Miner massacre a warning: tribeFrom correspondents on The Roosevelt Indian Reservation, Brazil22Apr04
AN Amazonian tribal chief has said the killing of 29 diamond prospectors on his remote Indian reservation was intended as a warning for white miners to stay away.
In his first meeting with reporters since the April 7 massacre, Chief Pio Cinta Larga told The Associated Press there were no more bodies to be found in the 2.7-million-hectare reservation, which has often been invaded by illegal prospectors.
“We told them we didn't want them here and they kept coming back. The warriors lost patience and this is what happened,” Cinta Larga told the AP. His tribe is the only one that lives in the area of the killings.
Cinta Larga defended the killings as part of the tribe's culture.
“We are warriors,” said Cinta Larga. “Before the white man came, none of the tribes here were friends. We fought and killed each other, that is how we resolved things.”
Federal police have said the 29 miners were killed by the Cinta Larga Indian tribe in a dispute over diamond mining. The reservation is believed to have South American's largest diamond reserves.
Investigators indicated most of the miners were lined up and killed at short range with arrows, clubs, spears and firearms. Many of the bodies appeared to have been tortured or mutilated.
Cinta Larga said the tribe accepted responsibility for the action as a group, but distanced himself somewhat from the killings.
“There are some very angry Indians and not even the leadership can control their actions,” he said.
Asked about an ongoing Federal police investigation to find those responsible, Cinta Larga said it was the Federal Indian bureau that deals with such aspects of “white man's law.”
The president of Brazil's Federal Indian Bureau has said he considered the Indians to be acting in legitimate self defense because both mining and trespassing by non-Indians are illegal on Indian reservations.
Those comments only served to fuel already high tension between the heavily armed Indians and prospectors.
“It's illegal to mine on Indian land, it's also illegal to kill,” said Celso Antim of the prospector's union in Espigao d'Oeste, about 100 kilometres from the reservation.
Antim said the killings would not keep prospectors off the reservation for long.
“There will be a little pause, but then they'll all go back because they're all going hungry,” he said. “This time, though, they'll go back armed.”
Cinta Larga warned that prospectors who returned should know they were taking their lives in their hands.
He said the solution is to change the law so Indians can legally mine on their lands.
Currently, the Indians mine the diamonds in violation of Federal law and sell them on the black market in violation of the international Kimberly protocol, which governs the sale and trade of diamonds.
A task force composed of hundreds of State and Federal agents has been deployed in and around the reservation 600 kilometres southwest of Porto Velho, capital of the western state of Rondonia that borders Bolivia.
Expected to remain in the region for up to six months, the task force is disarming prospectors and Indians and will try to put an end to mining and prospecting activities in the reservation.
But officials here said ending the illegal prospecting will not be easy.
“Prospecting isn't something that ends from one day to another. It will be reactivated there is a great desire for diamonds and the diamonds on the reservation are very good,” said Amoss de Mello Oliveira, a geologist working with the police.
He estimated that diamonds found here were much more than $US40 ($54) a carat, which is the price of the average Brazilian diamonds. He said Roosevelt reservation diamonds were worth around US$200 ($273) a carat.
Brazil's Mines and Energy Ministry estimated some US$2 ($2.73) billion were taken out of the area, since prospecting began in 1999.
Clashes between Indians and prospectors have claimed at least 70 lives since diamond mining began.
The Cinta Larga Indians were first contacted by outsiders in the late 1960s, but development has been at best a mixed blessing.
Many of the Indians are fairly well off, dressing in western-style clothing and driving pick-up trucks.
About two-thirds of the 1300-strong tribe have learned Portuguese, Brazil's national language, but the remaining Indians maintain the tribe's fierce warrior traditions.
The discovery of diamonds has also fueled problems of alcoholism, drug abuse and sexually transmitted diseases among the Indians.
In 2002, police forcibly evicted some 3000 prospectors and the Indians decided to take up mining. They distribute profits among the tribe.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,9353721%255E1702,00.html
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