Brazil’s president Bolsonaro claims Leonardo DiCaprio paid for Amazon fires – “Our negligent and incompetent president, responsible for an environmental dismantling unprecedented in our country, wants to blame DiCaprio”
By Tom Phillips
29 November 2019
(The Guardian) – Brazil’s president has falsely accused the actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio of bankrolling the deliberate incineration of the Amazon rainforest.
Jair Bolsonaro – a populist nationalist who has vowed to drive environmental NGOs from Brazil – made the claim on Friday, reportedly telling supporters: “This Leonardo DiCaprio’s a cool guy, isn’t he? Giving money for the Amazon to be torched.”
The spurious accusation – for which Brazil’s president offered no proof – came 24 hours after Bolsonaro made a similarly unsubstantiated claim in a Facebook live broadcast.
“Leonardo DiCaprio, dammit, you’re collaborating with the burning of the Amazon,” Bolsonaro declared, accusing the actor of being part of an international “campaign against Brazil”.
Bolsonaro’s unsubstantiated allegations relate to the controversial arrest on Tuesday of four volunteer firefighters whom local police accused – also apparently without evidence – of setting fire to the forest in order to boost fundraising efforts for an international NGO.
The firefighters were released on Thursday amid widespread public outrage at their treatment and questions over the police investigation.
On Thursday Bolsonaro’s politician son Eduardo claimed on Twitter that DiCaprio had donated $300,000 (£230,000) to “the NGO that set fire to the Amazon” and accused the conservation group WWF of paying the NGO about £13,000 for photographs of the burning forest.
WWF’s Brazil office rejected those claims. “WWF Brazil rejects the attacks on its partners and the lies involving its name, including a series of lie-based social media attacks such as the purchase of photographs linked to a donation from the actor Leonardo DiCaprio,” it said in a statement. […]
“How desperate,” tweeted Randolfe Rodrigues, a senator from the Amazon state of Amapá. “Our negligent and incompetent president – responsible for an environmental dismantling unprecedented in our country – wants to blame DiCaprio but won’t blame his own administration which is incapable of taking a single step without destroying something.” [more]
