: Why Lula Accused Bolsonaro of Genocide Against Brazils Yanomami People #WorldNEWS Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has accused his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, of committing

Why Lula Accused Bolsonaro of Genocide Against Brazils Yanomami People #WorldNEWS
Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has accused his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, of committing “genocide” against the Indigenous Yanomami people of the Amazon.
Lula blamed the former President for enabling thousands of gold miners in a nationally-protected territory where mining is banned. As illegal mining flourished during Bolsonaro’s tenure, a humanitarian crisis emerged in the territory they call home that is roughly the size of Maine. The miners have been accused of poisoning rivers with mercury and wrecking forests; the Yanomami depend on both for food sources. Activists have also accused miners of death threats and sexual violence.

“More than a humanitarian crisis, what I saw in Roraima was a genocide. A premeditated crime against the Yanomami, committed by a government impervious to the suffering of the Brazilian people,” Lula tweeted on Sunday, a day after visiting a clinic for Yanomami patients in Boa Vista. He accused the previous government of disregard and neglect for encouraging the “invasion of 20,000 illegal miners. ”
Close to 30,000 Yanonami people live in Brazil’s Indigenous territory that spans Brazil and Venezuela. They maintain a way of life based on fishing, hunting, and fruit gathering.
Lula also told reporters during his visit that he will eliminate illegal mining in Brazil but did not offer further details on policies or programs to achieve the goal.

Bruno Kelly—ReutersA Yanomami man, right, stands near an illegal gold mine on Indigenous land in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, in Roraima state, Brazil, in April 2016. Illegal miners continue to plague the area, sawing down trees and poisoning rivers with mercury in their lust for gold.
Brazil’s Minister of Justice and Public Security Flávio Dino said last week that federal police would investigate the possibility of genocide and other crimes against the Yanomami people.
The accusation of genocide is controversial but critics of Bolsonaro say abuses against the Yanomami reflect his broader policies towards the environment and Indigenous people.
Susanna Hecht, director of the center for Brazilian studies at UCLA, notes it’s important to take into account Bolsonaro’s harmful rhetoric towards Indigenous people, including a statement from 1998 in which he said, “its a shame that the Brazilian cavalry hasnt been as efficient as the Americans, who exterminated the Indians.
“You can have a genocidal policy that has the effect of destroying a population without necessarily… sticking them…into a gas chamber,” Hecht says.
Bolsonaro has argued that the Indigenous population is standing in the way of Brazilian development and that they are “not really” Brazilian, she adds.