In now-viral video of a 2016 interview, Brazil’s president says he would have human flesh
It’s a shocking statement, even for a politician who glorified torturers and called for the shooting of his rivals.
“I would eat an Indian, without any challenge,” Bolsonaro boasted to a foreign journalist in 2016, as he described an indigenous network where he was allegedly presented with the opportunity to consume human flesh.
Indigenous leaders have dismissed Bolsonaro’s boasting as a lie through Brazil’s far-right president. The other Yanomami in the territory Bolsonaro claims to have visited say they have never participated in such acts.
However, photographs of Bolsonaro’s comments about cannibalism, first posted on his official YouTube channel six years ago, went viral on social media and seized by Brazil’s opposition as further evidence of the president’s depravity.
“Bolsonaro has revealed that he will eat human flesh,” read a television ad produced by Bolsonaro’s leftist rival, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, on Friday after the comments were discovered.
Lula nearly defeated Bolsonaro in the first round of Brazil’s presidential election last Sunday and hopes to finish the job when 156 million Brazilians vote in a second-round showdown between the two men on Oct. 30.
In its efforts to re-elect Lula, Brazil’s president from 2003 to 2010, his crusade delved into Bolsonaro’s catalogue of callous and inflammatory statements.
A recent Lula ad shows Bolsonaro pushing a politician and calling her a “bitch. “In another scene, the right-winger mocks Covid sufferers and pretends to be out of breath.
But Friday’s crusade announcement is perhaps the most shocking yet.
Bolsonaro’s communications minister, Fábio Faria, called Lula’s announcement “fake news” and claimed the comments had been distorted. Bolsonaro’s lawyers have called on the electoral government to ban advertising.
An investigation of the full 76-minute interview with New York Times reporter Simon Romero leaves little doubt about the nature of Bolsonaro’s comments.
After describing the anguish he witnessed on a stopover in Haiti, Bolsonaro moves from talking about “unhygienic” Haitian women providing sex to allegations of cannibalism allegedly perpetrated in Yanomami territory in the Amazon.
“There this time when I in Surucuru. . . and a dead Indian and they were cooking it. They cook Indians. It’s their culture,” Bolsonaro says to the correspondent’s obvious perplexity.
“Their bodies?” The journalist responds.
“Their bodies,” confirms Bolsonaro.
“But to eat?” the reporter asks.
“Yes, to eat,” replied Bolsonaro, then a difficult deputy to understand. “They cook it for two or 3 days and then eat it with bananas. you have to eat it. ” I’m going to eat it,” I said. But no one else in my organization sought to go. . . So I didn’t go. But I would eat an Indian, without any challenge. . It’s their culture. “
Yanomami leaders and anthropologists have denounced Bolsonaro’s “delusional” claims and prejudices. “My other friends are not cannibals. . . This does not exist and never existed, not even among our ancestors,” Yanomami activist Júnior Yanomami told the newspaper Folha de São Paulo.
“Bolsonaro is a compulsive liar,” tweeted Sônia Guajajara, an indigenous leader who has just been elected to Congress.
Lula denied spreading false information. ” I saw the pictures. . . It’s not an invention, we just let other people know what our opponent is like,” he told his supporters, saying foreigners have moved away from Brazil “for fear of the cannibal. “”
On Saturday, an initial ruling through an election ruling ordered Lula’s Workers’ Party (PT) to withdraw an ad that could damage Bolsonaro’s reputation and affect “the integrity of the electoral process. “The ruling argued that Bolsonaro’s comments “refer to an express party in an indigenous community, lived in accordance with the values and morals existing in that society. “
The resolution gave the impression of closing the solid door after the horse ran away. On Sunday, social media was flooded with mentions of “cannibal Bolsonaro” and memes comparing the president to Hannibal Lecter and serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Images of Bolsonaro have been viewed millions of times