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Massacre in the Jungle. How an Indigenous man was made the public face of an atrocity by Alex Quadros, read by Philippi Pacheco.

At the federal courthouse of Villena, in the southern reaches of the Amazon basin,

Nacosa Piu Sinta Larga limped to his seat, using one hand to steady himself on a table.

In the air-conditioned chill and the fluorescent glare, his crown of black and brown feathers

shuddered with each step, a lonely reminder of the rainforest beyond the white-painted walls.

A Brazilian flag hung limply in one corner, the national motto, order and progress, concealed in its

faults. The prosecution says that on the 7th of April 2004, around 11 a.m. in the gully of

tranquility, you, sir, together with other members of your tribe, took the lives of several prospectors.

Judge Raphael Slumpie began. Pale, even for a white man, Slumpy wore a pink button-up shirt beneath his robes. His

goatee was immaculately trimmed, his tone bland, emotionless, entirely mismatched to the crimes he was describing.

He listed 29 victims, 12 never identified.

A massacre.

He said that, hands tied, they had been unable to defend themselves, an aggravating factor.

The prosecution also alleges a base motive, he went on,

that the indigenous people who committed these acts

wanted to keep anyone else from mining diamonds on their lands.

Greed, in other words.

Pugh looked back at Slompy through wire-rimmed glasses.

His right eyelid drooped, half hiding a prosthetic eye.

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