Brazilian Indians massacre diamond miners

MORE than 40 bodies of illegal miners killed at close range by spears, arrows and clubs have been removed from an Indian reservation in northern Brazil.

Indigenous warriors of the Cinta Larga (Wide Belt) tribe have carried out the attacks in order to defend their 6.7 million-acre reservation from illegal prospectors mining diamonds. The tribal lands are believed to have some of the largest diamond deposits in Brazil.

The tribe’s leader, Chief Pio, admitted that Indians had carried out the killings, but insisted he had not ordered them to do so. "There are some very angry Indians and not even the leadership can control their actions," he said.

"We told them we didn’t want them here and they kept coming back. The warriors lost patience and this is what happened."

Pio was also unrepentant about the murders and intimated that there would be more if other miners entered the reserve.

"We are warriors," he said. "Before the white man came, none of the tribes here were friends. We fought and killed each other, that is how we resolved things."

Some 300 heavily armed police had to fly into the reservation in helicopters to remove the 41 bodies and search for another 24 miners who are missing, presumed dead. Police commander Aparecido Firmino said the killings were a massacre as the unarmed miners were swiftly overpowered by the Indians and then executed.

"They had no opportunity to defend themselves," he said. "It may be that in some places Indians are poor but these are not, they are mercenaries."

The Cinta Larga live on the Roosevelt Indian reservation in Roaondonia state, 2,100 miles north-west of Rio de Janeiro. The tribe was only ‘discovered’ in 1960, after explorers penetrated the dense Amazonian rainforest which has been its home for centuries.

Now almost two thirds of the 1,300 tribesmen speak Portuguese as well as their native tongue and many have adapted to a more Western lifestyle.

Indian interests in Brazil are protected by a special agency called Funai and the indigenous people have their own laws. Before the Portuguese colonisers arrived in Brazil in 1500 there were an estimated six million Indians. Today there are less than 350,000.

The head of Funai, Mercio Pereira Gomes, defended the recent Indian actions.

"They were defending their territory," he said. "We have to understand that Indian territory is not like the private property of any Brazilian, it is an extension of their way of life so it is as if they were defending their very lives."

However, the miners have warned that the struggle is not over and complained that the Indians were able to kill with impunity.

"It’s illegal to mine on Indian land, it’s also illegal to kill," said Celso Antim of the prospectors union in Espigao d’Oeste, about 60 miles from the reservation.

In the past, miners have been granted access by the Indians who charged them a ‘toll’ for working in the reservation. That stopped after miners started bringing in machinery to speed up excavations. Antim warned that the killings would not keep the miners away from the massive diamond deposits 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."