Thirteen Die in Clash in Brazil Indian Territory
11/4/98
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Title: Thirteen die in clash in Brazil Indian territory
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: November 4, 1998
Byline: Joelle Diderich
BRASILIA, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Isolated Brazilian Indians killed 11
wildcat gold miners in a remote jungle region near Surinam in
retaliation for a fire in which an Indian woman and child died, the
government's Indian Foundation said on Wednesday.
The clash in the Tumucumaque reservation, which straddles the northern
Brazilian states of Para and Amapa, took place in the early hours of
Tuesday, said an official at the regional headquarters of the Indian
Foundation (FUNAI) in Amapa.
The illegal miners, known as ``garimpeiros,'' set fire to a village
inhabited by an unknown tribe who had no previous contact with the
outside world, according to a radio report from an indigenous post
inside the reservation.
``We got a radio message from the Aparai village post, saying that
garimpeiros had set fire to a village of isolated Indians,'' FUNAI
official Moises Silva told Reuters by telephone from Macapa, the
capital of Amapa state.
During the confrontation, the Indians are said to have killed 11
miners and injured two. An Indian woman and child reportedly died when
their hut was set ablaze, the official said.
``These are Indians who have yet to be contacted, who are isolated. We
don't know which tribe they belong to,'' he added.
The Justice Ministry has sent a team of federal police investigators
to the distant region, which is only accessible by plane and boat, a
ministry spokesman said.
It was the first known clash between miners and indigenous residents
of the Tumucumaque region, a demarcated Indian territory believed to
be rich in gold deposits, Silva said.
The government evicted three garimpeiros who became lost in the jungle
there in 1992, and another three who were prospecting for gold in
1993, but all left peacefully, he said.
The territory stretches over 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres)
and is home to around 2,700 Indians of the Wayana, Aparai, Tiriyo,
Kaxuyana and Hixkaryana tribes as well as an undetermined number of
isolated Indians, according to Silva.
Indigenous peoples now make up just 330,000 of a total Brazilian
population of 160 million, down from around 5 million when Portuguese
colonisers arrived in 1500.
Researchers have identified 215 tribes and 180 languages, but an
unknown number of Indians have been driven deep into remote jungle
areas by loggers and miners illegally encroaching on their
reservations.
In many cases, the outsiders have brought with them diseases like
malaria and tuberculosis and introduced guns, prostitution and
alcoholism into the isolated communities.
There are two indigenous posts and a Franciscan mission inside the
Tumucumaque reservation, but FUNAI has made no efforts so far to
establish contact with the most isolated tribes.
Such expeditions can be dangerous, as Indians who have never met
outsiders consider all newcomers to be enemies and react violently to
any perceived aggression, officials say.
``People end up going there anyway, without authorisation,'' said
Silva. ``This is the first time they have found (this tribe).
If they had not found them, they would have remained in their own
world, which would have been better.''
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