Brazil: Gunmen threaten to assassinate leading Amazon shaman
July 29, 2014
Davi Kopenawa, shaman and internationally renowned spokesman for the Yanomami tribe in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, has
demanded urgent police protection following a series of death threats by armed thugs reportedly hired by goldminers
operating illegally on Yanomami land.
In June 2014, armed men on motorbikes raided the Boa Vista office of Brazilian organization ISA, which works closely
with the Yanomami, asking for Davi. The men threatened ISA’s staff with guns and stole computers and other equipment.
After the assault, one of the men was arrested and reported that he had been hired by goldminers.
In May, Yanomami Association Hutukara – headed by Davi – received a message from goldminers that Davi would not be alive
by the end of the year.
Davi said, “They want to kill me. I don’t do what the white people do, who go after someone to kill them. I don’t get in
the way of their work. But they are getting in the way of our work and our fight. I’ll continue to fight and to work for
my people. Because defending the Yanomami people and their land is my work.”
Since the attack, a climate of fear has surrounded the offices of Hutukara and ISA, as men on motorbikes intimidate the
staff and repeatedly ask for Davi’s whereabouts.
In collaboration with Hutukara, Brazil’s government launched a major operation to evict hundreds of illegal miners and
to destroy mining infrastructure in February 2014.
Davi, who has been called the “Dalai Lama of the Rainforest”, has been at the forefront of the struggle for the
protection of Yanomami land for over 30 years. Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights,
supported the Yanomami’s successful fight for the demarcation of the Yanomami territory in Brazil, after an invasion of
thousands of illegal goldminers in the 1980s decimated the tribe.
Davi has traveled abroad on many occasions to raise awareness of the urgent need to protect the Amazon rainforest from
destruction. He has spoken at the United Nations and received the Global 500 award, among others, for his contribution
to the battle of environmental preservation.
Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said today, “The rule of law means nothing on the Amazon frontier, which is as wild
and violent as the American West used to be. Anyone standing in the way of this aggressive colonization risks being
killed in cold blood. These are not empty threats – indigenous activists are frequently assassinated for resisting the
destruction of their land. Davi Yanomami’s life is in danger. Those behind the threats and this latest attack must be
brought to justice – the authorities need to act now to prevent the murder of another innocent man.”
ENDS