Bolsonaro pick for Funai agency horrifies indigenous leaders

• Marcelo Xavier da Silva is police officer linked to agribusiness
• Former agency employee: ‘I am scared of him’

Dom Phillips in Brasília
Sun 21 Jul 2019 08.00 BST

Indigenous leaders and specialists working with Brazil’s nearly one million tribal people have been stunned and disconcerted by the appointment of a federal police officer with strong connections to agribusiness as the new head of the country’s indigenous agency.

Marcelo Xavier da Silva’s confirmation as the new president of the Funai agency is in line with far-right president Jair Bolsonaro’s plans to develop indigenous areas which include some of the most protected reserves in the Amazon. Critics said the move effectively puts Brazil’s powerful agribusiness sector in charge of indigenous affairs.

“We are worried that indigenous policies may not be properly carried out, considering the history of this president,” said Andrea Prado, president of a Funai staff association.

“He is not technically prepared … he is not an indigenous specialist,” said a former Funai employee who knows Xavier da Silva, adding: “I am scared of him.”

Xavier da Silva, 41, worked on a controversial Congress inquiry in 2017 that attacked Funai and government land agency Incra and recommended charges against some employees as well as anthropologists, campaigners, prosecutors, “supposed indigenous” people and a former justice minister .

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