Senators want actions for garimpeiros in the committee on Yanomamis

In the midst of the humanitarian crisis of the Yanomami indigenous people, senators from Roraima are demanding public policies from the federal government that also serve “mining workers”. And even members of the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and the base in Congress are beginning to recognize that measures need to be adopted to resolve the situation of around 15,000 miners who are in the region.

The senators of Roraima, Chico Rodrigues (PSB), Dr. Hiran (PP) and Mecias de Jesus (Republicans), are part of a temporary external commission that was created in Parliament at the beginning of the month to monitor in loco the departure of prospectors from Yanomami lands within 120 days. The three have already explained their concern to help mining workers in indigenous lands and not completely prevent the activity.

Rodrigues, who was elected president of the collegiate, defended the inclusion of garimpeiros in social programs of the federal government. “If we draw a parallel today, Venezuelan refugees receive benefits from government social programs. So, imagine the garimpeiros, who are Brazilian? They also need it, even to mitigate the suffering they will naturally have when they leave those areas, ”he said.

They also argue that additional initiatives are needed than those adopted by the ministries of Health, Defense, Social Development and Indigenous Peoples in one of the most remote areas of the country.

“We are distributing basic food baskets in indigenous communities. A prospector who is hungry will end up having a conflicting attitude to get food. All this concerns us. May we also help the miners to leave the indigenous area and, in the medium and long term, make assistance programs so that these people do not return”, said Dr. Hiran, who was elected rapporteur of the collegiate.

Two other senators make up the temporary commission: Eliziane Gama (PSD-MA) and Humberto Costa (PT-PE). Both are from the government base and support actions to expel invaders, but even maintaining criticism of former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), they also admit the need for public policies to reaccommodate miners.

“We have to monitor whether the federal government is guaranteeing service to these communities, what is being done to preserve the territory, what is being done to combat malnutrition, hunger and disease, and, naturally, the government will have to discuss what to do with this large population [de garimpeiros] that was there and that it needs to have a sustainable activity”, said Costa.

The Minister of Defense, José Múcio Monteiro Filho, stated on his first visit to Roraima, on the 9th, that the federal government does not want to harm “innocent people”, including those who are working in the mines “for their livelihood”.

In addition to him, Minister Marina Silva, of the Environment, also signaled in this direction and defended the adoption of a plan that offers economic alternatives to illegal workers. She reinforced, however, that “this does not mean any connivance for those who committed the crime”.

The North region of the country concentrates the largest number of young people aged between 18 and 25 who are not educated and have no job prospects. At a hearing in the Senate, in September 2022, lawyer Brenda Brito, from the Instituto do Homem e Meio Environment da Amazônia (Imazon), pointed to the need to invest in professional and technical schools aligned with the low-carbon economy and biotechnology. as a way to guarantee income for thousands of unemployed people.

In addition to monitoring the actions of the ministries in Roraima, the Senate commission also has the task of suggesting to the government and Congress, in its final report, definitive solutions to the impasses in this unit of the federation.

Clashes at the start of the temporary commission

Despite the apparent convergence, the governing base and the opposition immediately exposed their political differences at the start of the temporary commission, with accusations of favoring one side of the crisis – miners or indigenous people.

The starting point of this discord was Chico Rodrigues’ trip to Terra Yanomami, last Monday (20), which, according to members of the government, was not previously agreed with the group.

On social media, Senator Eliziane Gama, vice-president of the collegiate, considered Rodrigues’ trip during the Carnival holiday a “trash of actions”, and admitted the hypothesis that his colleague had committed “obstruction of Justice”, creating potential embarrassments to future investigations.

Another immediate reaction came from the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) in Roraima, which asked Rodrigues for information, within 10 days, about his trip and its relationship with the commission’s objectives, “from the perspective of defending indigenous peoples”. The agency also officiated in the same sense the National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples (Funai) and the Center for Emergency Operations in Public Health (COE-Yanomami).

The government supporters want the president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), to increase the number of members of the collegiate in order to change the correlation of forces, considered favorable to mining. Pacheco, however, recalled that the commission is an initiative of local senators and the inclusion of other members was a concession by the Bureau.

Mining in indigenous lands accelerated in Brazil and Venezuela

According to a document by the Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), in a joint survey with the Hutukara Associação Yanomami (HAY), illegal mining is a historic problem, but one that has accelerated in recent years.

The declaration of public calamity by the Lula government served to highlight issues such as diseases, water contamination by mercury, malnutrition and violence against the Yanomami, who are one of the largest isolated indigenous peoples in South America, according to Survival International.

According to data from the National Foundation for Indigenous Peoples (Funai), the Yanomami land covers 9.6 million hectares and its population is distributed in seven municipalities on the Brazilian side.

The Yanomami are also in Venezuelan territory, on the border with Brazil. There, illegal mining is also a serious problem. According to a report by the Venezuelan NGO SOS Orinoco, illegal mining on indigenous lands in the neighboring country is increasing at an “alarming pace”, and most prospectors are from Brazil.

In the same report, the organization criticized the “complicity” of the Venezuelan armed forces in relation to illegal mining in the Alto Orinoco region, in the state of Amazonas (VE). “The garimpeiros’ action is possible thanks to the absence of surveillance and control by the Venezuelan State, but above all, due to the complicity of the members of the FANB [Força Armada Nacional Bolivariana]”.

In March 2022, Venezuelan civil society organizations reported the killing of four indigenous Yanomami by Venezuelan military agents.