Suceso extraordinario

Olvidémonos por un segundo de los fondos buitres, Ucrania, Gaza y demás. Veamos por un rato un suceso extraordinario (todo lo anterior, lamentablemente, ya dejó de ser extraordinario). Primero, el video:

http://www.survivalinternational.org/films/uncontactedtribes

Luego, las noticias. Así lo relataba hoy Japan Times Online:

Título: Isolated indigenous people make first contact with outside world in Brazil

Texto: “RIO DE JANEIRO – Isolated native people wearing loincloths and carrying bows and arrows have emerged from the Amazon rain forest and made contact with the outside world in a video released by Brazil’s indigenous authority.

The video shows indigenous people from the Panoan linguistic group making contact with the Ashaninka native people of northern Brazil along the banks of the Envira River, near the Peruvian border.

In one scene, an ethnic Ashaninka in athletic shorts gives bananas to two loincloth-clad natives who appear wary of approaching, quickly grabbing the fruit and then retreating out of arm’s reach.

Brazilian experts said the indigenous people likely crossed the border from Peru facing pressure from illegal logging and drug trafficking at home.

After the native people made initial contact with the Ashaninka on June 26, a team from Brazil’s National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) traveled to the area and filmed a second encounter on June 30, according to news portal G1, which posted the video online.

The people, identified as members of a group known as the Rio Xinane, at first emerged only briefly and then returned to the forest, said FUNAI official Carlos Travassos.

“They were whistling and making animal sounds,” he said.

Two Panoan indigenous interpreters were then called in to speak with them on their next visit.
“They speak our language. I was so happy we could talk to each other,” said one of the interpreters, Jaminawa Jose Correia.

He said the natives had come in search of weapons and allies.

“They described being attacked by non-native people and many died after coming down with the flu and diphtheria,” he told G1.

Anthropologist Terri Aquino said the group had probably come in search of axes, knives and pots.
“This is a people looking for technology. It’s important in their lives because there’s an internal war among them and because of contact with non-indigenous groups,” he said.

Another scene in the video shows the natives taking axes from the ethnic Ashaninka village of Simpatia.
FUNAI said the group had returned from the forest after their initial visit because they had contracted the flu. A government medical team was sent to treat seven from the group.

Rights group Survival International said the episode was extremely worrying, since influenza epidemics have wiped out entire tribes in the past.

The Brazilian Amazon is home to an estimated 77 uncontacted tribes — the largest number in the world.”

Por su parte, la organización Survival International (http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/10361) señalaba, hace una semana, lo siguiente: 

Título: ‘Violent attacks’ caused uncontacted Indians to emerge 

Texto: Highly vulnerable uncontacted Indians who recently emerged in the Brazil-Peru border region have said that they were fleeing violent attacks in Peru.

FUNAI, Brazil’s Indian Affairs Department, has announced that the group of uncontacted Indians has returned once more to their forest home. Seven Indians made peaceful contact with a settled indigenous Ashaninka community near the Envira River in the western Acre state, Brazil, three weeks ago.

A government health team was dispatched and has treated seven Indians for flu. FUNAI has announced it will reopen a monitoring post on the Envira River which it closed in 2011 when it was overrun by drug traffickers.

The emerging news has been condemned as “extremely worrying” by Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights, as epidemics of flu, to which uncontacted Indians lack immunity, have wiped out entire tribes in the past.

Brazilian experts believe that the Indians, who belong to the Panoan linguistic group, crossed over the border from Peru into Brazil due to pressures from illegal loggers and drug traffickers on their land.

Nixiwaka Yawanawá, an Indian from Acre state, said, “This news proves that my uncontacted relatives are threatened by violence and infectious diseases. We already know what can happen if the authorities don’t take action to protect them, they will simply disappear. They need time and space to decide when they want to make contact and their choices must be respected. They are heroes!”

Uncontacted Indians in Peru suffer multiple threats to their survival as the government has carved up 70 percent of the Amazon rainforest for oil and gas exploration, including the lands of uncontacted tribes.

Plans to expand the notorious Camisea gas project, located in the heart of the Nahua-Nanti reserve for uncontacted Indians, recently received the government’s go-ahead, and Canadian-Colombian oil giant Pacific Rubiales is carrying out exploration on land inhabited by the Matsés tribe and their uncontacted neighbors.

Both projects will bring hundreds of oil and gas workers into the lands of uncontacted tribes, introducing the risk of deadly diseases and violent encounters, and scaring away the animals the Indians hunt for their survival.

Survival has launched an urgent petition to the Brazilian and Peruvian governments to protect the land of uncontacted Indians, and called on the authorities to honor their commitments of cross-border cooperation.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said, “This news could hardly be more worrying – not only have these people confirmed they suffered violent attacks from outsiders in Peru, but they have apparently already caught flu. The nightmare scenario is that they return to their former villages carrying flu with them. It’s a real test of Brazil’s ability to protect these vulnerable groups. Unless a proper and sustained medical program is immediately put in place, the result could be a humanitarian catastrophe.”