Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro visited two indigenous reservations in the Amazon on Thursday for the primary time as head of state, regardless of protests from some tribal leaders towards his drive to open up their protected lands to business mining.
Bolsonaro, flanked by military officers and sporting a feather head-dress, watched members of the native Tukano neighborhood carry out a ritual dance on the Balaio reservation, the place he inaugurated a bridge.
Regional indigenous leaders from the higher reaches of the Rio Negro river mentioned they weren’t invited to see Bolsonaro and that he solely met with unrepresentative chiefs in a photograph alternative for his re-election marketing campaign subsequent 12 months.
“Our establishment is three many years outdated however we weren’t included in the president’s agenda or any dialogue on public polices for the area,” the Federation of Rio Negro Indigenous Organizations said in a statement. “He met with self-proclaimed leaders to produce fake news.”
The president’s workplace didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
The wood bridge that Bolsonaro inaugurated was constructed by the Brazilian military on a highway that runs to the border with Venezuela, passing by way of the Balaio reservation, the place main reserves of niobium have been discovered.
The steel is used to make lightweight metal for jet engines and different particular purposes. Bolsonaro has commonly talked about its worth in speeches concerning the untapped riches of the Amazon that Brazil should exploit.
The Balaio reservation is above the Rio Negro on the north-western tip of Brazil bordering Colombia and Venezuela.
Bolsonaro later visited and stayed in a single day at a navy frontier put up in Maturacá, which is situated on the western finish of the Yanomami reservation, the most important in Brazil.
The reservation’s jap part in the state of Roraima has been invaded by greater than 20,000 unlawful gold miners, who’ve been emboldened by Bolsonaro’s assist for the legalization of wildcat mining in Brazil.
Yanomami leaders deplored the far-right president’s go to to their reservation and repeated their requires authorities to expel the miners.
“The authorities should urgently take away the invaders from our territories to safeguard our well being and that of Mother Earth,” they said in a letter to Bolsonaro.
“We do not accept the legalization of mining activities on our lands, because it will not bring the Yanomami any benefit,” the letter signed by leaders from Maturacá mentioned.
Bolsonaro’s go to got here the day after gold miners illegally prospecting on indigenous lands alongside the Tapajos river in the Amazon shot at a Munduruku village and burned down the home of considered one of its leaders.
The decrease home of Brazil’s Congress, the place Bolsonaro supporters have a majority, is at the moment contemplating laws proposed by the federal government that will open the door to business mining and agriculture on indigenous reservations.
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