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Proposed appointment an act of aggression against Brazil's indigenous people, says Survival

By agency reporter
February 2, 2020

Brazilian President Bolsonaro’s government has proposed an evangelical missionary, Ricardo Lopez Dias, as head of the uncontacted Indians department of the Indigenous Affairs Agency. Mr Dias has worked with the New Tribes Mission (NTM), now known as Ethnos360, for many years.

Sarah Shenker of Survival International, the international NGO fo the rights of tribal people,  said : “Putting an evangelical missionary in charge of the uncontacted Indians department of FUNAI is like putting a fox in charge of the hen house. It’s an open act of aggression, a declaration that they want to forcibly contact these tribes, which will destroy them. Together with President Bolsonaro’s recent plan to open indigenous reserves up to mining and exploitation, this is a genocidal plan for the total destruction of the most vulnerable peoples on the planet whose survival is now at stake. We will resist it with all our might, together with our indigenous friends in Brazil.”

Survival International says the NTM is notorious around the world for its efforts to contact and evangelise uncontacted tribes, and is one of the most fundamentalist missionary organisations, whose manhunts in Paraguay in the 1970s and 1980s led to several deaths.

* Survival International https://www.survivalinternational.org/

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