MASSACRE OF YANOMAMI INDIANS BEGINS TO BE CLEARED UP
The doubts about the massacre of Yanomami Indians are beginning to
be cleared up. According to the Army and the Federal Police, the Indians
were killed in Venezuela, 15 km from the border with Brazil. Eighteen
Indians were murdered, according to anthropologist Bruce Albert, from
the University of Brasi'lia, who has been researching the Yanomami for
many years. According to the Brazilian government, the massacre was
committed by Brazilian miners.
The attorney general of the Republic, Aristides Junqueira, continues
to describe the incident as a genocide. The latest information gathered on
the massacre led the Brazilian Justice Department to sign a technical
cooperation agreement with the Department of Justice of Venezuela. Brazil
will provide all the necessary information for investigations to be carried
out in the neighboring Country as well.
The data provided below, which helps us to understand what happened,
were included in the report prepared by the antropologist and referred to
the Justice Department, which sent a copy to CIMI.
LOCATION OF THE MASSACRE: the Indians were killed in an old field near
the Hwaximeu river, a tributary of the Orinoco river, in Venezuela. The
two villages that were destroyed by the miners belonged to Hwaximutheri
Indians and were located on a riverbank near the headwaters of the
Hwaximeu. Haximu, as the location is being called, is a wrong spelling of
the word. Initially, information got about that the Indians had been killed
in Homoxi because the earliest information on the massacre was provided
by Yanomami Indians who live in Hoomoxi to nuns of the Xideia Mission,
located on the Brazilian side.
THE CRIME: the Hwaximeutheri, as the Yanomami who lived in the
two Hwaximeu villages are called, camped in the old field around the 22nd
and 23rd of July. The went there expecting to be invited to a party in
the Makayutheri village. They slept in the camp, and in the morning two
young Indians arrived there to invite them to attend the party. Because it
had already begun, the men and some women left for the party before the rest
of the group. The women, the children and an old man stayed in the camp.
On the same day, most of the Yanomami who had stayed behind left the
camp to pluck fruits; thirteen persons remained there. Around noon, the
camp was attacked by miners, who murdered the thirteen Indians. The adults
were shot and mutilated with machetes. The children were killed with
machete blows on the chest and head, and beheaded. An old woman was kicked
to death. Altogether, a man, three women, three female teenagers, and
six children were killed. Three Yanomami were wounded.
Because they heard screams, two women who were plucking fruits rushed
to the Makayutheri village, where the party was being held, and told
the Indians there about the attack. The men from Hwaximeutheri left the
village and arrived at the location of the massacre at dusk. The
found mutilated corpses scattered on the ground, empty cartidges all over
the place and marks of boots typically worn by miners. The women who
survived were preparing the belongings of the dead for the ritual cremation.
The men cremated the bodies in the morning of the following day. The
ashes of the bones were placed in gourds for later stages of the
funerary ritual. Only the body of a woman was left there; it belonged to
a middle-aged woman who had no relatives among the Hwaximeutheri, as
she belonged to another village. According to the testimony of the
survivors, the miners returned to the camp,chopped the body of this woman
and threw it into the river, as evinced by blood stains found later on.
Still according to the survivors, they returned to destroy all the evidence
of the massacre, on which occasion they burned the two villages.
After cremating the bodies, the Yanomami fled to the Makos village,
close to the headwaters of the Toototobi river, which is located in
the Brazilian territory and far from the miners. As they fled, they
passed through four villages located in Venezuela. According to what
the survivors told Bruce Albert, the miners are furious because they did
not succeed in killing the men of the village and they intend to attack again.
BACKGROUND OF THE MASSACRE: about two months ago, a group of
six Hwaximeutheri went to a camp of miners who had taken possession of a
rifle that belonged to them. They did not get their rifle back; the miners
told them to leave and said that an enemy Yanomami group was planning to
attack them. The miners followed the Indians in the forest and attacked
them: five Hwaximeutheri were killed. A teenager escaped with bullet wounds.
A few days later, Yanomami warriors from four villages made a raid
to avenge the dead Indians; a miner was killed.
Between the 22nd and the 23rd of August, as Yanomami Indians from the
two Hwaximeutheri villages were on their way to the old field, where they
would wait for an invitation to the party in the Makayutheri village,
three warriors headed to the camp of the miners to avenge the killing of
the five Yanomami. A miner was killed. The Yanomami attacked on the
following day, when most of them had already left for the Makayutheri village.
THE ASSASSINS: according to two survivors, the following miners took
part in the massacre: Boca Rica, Chico, Ceara, Parana, Piaui', Cantina,
Joco Neto, Goiano, Gazcho, Elias, Jabuti, Rocha, Baiano, Maneu,
Chaparral, Picco, Uiuiu, Joco, Caruru, Zeca, Geni, Paulista, and Paulo.
The Federal Police and Funai (National Indian Foundation) affirm that
the massacre was committed by Brazilian miners, becaused of the kind
of ammunition and boot marks found in the massacre site. Several huts used
by Brazilian miners are located along the Orinoco river in Venezuela.
Two clandestine runways were built in the region by invaders.
CIMI (Indianist Missionary Council) is worried with the developments
of the case. Instead of concentrating on the identification and prosecution
of the guilty ones, the discussions in Brazil are centered upon who is
to be blamed for the announcement of inaccurate figures of dead Indians.
Brasilia, September 2, 1993
CIMI - Indianist Missionary Council