Bolsonaro Lula: Bolsonaro behind genocide of indigenous people

Bolsonaro is accused of genocide in the Amazon 

570 children dead since 2019 Poisoned rivers Jair   

By: TT  

Published: Yesterday 20.04  

Updated: Yesterday 22.43 

NEWS  

Brazil declares state of emergency after alarm of acute malnutrition among children belonging to the indigenous Yanomami people of the Amazon.  

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva accuses his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro's right-wing government of genocide against the indigenous people. 

During a visit to Roraima state this weekend, Lula da Silva condemned the treatment of the Yanomami people, whose land is said to have been largely depleted and poisoned by illegal mining and government mismanagement. 

“It is more than a humanitarian crisis, what I saw in Roraima was a genocide. A deliberate crime against the Yanomami people committed by a government indifferent to the suffering of the Brazilian people,” Lula wrote on Twitter after visiting a hospital overflowing with Yanomami patients in the state capital of Boa Vista.  

In connection with Lula's visit, pictures of severely malnourished children and adults belonging to the Yanomami people were spread in the Brazilian media.  

- The photos really shocked me. It is impossible to understand how a country like Brazil neglects our indigenous people to that degree, the president told reporters in Boa Vista. 

Brazil's former Jair Bolsonaro. Photo: Marcelo Chello/AP    

Poisoned rivers 

Following reports of children dying of malnutrition and diseases caused by illegal mining, Brazil's health minister on Sunday declared a medical emergency in the area near the Venezuelan border populated by the Yanomami people. According to a report published in December, children in the undernourished group are dying at a shocking rate compared to the Brazilian average. 

In the regions of Auaris and Maturacá, eight out of ten Yanomami children under the age of five suffer from chronic malnutrition, according to a study carried out by Unicef and the Fiocruz Foundation.  

Lula, who took office as Brazil's president on Jan. 1, accuses his successor, Jair Bolsonaro, of encouraging the tens of thousands of unauthorized miners who invaded the Yanomami people's territories in the Amazon during Bolsonaro's rule between 2019 and 2022. According to observers, they polluted rivers with mercury and razed forests, thus depriving the natives of their main food sources. The miners are also accused of spreading malaria and other diseases and preventing health workers from reaching the area. 

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva Photo: Silvia Izquierdo / AP 

 

Yanomami leader Nando Potiguara during a protest action against mines on Yanomami land in May 2022. Photo: Eraldo Peres/AP/TT  

570 children dead since 2019  

The country's justice minister, Flávio Dino, says he will order a federal police investigation after "strong indications" that indigenous peoples have been subjected to crimes involving genocide - that is, deliberate attempts to partially or completely wipe out an ethnic, national, religious group or race.  

In addition to hunger and malaria, the children of the Yanomami people are dying at an increasing rate from parasitic diseases and diarrhea, according to Brazil's minister responsible for the country's indigenous population. 570 Yanomami children are said to have died of starvation or mercury poisoning since 2019, The Guardian reports.  

Former president Jair Bolsonaro, under whose rule the deforestation of the Amazon increased by nearly 60 percent, denies responsibility and calls Lula's accusations a "left-wing farce."

Facts  

The Yanomami people 

The Yanomami are a South American indigenous people who live in around 200 different communities in the Amazon rainforest.  

The natural people's first real contact with the outside world must have happened only shortly after the Second World War, when Venezuela and Brazil drew their borders through the land of the Yanomami people.  

Throughout history, the indigenous people have been exposed to a wide range of Western diseases and abuses as settlers, road builders, farmers and miners approached the group. A measles epidemic in 1978 killed half the population in connection with tens of thousands of gold diggers invading the Yanomami people's territories. In the early 1990s, around a fifth of the population died as a result of various epidemics.  

In 1991, it was announced that the Yanomami people are the only ones who, according to the constitution, have the right to use the around 96,000 square kilometer area where the people traditionally lived - a change in the law that, however, has not been complied with.  

Today, a total of around 30,000 people belonging to the Yanomami people are believed to inhabit the border areas between Brazil and Venezuela in the Amazon rainforest on the Orinoco River.