(Brasilia) The government of Brazilian President Lula promised Tuesday to further protect the Yanomami indigenous people in the Amazon, an effort which must include an increased fight against illegal mining.
As vast as Portugal, the territory of the Yanomami, located in the State of Roraima (north), has been experiencing a very serious situation for several years, due to the invasion of gold miners. The plight of these people had reached a critical state under far-right President Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022).
The indigenous people accuse the gold miners of raping and killing members of their community, and of depriving them of one of their main means of subsistence, fishing, by polluting the rivers with mercury, a substance they use for extraction.
Left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva promised Tuesday a “very serious fight” against crime in indigenous regions. “We need to try harder, use all public power, because we cannot lose a war against illegal mining and logging,” he said.
The army was deployed to dislodge gold miners in February, but many illegal mines remain active.
The government plans to devote nearly $250 million to “the protection and security” of the Yanomami people in 2024, via a plan that will be presented “in 30 days,” announced Rui Costa, Lula’s chief of staff.
“We are going to move from emergency actions to structural actions […]. The Brazilian state will have a new permanent structure in the region, a reorganization of the presence of the army and the federal police,” he added after a meeting led by Lula in the presence of 14 ministers.
Shortly after his return a year ago for a third term, the Brazilian president declared a state of health emergency in the Yanomami reserve. An investigation for “genocide” was opened, after the publication of official statistics concerning the death in 2022 of around a hundred children under the age of five, mainly due to malnutrition.
The army will continue to distribute food in the region in the coming months, according to the chief of staff.