The world has been shaken in recent weeks by the case of the disappearance and death of a British journalist Home Phillips and his collaborator, Bruno Pereira, who were found killed after years of researching the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and the abuse of indigenous peoples in remote parts of Brazil. They were shot with hunting weapons, and the killers buried their bodies in the jungle.

Three suspected perpetrators of the murder were arrested, and one of them confessed and took the police to the places where the bodies were buried. In the moment it is being investigated whether their killings were ordered. The killings sparked a wave of protests in Brazil and around the world, with thousands demanding justice for Phillips and Pereira.

George Stamkoski is a Macedonian who has been studying and living abroad for decades, and is now back in his home country. His professional journey in Britain led him to an acquaintance, collaboration and friendship with the murdered journalist Dom Phillips. In an interview with "Free Press", Stamkoski talks about Phillips' courage in the fight against injustice and crime in Brazil, because of which he was killed. For Stamkoski, there is no doubt that the Brazilian authorities, led by the President, are involved in the murder to some extent. Jair Bolsonaro, who does not recognize global warming and has repeatedly been accused by the West of violating the rights of indigenous peoples and ruthlessly destroying the rainforests of the vast Amazon.

SP: Tell us about yourself - what was your life and professional path that took you to journalism and documentary?

- I was born in Veles, and my father Panko Stamkoski was a radio host and actor in the Stip Theater. At the age of four, I starred in the short film "Sled", Which my father did with the cameraman Koce Mitrev. To everyone's surprise, the film won festival awards in Sarajevo and Belgrade.

When I emigrated to Melbourne with my family when I was five, we visited several major Australian cities, where we performed for Macedonian communities with the folklore group Svetlost. I was constantly standing aside while my mother was dancing, and my father was performing a patriotic stand-up like the old "Donce Macedonian", feeling melancholy about the injustices to the homeland that he had to leave behind. Many Macedonians in Australia still remember Donche.

My early experiences behind the scenes and in front of the camera inspired me to work in movies, TV and media all my life. I loved the many freedoms I enjoyed growing up in Australia. But when I finished high school and saved money working in the local film industry, Europe "called me" at the age of 20. I studied film and TV in Munich and visual communications in Berlin before moving to London, just when the wars in Yugoslavia began to simmer in the late 80s.

George Stamkoski / photo: private archive

SP: Where did your acquaintance with Dom Phillips come from?

After spending ten years intensively reporting on the Yugoslav wars to the international media, the overwhelming need to shift my focus from conflict to music brought me into contact with Dom Phillips in 1997.

At the time, Dom was a highly regarded editor of the blogging magazine Mixmag, and his kind North English charm immediately infected me when we first met in his offices. It was the 30th anniversary of the so-called "Summer of Love" and we agreed to partner on the production of Clublife '98, a BBC2 music project for which we mobilized clubbers across the UK to cast their vote and shape the show. His populist touch on feeling the pulse of the nation through a Mixmag reader poll was breathtaking.

By posting strong, music-based but socially focused stories on Mixmag for a decade, Dom knew all the great British DJs. By the end of the 20th century, their talents of combining different musical styles, themes and artists had turned them into world superstars. As the author of the notes on the releases of the DJ record company Global Underground"Dom invited me and my camera to an odyssey in dance clubs, from London and Newcastle to Ibiza, Budapest, Berlin, Moscow and Buenos Aires, to film"Getting Away With It", A documentary profile of Channel 4, which followed the DJs from the record house of historical parties in international nightclubs. On the cover of the DVD, Dom quoted me as saying that my recording equipment had suffered more damage to the podiums than the entire time I covered the wars in the former Yugoslavia. It was a lot of fun for him!

SP: How did Phillips get to Brazil and the Amazon, in the fight against corruption and crime that are destroying untouched Brazilian nature?

- I taught Dom to work with a "hook" microphone, as an acoustic alternative to the "old school" pen and notebook. After exploring the storytelling, wherever our journey led, I recognized the real journalist: a determined, uncompromising seeker of truth, who naturally approached people and was rewarded when they opened up to him in return.

I was thrilled when he moved home to Brazil and married the two top loves in his life: his wife Alessandra and the healing natural beauty of Brazil. He became a front-line journalist covering the global war on nature as he uncovered the criminal plunder of indigenous countries across the Amazon. In 2019, at a press conference, Dom fearlessly accused Brazil's far-right president Jair Bolsonaro of allowing friends and supporters to get rich illegally while ruthlessly destroying the environment.

The video of this is available online. He is seen as Bolsonaro, visibly nervous, reacting and retorting to Dom that Amazon is in Brazil, not his. At that point, I think climate change denier Bolsonaro has revealed his ultimate responsibility for the murder of Dom Phillips and his colleague, expert and advocate for indigenous rights, Bruno Pereira, which happened almost exactly three years later. Bolsonaro's "signature" is also on the critically delayed permission for the Brazilian army to launch an urgent search for their disappearance in the western part of the Amazon, on Brazil's border with Peru.

SP: This is a time when it seems that the powerful are getting stronger and the public voice against injustice is getting weaker. What message does the violent death of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira send to journalism and the general public?

The complicity can be read in the midst of Bolsonaro's frequent attacks on the reporting of the House, which exposed cultural genocide and environmental injustices in Brazil, in influential newspaper articles such as the Guardian and the Times in Britain and the Washington Post. USA.

Bolsonaro's undisguised contempt for the indigenous people of the Amazon was once again demonstrated when his administration downplayed the tireless efforts of locals to identify the killers. And we are already seeing an attempt to cover up the official insistence that the local fishermen (arrested for the murder) acted alone, not on orders from above, when they shot, dismembered the bodies and tried to hide Dom and Bruno deep in the Amazon. jungle.

Home is now a lost soulmate forever. If I could somehow get in touch on his last trip, I would use my experience of reporting on conflicts in the Balkans and remind him of the importance of keeping his head down under the fire so that he can survive and fight another day. . I suspect that his idealism and belief in the sanctity of his profession as a chronicler of facts gave him a false sense of immunity, which led him to misjudge the risks he faced and to "lower the guard".

SP: Do you expect any solution, to find the culprits for the horrible act?

As the reporter in the House well knew, Truth has an incredible talent for defying its repression through lies. The full truth about who ordered the tragic killings may never come to light. However, while the deaths of Dom and Bruno may not lead to complete justice, I think they can rest in peace, knowing that this tragic ending story will inspire and encourage more truth-seekers like them in the future.

I really hope someone has access to the extensive research and interviews that Dom conducted quite a long time before he received a small grant to write his book, How to Save Amazon. It is crucial that the book be able to be compiled and published as an appropriate legacy of defiance against those who stopped it around June 6, 2022.

SP: What are your professional interests and projects at the moment?

After working outside Britain for a long time, I started moving between London and Skopje when in 1997 I started a second media production operation for my company. Volatile Media in Macedonia.

One of the most important and ambitious projects I have developed for the region of Southeast Europe is a new type of environmental series called "Green World War", which I started researching with a modest grant from the Macedonian Ministry of Culture a few years ago. This country, our neighboring region and the wider world have been shifting from one crisis to another in recent years. I feel it is the right time for people to get more involved in the problems we face, through the interactive and hopefully engaging series I have developed.

SP: What would your series: Green World War look like?

- The concept behind the series is that it must be available in all forms on TV, online, radio and in print. It has to be much more than just an actual TV series that you watch passively. Because one of its first goals is to cause, unfortunately, widespread apathy behind the false belief that we as individuals can do nothing to bring about positive change and that it is therefore not worth the effort.

I consider the series to be the basis for what I call "Think-and-do-Tank", a platform for meaningful dialogue between citizens and NGOs, business and government on environmental issues of life or death seeking solutions-oriented answers.

The planned series will aim to inform us authoritatively about the extreme dangers of our relentless attack on biodiversity and irresponsible environmental pollution. It will emphasize that we are all waging a reckless war against nature that requires a radical re-evaluation of whether the high price we are paying for this war is worth it.

- The contents that we plan to present will be of personal and political importance. I want to make a convincing argument for positive changes in the negative attitudes, habits and policies that every citizen, businessman and politician should make if we want to take victory away from the jaws of environmental defeat.

For me, the murder in Brazil of my friend Dom Phillips, a principled reporter from the front lines in the Green World War, has now given this environmental project a new sense of urgency and purpose, says Stamkoski.