Mass Atrocities against Indigenous Peoples: Atrocity Structure and the Brazilian Amazon under Bolsonaro

Abstract

Abstract Throughout the four years of his presidency, President Jair Bolsonaro implemented policies, sponsored initiatives, and promoted discourses that were fundamentally detrimental to indigenous peoples in Brazil. This resulted in the most acute and irreconcilable disparity in interests between settlers and indigenous communities over the control of land in the Amazon, a dispute which is at the core of the eruption of the anti-indigenous atrocity structure existent in Brazil in the 21st century. As a result, the Amazonian indigenous peoples were victims of several mass atrocities, consisting of destructive, exterminatory, persecutory, and other inhumane acts, especially through invasion, deforestation, contamination, and deprivation of health care. This article explains and analyses each pillar of this atrocious process.