"Tomorrow's our D-day," declared the group's commander, Felipe Finger, as his airborne special forces unit prepared to mark the second anniversary of the murders of Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips with what they hoped would be a famous offensive against the criminals obliterating the greatest tropical rainforest on Earth.
Like the original D-day, foul weather forced the fighters to postpone intricate plans for an aerial assault that would eliminate more than 100 illegal gold mining operations in and around the Javari valley Indigenous territory: a Portugal-sized hinterland near Brazil's borders with Colombia and Peru. It was here that the British journalist and Brazilian activist were shot and killed in June 2022.
But 24 hours later, the skies cleared and the strikes could begin. Helicopters carrying rifle-toting combatants took off from a remote riverside airfield and raced towards their "theatre of operations": an inhospitable wilderness where a distinctly unwelcoming troika of narco-traffickers, pirates and venomous creatures lay in wait.
"We plan to sterilise this whole buffer zone around the Indigenous territory," Finger announced before heading towards one of the frontlines of a conflict crucial to the survival of Brazil's remaining isolated tribes and the planet as a whole.
Another operative, a thickset muay thai practitioner and biologist called Alexandre Marques, said the mission would be called Operation Waki after a revered Javari valley Indigenous chief whose name Pereira had given to one of his sons. "We know there could be armed resistance in some places... and we have to be prepared," said Marques, 49, one of the longest-serving members of the special inspection group (GEF) the elite squad from Brazil's environmental protection agency, Ibama, leading the charge.
This story is from the June 25, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
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This story is from the June 25, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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