Despite Chavez denial, Yanomami indigenous tribe claim there was a massacre
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Wednesday became the latest senior official to insist there is no evidence of an alleged massacre of some 80 Yanomami indigenous people.
Venezuela has said it sent an investigative team Friday to the south of the country along the border with Brazil, where the killings are alleged to have been perpetrated back in July by Brazilians mining illegally for gold.
“Neither evidence nor accounts from the indigenous people themselves turned up anywhere,” Chavez told a news conference.
The massacre was reported by a Yanomami organization known as HOY.
Several ministers have insisted this week there was no evidence of any violence against Yanomami.
An association of indigenous peoples, COIAM, urged the government on Monday to keep investigating, arguing that the Yanomami jungle settlement in question is so remote that the government investigative team could not have reached it and reported back so quickly.
Gangs of illegal miners come to the remote corner of the Amazon jungle straddling Brazil and Venezuela in search of gold and diamonds.
In the past, the Yanomami have been victims of physical violence, threats and abductions at the hands of the miners, COIAM said last week.
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I wouldn't trust Chavez but to openly deny the event would be brave if it were true. There's no way there won't be evidence if it did happen.
Although the nuns from helicopter would of proved a bit tricky to cover up.
Are these tribes an inconvienience that Chavez would like to get rid of?
Disposing of 80 bodies in the jungle would be incredibly easy.
Yes you could look down from a plane onto a jungle that stretches as far as the eye can see in every direction and think “you'd never find anything in there” - but they have a starting point. The density of a jungle makes shipping the bodies as problematic for any killers as it does for any detectives. The jungle is neutral.
The “intruders” are usually the same people as the tribes people only they have lived in the nearest back-water town for a generation or two. In remote Amazon towns the men often work as hunters or miners and they know the area as well as the tribes people. It would only take a dozen men a couple of hours to heave 80 bodies in to a river.
It is awe inspiring how insignificant, invisible and unwanted we are in the jungle.
If there was a massacre they could search for years and not find anything.
Whether they killed the locals seems open to question. If we are to take Chavez's investigation at it's face-value, these illegals did not kill the locals; they were just searching for and extracting gold and/or diamonds.
Previous similar situations would lead us to the belief that at least some locals have been killed - in this case probably by other 'locals', garimpeiros prospecting up-river or across the watershed.
To get some sort of perspective, view:
www1.american.edu/ted/ice/yanomami.htm
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