By Anthony Boadle
BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil’s government is preparing a task force involving several government agencies and enforcement bodies that will soon launch an operation to remove illegal gold miners from the Yanomami reservation, indigenous leader Joenia Wapichana said on Tuesday.
Wapichana will in a few days become the first indigenous person to head the government’s indigenous affairs agency Funai, appointed by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has pledged to expel wildcat miners from protected indigenous lands.
Speaking to journalists on an Amazon-based journalism platform called Sumaúma, Wapichana said she could not give details of the imminent operation in order to not alert the miners that have invaded the Yanomami territory.
“We have to let the police forces organize the operation in secret; the message from President Lula is that it will happen soon and cannot delay long,” she said.
Wapichana said the task forces, as in past offensive against illegal miners, will involve the Federal Police, the army, the environmental protection agency Ibama, several ministries and Funai.
Some 20,000 wildcat miners are searching for gold in Brazil’s largest indigenous reservation in Roraima state on the border with Venezuela, where they have polluted waters with mercury used to separate the metal from ore and earth, official say.
The miners are increasingly associated with well-armed gangs that have terrorized indigenous communities that for the first time cannot feed themselves, resulting in widespread malnutrition and deaths among the 28,000 Yanomami.
Lula last week declared a medical emergency in the Yanomami territory, and on Monday his government ordered a no-fly airspace over the reservation and steps to block river traffic heading to gold prospects.
Wapichana said about 40 small planes fly to clandestine airstrips each day, with food and other supplies, and the help of the Air Force is required to stop the flights that Brazil’s previous far-right government did nothing to prevent.
The miners use the rivers to take heavier machinery and fuel to their prospects, which are muddy ponds where they dredge for gold in forest clearings.
Medical studies show that the mercury used by the miners has polluted the rivers, killing the fish and contaminating the water that the Yanomami rely on.
Wapichana said the government will move against the organized crime and financial groups that supply and fund the illegal mining, and launder the gold.
Lula’s predecessor, former President Jair Bolsonaro, advocated mining on protected indigenous lands and his government turned a blind eye to invasions of indigenous reservations by wildcat miners and illegal loggers.
Wapichana is confident the Brazilian military, which supported Bolsonaro, will obey Lula’s orders to crack down on illegal mining on lands that are protected by the Constitution.
“We are in a new era. We have a strong and responsible president who had the courage to go to Roraima and declare publicly that this operation to expel the miners has to be done as soon as possible.” she said.
She said those responsible for the humanitarian crisis the Yanomami are suffering will be punished for negligence and perhaps for committing genocide.
(This story has been refiled to fix spelling error in penultimate paragraph to make it “era” instead of “area”)
(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
