe leader Raoni Metuktire, from left, Joenia Wapichana, the first Brazilian indigenous MP, and indigenous leader Sonia Guajajara meet with MPs earlier this year, to discuss land rights.Credit: AP

Guajajara, head of the pan-indigenous organisation APIB, which represents many of Brazil's 900,000 native people, spoke from Europe where she is meeting authorities to explain growing threats to Brazil's tribes and the forests they inhabit.

It is not the first time loggers have killed a Guajajara. According to Human Rights Watch Tome Guajajara was assassinated in 2007 but no one has yet been brought to justice.

Jaciane and Graça Guajajara remember their father Tome, who was killed in 2007 by loggers. Twelve years on, there has been no trial.Credit: Getty Images/HRW

The Guajajaras, one of Brazil's largest indigenous groups with some 20,000 people, set up the Guardians of the Forest in 2012 to patrol a vast reservation. The area is so large that a small and endangered tribe, the Awá Guajá, lives deep in the forest without much contact with the outside world.

Reuters