Indigenous people in trouble because of illegal gold prospectors
By Thomas Milz (KNA)
The images of emaciated indigenous children caused horror throughout Brazil in January 2023. The government of Jair Messias Bolsonaro, which had just left office at the time, had deliberately accepted the precarious situation in the Yanomami reserve, journalists explained at the time. They even spoke of a “genocide” of the indigenous people in the face of disease and hunger. But one year later, the tragedy continues unchanged. Even the new government has not succeeded in driving the illegal gold miners out of the region.
The left-wing president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had made the protection of the indigenous people a priority. One day after the media reported in early 2023 that a total of 570 children under the age of five had died in the reserve between 2019 and 2022 under Bolsonaro’s government, Lula rushed to the northern Amazon region with an entourage of ministers and many promises. He declared a public health emergency in the Yanomami reserve to great media effect.
Since then, the government has spent the equivalent of around 200 million euros on protecting the area and the 30,000 indigenous people living there; around 2,000 doctors have been sent to the region. But little has improved. From January to November 2023, 308 indigenous people died in the reserve, including 162 children under the age of 5. Of these, 104 were infants under the age of one. Cases of malaria, influenza and diarrhoea have recently increased again, and dozens of indigenous people have died of starvation.
A few weeks ago, Lula announced that he would make the protection of the Yanomami a top priority. However, he had already made similar promises a year earlier, noted critical media. “The government has failed to save the lives of the Yanomami,” wrote the Amazon portal “Sumauma”, which is otherwise favourable to the government. “I would say that the government has underestimated the problem,” said Estevan Senra from the NGO Instituto Socioambiental, referring to the illegal gold prospectors.
In a statement on Thursday, the Catholic Indigenous Missionary Council Cimi described the measures taken as “insufficient and ineffective”. The government had not set up permanent controls, including airspace, and had not taken action against the gold prospectors’ supply lines. The most serious accusation, however, is that the Lula government has given in to pressure from local elites who are protecting the gold prospectors. The military, for example, is not carrying out the order to drive out the gold seekers.
Since the development of the northern Amazon region in the 1970s, there have been repeated violent clashes between the Yanomami and white gold prospectors. At the 1992 climate conference in Rio de Janeiro, the then government established the indigenous area in response to international pressure. At around 100,000 square kilometres, the “Terra Indigena Yanomami” is still the largest reserve in Brazil today.
This does not guarantee protection from intruders. This is also due to the size and remoteness of the area. Under the Bolsonaro government, the number of illegal gold prospectors working there increased to up to 20,000. Their reckless digging contaminates the rivers with mercury and brings in uncontrolled diseases.
In addition, the activity of drug gangs in the area has also increased. In addition to Brazilian gangs, which have been fighting for years over the smuggling routes through the Amazon, Colombian and Venezuelan gangs are now also active there. Bolsonaro, who has always spoken out in favour of the economic development of the indigenous territories, has been called upon several times by the judiciary to take action against the intruders. However, commando operations by the seemingly unwilling military were unsuccessful.
Although the new government wants to re-staff the control authorities that were thinned out by Bolsonaro, such as the indigenous authority Funai, there is still a lack of adequate controls. It is true that the activities of gold prospectors fell by up to 80 per cent in the first half of 2023 following the government’s initial successful actions. However, most of them quickly returned afterwards.
The criminal gangs often enter the reserve from Venezuelan territory, according to media reports. Meanwhile, the remote, difficult-to-access area poses major logistical problems for the government. For example, it was not possible to distribute around 40,000 aid packages intended for the Yanomami to the indigenous people, wrote the portal “G1” this week.
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