rio de janeiro, aug 26 (ips) - the mystery surrounding the lack
of remains of massacred yanomami amerindians from haximu and
simao villages in brazil's roraima state could have a simple
explanation: they may have been killed in venezuela.
after taking the testimony of three survivors, franklin
rodrigues, federal prosecutor for roraima state, said he had no
doubt that a ''massacre of major proportions occurred,'' in which
up to 100 indigenous people were killed.
rodrigues said that eight bonfire sites containing human teeth
were discovered wednesday by brazilian federal police and may
have been built to burn the bodies of wounded victims who died
while fleeing venezuela.
the fire pits were laid out in a line between haximu and the
nearby venezuelan border.
the theory that the massacre occurred in venezuela is based on
testimony from a survivor by the name of antonio, who said the
indians encountered ''garimpeiros'' (illegal miners) at an
encampment on the banks of an offshoot of the orinoco river.
in this region, the border marked by the orinoco river basin
on the venezuelan side and the amazon river basin on the
brazilian side.
according to testimony, the yanomami were lured by the
garimperos, who promised food and drink. instead, the indigenous
people were massacred.
the police say that if the testimony is accurate, the illegal
gold miners camp was in venezuela. there are also miners on the
brazilian side, but not in numbers that would have been necessary
to carry out a massacre of this scope.
on thursday, an elite group of 15 agents from the federal
police went to roraima to conduct an extensive investigation of
the 30,000 hectares of land surrounding the affected villages.
a group of yanomami, headed by david kopenawa, will assist the
police in the investigation to discover what happened in the
villages. (end/ips/trd-so/rb/cs/js/eli/93)
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