"End of impunity for Indigenous killings in sight for Brazil’s Guajajara", 20 November 2023

...Laércio was a witness to, and survivor of, the killing of fellow Indigenous forest guardian Paulo Paulino Guajajara — an attack that took place four years ago this month in their ancestral land in Brazil’s northeastern Maranhão state. None of the alleged perpetrators, suspected illegal loggers encroaching in the Arariboia Indigenous Territory, have yet stood trial for the killing of the 26-year-old...

Nine months before Paulo’s murder, my colleague Max Baring and I had interviewed and followed him and Laércio on patrol, filming for a documentary as the forest guardians destroyed illegal logging camps. The “Guardians of the Forest” are a group of Indigenous Guajajara in the Arariboia Indigenous Territory who go to the frontline and risk their lives to protect their ancestral land against illegal logging, hunting and other environmental crimes...

In the past 20 years, more than 53 Guajajara individuals have been killed in Maranhão state, with none of the perpetrators ever being tried, according to the Indigenist Missionary Council (CIMI), an advocacy group affiliated with the Catholic Church. Of this total, 24 were killed in Arariboia, according to data from CIMI; six were guardians, the Guajajara people say.

Two suspects have been indicted for the murder of Paulo and attempted murder of Laércio. Antônio Wesly Nascimento Coelho and Raimundo Nonato Ferreira de Sousa...

Nevertheless, the pair will stand trial, eventually. The case is expected to be a legal landmark as the first killing of an Indigenous land defender to go before a federal jury. It has been escalated to that level because prosecutors say the attack represented an aggression against the entire Guajajara community and Indigenous culture...