Lula accuses Bolsonaro of genocide against Yanomami in Amazon
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Brazil's leftist President blames his far-right predecessor for encouraging thousands of miners to flood the Amazon.
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Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during his visit to a Yanomami clinic in Boa Vista, Roraima, January 21, 2023 (AFP)
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva accused on Sunday his former President Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right administration of committing genocide against the Yanomami people of the Amazon.
"More than a humanitarian crisis, what I saw in Roraima was a genocide. A premeditated crime against the Yanomami, committed by a government impervious to the suffering of the Brazilian people," Lula expressed Sunday on Twitter, a day after visiting an overcrowded clinic for Yanomami patients in the capital of the Amazon state of Roraima, Boa Vista.
Mais que uma crise humanitária, o que vi em Roraima foi um genocídio. Um crime premeditado contra os Yanomami, cometido por um governo insensível ao sofrimento do povo brasileiro.
— Lula (@LulaOficial) January 22, 2023
📸: @ricardostuckert pic.twitter.com/Hv5vrYw477
Brazilian Justice Minister Flavio Dino announced that he would order a federal police investigation into "strong indications" that the Yanomami had suffered crimes including genocide.
On the eve of Lula's visit, alarming photographs of skinny Yanomami children and adults were circulated.
"The photos really shook me because it’s impossible to understand how a country like Brazil neglects our Indigenous citizens to such an extent," Lula told reporters in Boa Vista.
The Brazilian President blamed his far-right predecessor for abandoning Indigenous communities and encouraging thousands of miners to flood the Yanomami enclave during his 2019-2022 government.
According to The Guardian, "Those miners contaminated rivers and wrecked forests, depriving remote Yanomami communities of key food sources – fish and other animals such as monkeys and wild boars – while simultaneously spreading malaria and hampering the efforts of government health workers."
"As well as the disregard and neglect of the last government the main cause of this genocide is the invasion of 20,000 illegal miners, whose presence was encouraged by the ex-president. These miners poison rivers with mercury, causing destruction and death," Lula explained, pledging that "there will be no more genocides."
Before heading to Roraima with Lula, Brazil's minister of Indigenous peoples, Sonia Guajajara, underlined that protecting Yanomami children from outrageous levels of malaria, verminosis, malnutrition, and diarrhea was her priority.
"Every 72 hours a child is dying from one of these illnesses, according to the information we’ve received," Guajajara indicated, calling for the expulsion of the miners in the next three months.
On Sunday, another key Lula ally, former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, highlighted that the 570 Yanomami children who had died of hunger or mercury poisoning since 2019 were proof of the "Yanomami genocide".
"There is a motive: the greed of the miners who invaded their lands. And there is a perpetrator: Jair Bolsonaro, who championed this invasion and denied medical assistance to the Indigenous," Rousseff tweeted.
"All of those who are responsible, Bolsonaro included, must be prosecuted, judged and punished for genocide," she added.
On his part, far-right Bolsonaro denied responsibility, claiming that such accusations were a "left-wing farce". The former Brazilian President insisted that Indigenous healthcare had been one of his government’s priorities, despite activists highlighting that Amazon deforestation rose nearly 60% due to Bolsonaro’s policies.
Last month, the Yanomami leader Junior Hekurari told The Guardian that Bolsonaro's government was that "of blood".
On Saturday, Hekurari said he had sent Bolsonaro’s government about 50 written pleas for help from the gold mining invasion and soaring levels of malnutrition, malaria, and deaths.
"He ignored our cry for help," he tweeted on Saturday.
Before his 2018 election, Bolsonaro claimed during a campaign visit to Roraima that "other powers might turn" Indigenous territories "into other countries."
However, "it was illegal miners, including at least one multi-millionaire businessman with ties to Bolsonaro, who laid siege to Yanomami lands, with the estimated number of garimpeiros [small-scale miners] operating there jumping from 5,000 to 20,000 during Bolsonaro’s government," according to The Guardian.
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