Gov’t sends National Force to Yanomami reserve

Brazil’s Ministry of Justice and Public Security authorized the use of agents of the country’s National Public Security Force to step up the protection scheme in the Yanomami Indigenous Land, Brazil’s largest indigenous territory.

Troops will be housed in Roraima’s state capital Boa Vista for 90 days, to be extended if necessary. The agents will provide support to officials from Brazil’s main indigenous authority Funai, in order to preserve public order and the security of the people as well as the property.

The authorization, signed by Justice Minister Anderson Torres, was made official today (Jun. 14). For safety reasons, the number of agents to be engaged in the operation has not been disclosed.

Boasting approximately 9.66 million hectares, the Yanomami reserve comprises a portion of the territories of the Roraima and Amazonas states, in North Brazil. The vast region, covered with preserved vegetation, is twice as large as Rio de Janeiro state, and has lured covetous miners and loggers, sparking conflicts between indigenous and non-indigenous people.

According to the Yanomami Hutukara Association—the organization formed by representatives of all indigenous peoples living in the reserve created in 1992—some 20 thousand miners work illegally in the demarcated area, increasing deforestation, contaminating water streams with mercury and iodine, and eroding river banks.

History

In May, the association reported a number of attacks on communities across the area.

Also in May, Supreme Court Justice Luís Roberto Barroso ruled that the federal government should ensure the protection and health care of indigenous people in the demarcated lands of the Yanomami and Munduruku peoples by any means necessary.

Barroso’s ruling came to grant a request by the Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), which called for the withdrawal of invaders from indigenous lands, especially in the areas demarcated as Yanomami, “amid imminent genocide and a rise in the dissemination of malaria and COVID-19 in the region due to illegal miners.”

Since 2020, a public-interest civil action filed by federal prosecutors asks federal authorities to remove any non-authorized non-indigenous people from the region.