Military officials chosen by Heleno still lead the Planalto Palace's office on indigenous peoples.

By Rubens Valente, Public Agency - Military personnel chosen by former GSI (Institutional Security Office) Minister Augusto Heleno, a staunch Bolsonaro supporter who has made several statements against Indigenous people, their organizations, and the demarcation of Indigenous lands, continue to preside over the meetings of the SSN (National Situation Room) on Indigenous peoples, which brings together about 20 public bodies and entities. Created by the Presidential Palace in 2020 by order of a Supreme Court decision, the SSN is intended to monitor Indigenous health and the invasions and removals of intruders from Indigenous lands under threat in the country, including the Yanomami Indigenous Territory, invaded by 20 illegal miners during Bolsonaro's administration.

The bewilderment of indigenous people and indigenists interviewed by Agência Pública begins with the very fact that the GSI, a body formed by military personnel and now under suspicion of having facilitated the invasion, by Bolsonaro's coup plotters, of the Planalto Palace on January 8, continues to lead the SSN meetings even in the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, which began on January 1. And with the same people from the Bolsonaro government. The FAB (Brazilian Air Force) aviator colonel Ivan Lucas Karpischin, who chaired SSN meetings throughout 2022 as a representative of Augusto Heleno's GSI, remains in the role and has already led two meetings of the Room during the Lula government, on January 20 and February 3. The next one is scheduled for this Friday (17).

In addition to him, Lieutenant Colonel Cláudio Paradelo Peixoto of the Brazilian Air Force, Lieutenant Colonel Ricardo da Silva Vieira of the Army, and Sergeant Anderson da Silva Santos of the Army also served in Augusto Heleno's GSI (Institutional Security Office) in the Situation Room and continue to serve in the Lula government.

“We expected that [after Lula's inauguration] those military personnel would no longer be there. And they remain. It's a situation that is truly embarrassing. It's a remnant. Their image represents that tragic moment we lived through,” said lawyer Maurício Terena, legal coordinator of APIB (Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil), the country's main indigenous organization. The SSN was created precisely after APIB filed an ADPF (Argument of Non-Compliance with Fundamental Precept) with the STF (Supreme Federal Court), which received number 709, with the aim of trying to control the Covid-19 pandemic among indigenous peoples, given the federal government's inaction at the beginning of the disease.

The SSN is made up of several public bodies, such as Funai (National Foundation for Indigenous Peoples) and Sesai (Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health), the DPU (Federal Public Defender's Office) and the MPF (Federal Public Prosecutor's Office), and non-governmental organizations such as APIB and OPI (Observatory of Human Rights of Isolated and Recently Contacted Indigenous Peoples).

“Our expectation was that there would be a change in the military personnel mediating those meetings. Because their role is much more that of a mediator, but I understand that on several occasions, during Bolsonaro's previous administration, they were very selective about the government's actions. The SSN (National Security Secretariat) was created to be an environment where we could access information, exchange impressions, and ensure that the ADPF (Arguição de Descumprimento de Preceito Fundamental - Claim of Non-Compliance with a Fundamental Precept) actually achieved its objective. However, during the Bolsonaro government, the designated agents neither contributed nor were willing to contribute reliable information, with very rare exceptions. The indigenous policy was one of total abandonment of indigenous peoples,” said Maurício Terena.

Placing the GSI (Institutional Security Office) in the role of presiding over the SSN (National Security Secretariat) meetings was a choice made by Augusto Heleno's administration. The Supreme Court's decision mandated the creation of the SSN, but not the body that would lead it. A parallel regarding this "indigenist" role of the military can be found in the military dictatorship (1964-1985), when the SNI (National Information Service), created by the dictatorship shortly after the 1964 coup, and other military bodies, such as the CSN (National Security Council), sought to interfere and offer opinions on the progress of indigenous issues, especially regarding indigenous lands in the Amazon. Since the end of the dictatorship in 1985, neither the GSI nor its predecessor bodies in other presidential terms, such as the Military Cabinet or the Military House in the 1990s, have ever interfered in the conduct of indigenous policy as directly as they have during Bolsonaro's administration.

Pública sought information from the Presidential Palace regarding the reason why the military personnel were kept at the SSN (Special Secretariat for Social Communication). The laconic response from Secom (Special Secretariat for Social Communication) was: “The Secretariat for Social Communication will not comment.” Pública then requested Karpischin's contact information so that he could comment, but there was no response.

The colonel has already said that he was "praying" for Bolsonaro's health.

Brazilian Air Force Colonel Ivan Lucas Karpischin, who chaired the National Security Secretariat (SSN) meetings during the Bolsonaro administration and remained in that position during Lula's, held and still holds the position of Director of the Department of Defense and National Security Affairs at the Institutional Security Office (GSI). Any prior connection he had with indigenous issues was completely unknown to indigenous rights activists and indigenous people until the Bolsonaro government. In February 2021, he left his most important position to date, that of commander of the Salvador Air Base (BA). The following month, under Augusto Heleno's administration, he was appointed to a trusted position as a military advisor at the GSI. Simultaneously, he began working at the SSN.

In October 2019, in an interview on a program on Salvador's Municipal Chamber TV, Karpischin said he was "praying" for Bolsonaro. "The president... I'll say that his administration is recent. It's a four-year period, the president hasn't even completed a year yet. He has some achievements. We see a lot in the media, a lot in the news. Interestingly, we see in him the will to do, the will to accomplish. And Brazil needs... We pray that he has health and that he can choose his team well, have a good team by his side, and develop good work for the benefit of the whole country, not just the Armed Forces."

Karpischin's role is to organize meetings and mediate discussions within the SSN. For many participants, it was also his responsibility to provide guidance and demand responses from federal agencies that are part of the SSN, such as Sesai (Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health), linked to the Ministry of Health, and Funai. During the Bolsonaro administration, numerous questions about the situation of indigenous peoples were raised by non-governmental organizations in the various meetings chaired by the GSI. The case of the Yanomami humanitarian tragedy demonstrates how the response from government agencies was minimal, delayed, or nonexistent.

The establishment of the National Security Service (SSN) was determined in July 2020 by the reporting minister of ADPF 709, Luís Roberto Barroso, initially with the objective of monitoring and reducing the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on indigenous peoples. However, the SSN soon also began to address the invasions of indigenous lands by loggers and miners, among other invaders, which was another issue raised by APIB since the beginning of the lawsuit and also accepted by the Supreme Court's decisions. Simultaneously, Barroso opened a procedure demanding action from the Bolsonaro government regarding seven invaded and degraded indigenous lands in the country.

The Bruno and Dom case

At the SSN meeting in June 2022, which discussed the disappearance of indigenous rights activist Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips in the Amazon, the military officers of the GSI – including Karpischin, who chaired the meeting – expressed a doubt that caught the attention of the members of the group. According to the meeting minutes, the GSI wanted to know “if the missing persons had entered indigenous territory and if they had previously contacted FUNAI,” as if this were the most important point of the case. At that time, the two remained missing. FUNAI responded that “there is no record of them having entered indigenous territory.” It was later amply proven that Bruno and Dom did not enter the Vale do Javari indigenous land.

Upon opening the session, the GSI (Institutional Security Office) had highlighted “the importance of the matters discussed at the meeting remaining within the scope of ADPF 709, lest attention be diverted from the factually relevant issues established by the STF (Supreme Federal Court). As a point of note, it commented on the documents received by the GSI and those still under investigation by the relevant bodies.” Several participants in the meeting immediately cited the case of Bruno and Dom, which at that moment was attracting the attention of the entire country.