[crowd] chanting in Sinhala
[Matthew] The people in this country say that
Gotabaya fled because he was escaping prosecution.
They blame the president
for destroying its economy.
[person] If I pay taxes,
all these politicians will steal our money.
[person] They're gonna fatten their pockets.
-I don't know. -You're their lawyer.
[laughs]
[Isobel] The number of evangelicals in Brazil
has grown exponentially.
Since Bolsonaro's been in power,
he's chipped away at environmental protections.
Indigenous people here say
that missionaries are changing the culture.
Oh, we know they have.
[person] speaking Portuguese
[Isobel] What would it mean to you
if the missionaries were allowed
to expand their footprint?
dramatic music
- Aah!
[person yelling in native language through loudspeaker]
[crowd] chanting in Sinhala
We are in Central Colombo
where hundreds of these
student protestors
are right now making their way
towards President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's house.
They blame the president
and his whole family that rule this country
for destroying its economy, and they want to
see them removed from power.
Where are you going?
[Matthew] But there's many police.
[Matthew] Sri Lanka, an island nation in South Asia
home to 22 million people
has long been divided along ethnic lines.
After emerging from
a 26-year-long civil war in 2009,
it became the region's fastest-growing economy
and a popular tourist destination.
But corruption and mismanagement
by the ruling family, the Rajapaksas,
followed by the pandemic and soaring inflation,
have caused the country's worst-ever financial crisis.
We are presently undergoing
a serial economy crisis
that has profoundly impacted the lives
of all Sri Lankans.
[Matthew] The situation has pushed Sri Lankans
to their breaking point
and united people from all walks of life
against the Rajapaksas.
[crowd] chanting in Sinhala
intense music
[crowd cheering, whooping]
After the protestors faced off with--
After the protestors came here
and faced off against riot police,
they were dispersed, but they've since returned.
They're moving the police barricades
and pushing the riot police back.
speaking Sinhala
[Matthew] The Rajapaksas have created
a controversial legacy during their rule
for much of the last two decades.
They first rose to power during the Civil War
when Mahinda, the eldest brother,
became president in 2005
when Gotabaya was defense secretary.
They were accused of committing
wide-spread war crimes as they crushed the rebellion
by ethnic Tamil Hindu separatists.
But to the majority Sinhalese Buddhist community,
they were heroes for ending the war.
speaking Sinhala
[Matthew] In 2015, the Rajapaksas
were voted out, amid allegations
that they embezzled billions into foreign bank accounts.
But four years later,
after attacks by the Islamic state
killed more than 300 people, Gotabaya won the presidency,
promising to restore security to the country.
His presidential immunity
meant corruption charges against him were dropped,
and he promised to stop investigations
into allegations of war crimes.
[Matthew] He appointed Mahinda as his prime minister
and other relatives to key cabinet positions,
returning the dynasty to power.
Since then, their policies
have bankrupted the country.
They introduced massive tax cuts
while Sri Lanka owed billions to foreign lenders.
Soon after, the country's central bank went broke
[Rajapaksa] speaking Sinhala
When Sri Lanka ran out of foreign reserves in May,
it became really difficult for this country
to import basic goods like cooking gas,
medicine, and fuel.
So now what you're seeing are lines like this
at gas stations all across the country
where people have been waiting hours,
some even days, just to fill up.
What are these guys-- they're pushing.
They don't have any petrol.
[Matthew] Mohammed Imran, a father of four,
drives his own tuk-tuk,
the three-wheeled taxi
that many Sri Lankans rely on to make a living.
[Mohammed] speaking Sinhala
What are you gonna do if you can't get fuel today
for your tuk-tuk?
[Matthew] Even once staunch supporters of the Rajapaksas
are turning against them.
M.A. Mahinda is an army veteran.
He lost a leg fighting under the Rajapaksas
in the Civil War.
Now he wants to see them go.
speaking Sinhala
[Matthew] As you said, the politicians
have divided this country.
Do you think that Sri Lankans need to come together
in order to fix the problems?
[chanting continues]
[Matthew] The veterans are part of an encampment
that was set up in April
outside of the president's office,
calling on Rajapaksa to resign.
Swasthika Arulingam is a human rights lawyer
and activist who's become a prominent figure
in the protest movement.
[Swasthika] This is unprecedented,
several classes coming together,
calling for a particular regime change.
That can only come about
if there's a deep economy crisis.
[Matthew] There's been this narrative
that Sri Lanka's problems are all the fault
of the Rajapaksas and their government.
Would you say that's accurate?
[Swasthika] The Rajapaksa government used the problems
which already existed in our economic system
to enrich their family,
which is almost like a monarch system
where you pay the king some money
in order to get something done in the country.
So what happened that brought all these people
out here to the streets to protest them?
[Swasthika] It's this deep material crisis,
the crisis of existence,
which actually brought so many people to Colombo
because they have nothing to lose.
They're starving, they're on the streets,
so what do you have to lose?
So you come and push for a regime change.
[overlapping shouting]
[Matthew] But that push for change has come at a cost.
In May, Rajapaksa supporters,
many bused in from the countryside,
attacked a protestors' camp, destroying their tents.
In response, anti-government crowds
torched properties belonging to the Rajapaksas
and their allies.
Nine people died in the violence.
Prime Minister Mahinda
and other Rajapaksas resigned,
but the president stayed on
as protests against him grew.
They reached their peak on July 9th,
when demonstrators stormed several government buildings,
including the president's home and office.
[crowd] chanting in Sinhala
They even went for a dip in his pool.
Imran, the tuk-tuk driver we met weeks earlier.
was part of the crowd.
[Matthew] It's beautiful, huh?
What is this space?
speaking Sinhala
[Matthew] It was Gotabaya's seat.
[both chuckle]
[Imran] speaking Sinhala
[Matthew] The occupations of his home and office
forced President Rajapaksa to flee the country.
From exile in Singapore, he submitted his resignation,
leaving Parliament, which is still controlled
by the Rajapaksas' political party
in charge of deciding his successor.
dramatic music
Premnath Dolawatte began as a lawyer for the Rajapaksas
and now represents their party in Parliament.
When you learned that he fled the country,
how did you feel?
Now I feel very sorry for him.
I-I think if
these, uh, violent people had catched him,
if they-- it'll be like Libya.
So is that why you think he fled the country,
'cause he was scared for his life?
Yes, of course.
I-I'm ashamed of our people.
There's a lot of people in this country
who say that Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled
because he was escaping prosecution for his crimes
like corruption.
-No. -What do you say to that?
No, I don't agree, because anybody can be accused
for any accusation.
It should be proven
until they prove guilty the actions.
But do Mahinda or Gotabaya Rajapaksa
or their immediate relatives,
do they have millions
-in overseas accounts? -I'm not aware.
-You're not aware. -I'm not aware.
You're the-- you're their lawyer.
-[laughing] -No one is probably
-better aware than you. -I don't know.
-You don't know. -I don't know.
moody music
[Matthew] Even if allies of the Rajapaksas
are adamant there's no proof of wrongdoing,
economists say that as long as people
feel their leaders are corrupt,
it'll be hard to get the country back on track.
We'll have to make lot of hard choices.
You know, a lot of choices that are politically unpopular.
What kinds of things are we talking about?
[Umesh] So to start with, we'll have to significantly
increase the taxes.
I tell people, "If you want to fix the country,
you need to pay tax."
And then the answer I get very often is
that if I pay taxes,
Rajapaksas and all these politicians
will steal our money.
They're gonna fatten their pockets with it.
[Umesh] Yes. So there has to be some action taken
against these people who engage in corruption
so that people have more faith in the system.
[Matthew] Despite the urgent need to restore confidence,
on July 20th, Parliament held an emergency vote
and elected as president Ranil Wickremesinghe,
a six-time prime minister and ally of the Rajapaksas.
speaking Sinhala
[Matthew] While the ruling party
patted themselves on the back,
demonstrators were furious.
They see Wickremesinghe as a continuation
of the regime they'd hoped to topple
and a leader who won't tolerate dissent.
[crowd repeating]
[Matthew] That violence came hours after
Wickremesinghe was sworn in.
Under the cover of darkness,
the new president ordered security forces
to beat back protestors from his office.
[crowd chatter]
Police stopped us from getting to the scene,
but we managed to get through to an activist
who was still there.
Why do you think the police and the army
are doing this now?
[Matthew] Are you going to stay there?
speaking Sinhala
moody music
[Matthew] More than 50 protestors
were injured that night,
and the next morning, riot police lined the streets.
Arulingam and the other activists
were still coming to terms
with how far their movement had come,
only to find themselves back where they started.
Colombo this morning looks a lot different
than it did yesterday.
We expected Ranil Wickremesinghe
to crack down on protestors, but we did not expect him
to act so quickly,
within 24 hours of him taking oath.
How do you feel, looking back at the last hundred days
and where you've ended up, now, today?
[Swasthika] It's like we take ten steps forward,
and then we fall 20 steps behind.
-Go, Ranil! -[crowd] Go home!
[Swasthika] We have called Parliament
to not vote him into power as the president,
and they did the exact opposite.
The issue at stake here is democracy,
and without democracy, we cannot come out of
this economy crisis.
If we don't go for a general election right now,
this economy crisis will continue,
this instability will continue, and more people are going to
go into further and further desperation,
and more people are going to die.
heavy music
[people chanting indistinctly]
[Bruno] speaking Portuguese
[congregation responding]
[Isobel] Every week,
evangelical pastor Bruno Brito
preaches to thousands in his Sao Paulo megachurch
and online.
[congregation] speaking Portuguese
[applause]
[Isobel] Evangelicalism
is growing fast in Brazil,
accounting for about a third of the population,
and on track to overtake Catholicism
as the dominant religion in the next decade.
And evangelicals vote.
That means celebrity churches like these
can wield immense political influence,
especially in an election year
when both presidential candidates
are looking for endorsements,
if not from God himself,
then the next best thing.
[congregation whooping]
[chanting]
Current right wing president Jair Bolsonaro
came to power on the votes of evangelicals.
He's since repaid that favor.
He's appointed evangelical ministers
to the Supreme Court and other positions of power,
and he's looking to the evangelical block
to secure a second term.
But this year, he'll be challenged
by leftist icon Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
who's appealing directly to the working poor,
many of whom are also evangelical.
[person] speaking Portuguese
Do you think the evangelical church
has been able to grow and expand
because of the support of the government?
How much more can it grow?
speaking Portuguese
[Isobel] Missionary work is central to evangelicals
who take seriously the Bible's directive
to make disciples of all nations.
The ultimate place to recruit new Christians
is the Amazon, and many of the people coming
are from the U.S.
[narrator] How do you plant a church among tribal people?
How do you reach the unreachable?
[missionary] We do as much as we can do
until we're told to stop.
We get out there on the edge and we keep trying to push.
[Isobel] These missionaries are compelled by the prospect
of reaching the last isolated people
on earth, so the same evangelicals
who have an outsized impact
on conservative politics in the U.S.
are now influencing politics far from home.
dramatic chords
We're just heading towards the Javari Valley
where there are the largest concentration
of uncontacted tribes in the world.
These people have obviously never heard of the Bible.
Some of them have never heard of Jesus Christ,
which makes this area very, very appealing
to Christian evangelical missionaries.
The Javari Valley is one of the most dangerous
and endangered areas in Brazil.
It's home to thousands of Indigenous people
and at least ten tribes
who are still completely uncontacted
by the outside world.
For decades, Brazil's official policy
has been to leave these uncontacted tribes alone.
But some missionaries were still trying to
make contact, even as COVID ravaged the Amazon,
causing death rates 250 times higher
than the rest of the population.
Indigenous groups sued to get the missionaries out,
and they won.
The victory was historic,
but now that COVID is subsiding,
the worry is that missionaries will be allowed to return.
[group humming, chanting]
Eliésio Marubo grew up in the valley.
He's now a lawyer,
and argued the case on behalf of Indigenous groups.
He wants the missionaries gone for good.
We met him having just undergone
an ayahuasca ceremony,
a spiritual cleansing, he said,
to prepare him for his next fight.
[Eliésio] speaking Portuguese
How much of a threat do you see American missionaries
as being?
[Isobel] Over the decades, missionaries
have promised tribes a better life
through schooling, healthcare, and Christianity.
[missionary] speaking Portuguese
[Isobel] But to tribes with no natural immunity
against disease, contact meant devastation.
After this tribe is contacted by the Americans,
a quarter of their members died from flu and malaria.
Missionaries did bring medical aid,
but that aid came with preaching attached.
[Aldair] speaking Kanamari
[Isobel] What would it mean to you if
all these Indigenous communities
were converted and the missionaries stayed
and were allowed to expand their footprint?
speaking Portuguese
[Isobel] But that's not how Bolsonaro sees things.
[person shouting through loudspeaker]
His disdain for Indigenous groups is evident.
On one occasion, when arguing
that tribal people should become more integrated,
he said they were becoming more human.
speaking Portuguese
[Isobel] And it's not just words.
Bolsonaro has opened up the Amazon
to mining and ranching, causing deforestation to soar
while enforcement of criminal activity has dropped.
A major casualty of this approach
is the government agency FUNAI.
Tasked with protecting Indigenous groups,
it should be responsible
for enforcing the ban on missionaries.
but Bolsonaro has gutted it.
FUNAI declined our official request for an interview,
but a current employee agreed to speak with us anyway,
even though criticizing Bolsonaro
meant putting his job at risk.
[laughter, chatter]
[Paul] Right when he took over office,
a lot of the things he said...
have made people
more tenacious, right?
More--more and feeling more entitled
to go into indigenous lands
and take whatever they want.
Why is it, do you think,
that the Brazilian state is not putting the resources
into the FUNAI agency
in order to protect these Indigenous people?
I think the Brazilian state
does what it's interested in doing.
And it is not news to anybody
that this government has a wide support base
within these evangelicals.
And over the last few years, I mean,
have you seen any evidence
that these missionaries are trying to go in--
or have gone into the Javari Valley?
Oh, we know they have.
[Isobel] For missionaries, there's money
as well as souls at stake here.
International missions receive billions
from evangelical churches and donors every year
Many of these missionaries base themselves
in Atalaia do Norte,
the final frontier town
on the border of the valley itself.
Josiah McIntyre has lived here for years
with his wife and children.
He was born and raised in Alabama,
and still goes back to preach.
My prayer was, "Lord, just bring everything
to the surface, to the light."
It says nothing's gonna be hidden.
But you have the lying tongue of the media
trying to cover things up, and people are believing it.
[Isobel] McIntyre was one of three missionaries
named in Marubo's lawsuit,
accused of plotting to reach an uncontacted tribe.
He denies the allegations
and insists he's just there to help local kids
while teaching them about Christ.
You know, there are Indigenous people here
who say that missionaries don't benefit their community.
Is there any truth to that? I mean, that you are
changing the culture, that you are
manipulating people to think a different way,
to, you know... - No.
...what their culture is?
If that's the case,
then teaching them two plus two's wrong.
Because it's better just for them--
'cause I just changed their culture,
I've taught them mathematics.
I've never pushed anything
to try to change their culture.
Here, alcoholism shoved down their throats,
and then all the drugs that they're becomin' into.
And then they're starting to turn into homosexuality
and all this kinda stuff.
I mean, it's gonna destroy things.
Does this kind of pushback, though,
from, you know, the local Indigenous community
make you think about whether you should be here
or not or whether you're welcome or not?
No, because they know-- they know it's not true.
A lot of it, I'm sure, is political, just...
I guess I'm part of that political target.
[Isobel] Missionaries have been successful
in converting Indigenous people,
Only now, some converts
also want foreign missionaries out.
Nakwa Mayorun was converted in this church ten years ago.
[Nakwa] speaking Portuguese
[Isobel] What did your life look like
before you found God?
[Isobel] Nakwa knows that his people
are under threat, but to him,
the answer is more Christianity, not less,
and he wants to be the one to spread it.
Are you worried at all about
the erosion of Indigenous culture?
[Isobel] Whether Bolsonaro wins a second term
or is voted out,
it will be evangelicals who decide.
Whether they know it or not, they'll be voting
not only for their country,
but also for the future of the Amazon
and those who call it home.
speaking Portuguese
[dramatic musical sting]
dramatic music