‘Uncontacted’ Amazon Tribe Members Are Reported Killed in Brazil

[harrybarracuda]

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — They were members of an uncontacted tribe gathering eggs along the river in a remote part of the Amazon. Then, it appears, they had the bad luck of running into gold miners.

Now, federal prosecutors in Brazil have opened an investigation into the reported massacre of about 10 members of the tribe, the latest evidence that threats to endangered indigenous groups are on the rise in the country.

The Brazilian agency on indigenous affairs, Funai, said it had lodged a complaint with the prosecutor’s office in the state of Amazonas after the gold miners went to a bar in a near the border with Colombia, and bragged about the killings. They brandished a hand-carved paddle that they said had come from the tribe, the agency said.

“It was crude bar talk,” said Leila Silvia Burger Sotto-Maior, Funai’s coordinator for uncontacted and recently contacted tribes. “They even bragged about cutting up the bodies and throwing them in the river.”

The miners, she said, claimed that “they had to kill them or be killed.”

Ms. Sotto-Maior said the killings were reported to have taken place last month. The indigenous affairs bureau conducted some initial interviews in the town and then took the case to the police.

“There is a lot of evidence, but it needs to be proven,” she said.

The prosecutor in charge of the case, Pablo Luz de Beltrand, confirmed that an investigation had begun, but said he could not discuss the details of the case while it was underway. He said the episode was alleged to have occurred in the Javari Valley — the second-largest indigenous reserve in Brazil — in the remote west.

“We are following up, but the territories are big and access is limited,” Mr. Beltrand said. “These tribes are uncontacted — even Funai has only sporadic information about them. So it’s difficult work that requires all government departments working together.”

Mr. Beltrand said it was the second such episode that he was investigating this year. The first reported killing of uncontacted Indians in the region occurred in February, and that case is still open. “It was the first time that we’d had this kind of case in this region,” he said in a telephone interview. “It’s not something that was happening before.”

Survival International, a global indigenous rights group, warned that given the small sizes of the uncontacted Amazon tribes, this latest episode could mean that a significant percentage of a remote ethnic group was wiped out.

“If the investigation confirms the reports, it will be yet another genocidal massacre resulting directly from the Brazilian government’s failure to protect isolated tribes — something that is guaranteed in the Constitution,” said Sarah Shenker, a senior campaigner with the rights group.

Under Brazil’s president, Michel Temer, funding for indigenous affairs has been slashed. In April, Funai closed five of the 19 bases that it uses to monitor and protect isolated tribes, and reduced staffing at others. The bases are used to prevent invasions by loggers and miners and to communicate with recently contacted tribes.

Three of those bases were in the Javari Valley, which is known as the Uncontacted Frontier and is believed to be home to more uncontacted tribes than anywhere else on Earth. Approximately 20 of the 103 uncontacted tribes registered in Brazil are in the Valley.

“We had problems with previous governments, but not like this,” said Ms. Sotto-Maior, the Funai coordinator.

Her agency’s budget this year for the uncontacted tribes department was just two million reais, or about $650,000, down from 7.5 million reais in 2014. “What can I do with two million reais?” she said.

President Temer, who is deeply unpopular, has sought support from powerful agricultural, ranching and mining lobbies to push economic changes through Congress and shelter him from a corruption investigation. Last month, the lower house of Congress voted to spare him from standing trial for corruption in the Supreme Court, but only after the president doled out jobs and agreed to a series of concessions, many of which affected longstanding deforestation and land-rights regulations.

A decree by Mr. Temer that opened up a large reserve in the Amazon to mining prompted an international outcry. After a judge blocked the decree, the government announced that it would revise its decision, but critics are wary.

With land disputes on the rise in many remote areas of Brazil, indigenous groups, rural workers and land activists have all been targeted by violence. More than 50 people had been killed as of the end of July, compared with 61 in all of 2016, according to the Land Pastoral Commission.

In some cases, government or police agents have been blamed for the violence. The authorities are investigating one police raid in the Amazon region that ended with 10 activists being killed. No officers were injured.

Activists worry that the country’s indigenous groups — and especially the uncontacted tribes — are the most vulnerable when it comes to land disputes.

“When their land is protected, they thrive,” said Ms. Shenker, the rights campaigner. “When their land is invaded, they can be wiped out.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/10/w...ings.html?_r=0

[Grampa]

Terrible news.

Greed leads to killing once again.

[TuskegeeBen]

Terrible news.

Greed leads to killing once again.

Indeed!

[Wilsonandson]

Not just murders but the poisoning of rivers with mercury, all in the quest of a shiney piece of metal.

[Dragonfly]

Jungle tribe vs Neerdentals miners ? who will survive the food chain ?

[harrybarracuda]

Jungle tribe vs Neerdentals miners ? who will survive the food chain ?

Neerdentals?

Was he a famous Belgian goalie or something?

[wasabi]

Brazil has the largest population of Neanderthals living outside of Africa.

[bsnub]

I have always felt that the UN should take over the Amazon and run it as a protected world park. Of course Brazil would not agree with that.

[HuangLao]

I have always felt that the UN should take over the Amazon and run it as a protected world park. Of course Brazil would not agree with that.

Not a bad idea, actually. Though, being highly suspicious of anything United Nations, a forced upon declaration by UNESCO to include the greater Amazon region [over all borders] as a World Heritage site might be a step in the right direction. Other world areas could use a good dose of this unified doctrine -

[bsnub]

^ The Amazon is the lungs of the planet and contains many unfound medical cures. It really need to be protected by any means necessary at this point.

[Passing Through]

^ You could begin protecting it by eating a plant-based diet. Or would that be asking too much?

[terry57]

Maybe those nasty North Koreans could Nuke em.

[Latindancer]

^ You could begin protecting it by eating a plant-based diet. Or would that be asking too much?

I have been vegetarian for 41 years now !

Give it a go, Snubbie.....you'll lose a heap of that alleged lard.

[harrybarracuda]

Brazil has the largest population of Neanderthals living outside of Africa.

Yeah but how many "Neerdentals" have they got?

[wasabi]

Too many the Favelas are chocking full of Neanderthals.

[CaptainNemo]

Not a bad idea, actually. Though, being highly suspicious of anything United Nations, a forced upon declaration by UNESCO to include the greater Amazon region [over all borders] as a World Heritage site might be a step in the right direction. Other world areas could use a good dose of this unified doctrine -

This is the problem... the naive young (or otherwise incipient) see the handing over the management of something to some public-funded benign administration - like a force of goodies - as the answer to everything... the trouble starts when you fill that benign adminstration full of humans, and it rapidly become political, corrupt, and rotten. Anyone with any experience of government/public sector bodies or transnational institutions (such as the EU) can testify to this. Ultimately you need to put property rights in the hands of people with a sincere commitment or tangible interest in looking after it - and to enforce/support those property rights... give the Amazon back to the Amazonians not to the UN.