Isolated South American Indians continue to come under pressure from outside encroachment on their territories.
In September of last year the advocacy group Survival International published a story on it’s web site, Amazon Indian nomad beaten up by loggers , and sent out a press release reporting that loggers in the Brazilian Amazon had attacked a member of the uncontacted Awa Indians and allegedly beat and tried to decapitate him. According to this story the loggers have warned that the Awa “will be killed if they go into their forest.”
On January 10 Survival International published another story on it’s web site, Loggers invade tribal home of Amazon Indian child ‘burned alive’, and sent out a press release reporting an attack by loggers on the Awa in which a child was “burned alive”. On January 20 Survival International followed up with a story, ‘Evidence of attack’ discovered where Indian child was reportedly ‘burned alive’ , and press release reporting the results of an investigation of the attack by Brazilian NGO CIMI, the Order of Attorneys of Brazil and the Maranhão Human Rights Society that found “disturbing evidence” of the attack.
On the Edge – Brazil’s Awá tribe rely on their forest home for survival but intensive logging poses a serious threat to their future
On January 31 Survival International published a story and sent out a press release featuring new photographs of another uncontacted tribe, the Mashco-Piro in Peru. This story reported on the pressures on uncontacted Indians from the outside world and also the dangers faced by outsiders who come into contact with them, including the death of Nicolás “Shaco” Flores, a member of the Matsigenka, another Peruvian Indian tribe, who could communicate with the Mashco-Piro and had been giving them gifts of cooking pots and machetes. Mr. Flores was killed by the Mashco-Piro, for reasons not clearly understood, in an arrow attack last November.
The Associated Press picked up this story on the Mashco-Piro and an article, Isolated Peru tribe makes uncomfortable contact, appeared on msnbc.com and other news outlets also ran versions of the story. While this is a good story with more details on the tragic incident, I’m wondering where the story is on the Brazilian loggers alleged attacks on the Awa. A search on msnbc.com produced not one result, and except for the Suvival International web site, a google search also came up empty.
Let us know what you think.
