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Today we thought it would be just another day of long meetings; however, we were in for a shocking surprise. Who could have imagined that among the 35 people sitting in our circle to plan this year’s strategy was a traitor? Luckily one of the activists with sharp eyes realized that someone was recording the meetings using a spy camera hidden inside a pen.
This man recording these meetings with his hidden camera had been working as a volunteer with the Xingu Alive Forever Movement since last year. It turns out he was being paid by the Belo Monte Construction Consortium (CCBM) to infiltrate the Movement’s meetings in order to gather information on its leaders and activities. His role was to inform these details to the Brazilian government’s national intelligence agency, ABIN.
Everyone involved was left with mixed emotions about this incident. In the beginning it was mostly sadness for having been betrayed by someone we trusted. Then the stress set in with all the commotion this caused and from the potential implications this could have for our work.
To us it is very strange to see that the ABIN is wasting their time on us instead of looking for real criminals like the CCBM. Deep inside it makes me feel that we are doing something right.
