Brazil indigenous affairs official fired amid push to develop reservation land

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Your head of Brazil’s indigenous affairs agency said on Tuesday he was fired caused by pressure on the agriculture ministry which under President Jair Bolsonaro needs to open reservation lands to commercial agriculture and mining.

Franklimberg Ribeiro de Freitas, head belonging to the National Indigenous Affairs agency Funai, was peeled off the post by the Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights, which oversees Funai, the ministry confirmed.

In remarks to agency employees, Freitas blamed Luiz Antonio Nabhan Garcia, secretary of land affairs from the Ministry of Agriculture, for his dismissal. Freitas said Bolsonaro was “very poorly advised.”

In May, the reduced house of Congress rebuffed Bolsonaro’s turn to put decisions on indigenous land claims to the Secretary of state for Agriculture and kept these people Funai.

The right-wing president alarmed anthropologists and environmentalists by about to assimilate Brazil’s 800,000 indigenous people and open reservation lands to commercial development, coupled with the Amazon rainforest.

Azelene Incio, an old director at Funai, can be a potential alternative Freitas at Funai.