Brazil's Lula directs crackdown on supplies to illegal miners

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
31 Jan 2023 14:40
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The measures included instructing the government to halt planes and river transit carrying supplies to the wildcat miners.

An aerial view shows a deforested plot of the Amazon rainforest in Rondonia State, Brazil September 28, 2021. (Reuters)

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced a crackdown on supply transportation to illegal gold miners in the Yanomami reservation in northern Brazil on Monday, intending to drive out the wildcat miners who have caused a humanitarian catastrophe among the area's indigenous people.

Lula approved a variety of actions to combat illegal mining and other criminal activity in the region after meeting with ministers, the government said in a statement.

The measures included instructing the government to halt planes and river transit carrying supplies to the wildcat miners.

"The actions also aim to prevent the access of people not authorized by the public authorities to the region, to prevent illegal activities and the spread of diseases," it added.

It is worth noting that the miners move up the rivers in speed boats and tiny planes that land on secret airstrips.

Fulfilling his presidential vows a couple of months after taking office, Lula has also ruled that the Yanomami tribe should be given nutritional and health assistance, as well as guaranteed access to drinking water, "in the shortest possible time."

Earlier on Monday, the mining industry lobbying group Ibram urged the government to take action to end illegal gold mining and disrupt the network that launders illegal gold, which is frequently sold to jewelry makers overseas.

Illegal miners have been invading Yanomami territory for decades, but the intrusions have increased since Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro entered office in 2019, threatening to enable mining on formerly protected indigenous territories.

Separately on Monday, the public prosecutor's office announced an investigation into the Brazilian government's role in the Yanomami people's tragedy.

Last week, Lula's government said 99 Yanomami children under the age of five had died in 2022 on Brazil's largest Indigenous reservation, mainly due to malnutrition, pneumonia, and malaria.

Shockingly, conditions on the Yanomami reservation have become increasingly violent, with illegal miners regularly killing indigenous residents, sexually abusing women and children, and contaminating the area's rivers with the mercury used to separate gold from sediment.

Experts have repeatedly warned that the rise in illegal mining in the Amazon has accelerated the development of diseases like malaria and TB, in addition to Covid-19.

The country's Supreme Court had ordered that gold miners in the area be removed, but the Bolsonaro government, which pushed mining and agribusiness on indigenous grounds, never followed.

Today, the new government headed by Lula is exerting strained efforts to save Brazil's largest indigenous reservation and its people.