Telephone:(202) 387-3500
Facsimile:(202) 234-6049
EcoNet edf
Internet wild@edf.org or steves@edf.org
Date: August 18, 1993
I have received the following action alert regarding the massacre of a group
Yanomami Indians from Steve Schwartzman (of EDF) who is currently in
Brazil. Please distribute this alert as widely as possible and write or fax (as
requested in the alert) the Brazilian Minister of Justice requesting an
investigation and that the responsible parties be brought to justice.
______________________________________________________________________
URGENT ACTION
MASSACRE OF YANOMAMI INDIANS IN RORAIMA
18/08/93
Between fourteen and nineteen Yanomami Indians were massacred by
goldminers between the Hemosh and Xidea villages in the Yanomami
territory in roraima state in the northern Brazilian Amazon. The dead
include men, women and children who were decapitated with machetes,
according to a telex from the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) Roraima
to the agency's president in Brasilia. The immediate motivation for the
killings is unknown. Federal police have gone to the area. This is clearly a
consequence of the impunity guaranteed the gold mine operators by local
politicians and the omission of the federal government.
The legal recognition, or demarcation, of the Yanomami territory in November
1991 brought Brazil's Collor de Mello government international credibility
on human rights and the environment. Some 20,000 Yanomami, many still
highly isolated from the outside world, inhabit forests of the Brazil-
Venezuela border, with about 10,000 in Brazil. A gold rush began in the
mid-eighties, and by 1987 some 50,000 goldminers had invaded the Yanomami
land, bringing virulent malaria and epidemic diseases. Indigenous, human
rights and environmental organizations in Brazil and internationally called
insistently for the legal and physical demarcation of the Yanomami
territory, and removal of the miners. Many of the miners were removed at
the end of 1990, under federal court order, but military ministers, mining
interests and the local political elite blocked the demarcation, arguing
that recognizing the entire 9.2 million hectare area inhabited by the
Yanomami in the border region represented a threat to Brazil's national
security. In 1991, Minister of Justice Jarbas Passarinho, finding the
national security arguments baseless, demarcated the area. The military
nonetheless recently raised the specter of "Internationalization of the
Amazon" through foreign interference in Indian areas in the region,
convening an extraordinary meeting of the Committee for National Defense to
discuss the issue.
Indigenous and indigenous rights organizations had for the last year warned
that reinvasions of the area, cleared of miners after the demarcation, would
spread fatal illnesses and lead to violent conflict between the Indians and
goldminers. In May, Yanomami leader Davi Yanomami on a visit to the United
States, asked members of the U.S. Congress and the US Secretary of the
Interior Bruce Babbit to pressure the Brazilian government to prevent
further reinvasions. There are at present some 600 goldminers working in
the area.
PLEASE FAX OR WRITE, requesting a complete investigation of the case
and punishment for the guilty parties, to:
Ilmo Sr.
Ministro da Justicia
Mauricio Correa
Ministerio da Justicia
Esplanada dos Ministerios Bl. T.
70.064 Brasilia DF
BRAZIL
Fax 011 55 61 224 0954
with copy to:
Ilmo. Sr.
Rubens Ricupero
Embassador of Brazil
Embassy of Brazil
3006 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20008
Fax 202 745 2827
or with a copy to the Ambassador of Brazil in your country.
Steve Schwartzman/Bruce Rich
Environmental Defense Fund