By Tom Phillips in Roraima state, Brazil.
February 19, 2008

The mining industry says opening up such areas to large-scale mining projects will help stamp out illegal mines, of which there are officially 192 in Brazil, mainly extracting diamonds and gold.

"The government bill is a way of putting an end to illegal mines, which are extremely damaging to indigenous populations," said Miguel Nery, director of Brazil's national department of mineral production, in a recent interview.

But activists such as Wapichana are unconvinced, describing the proposals as another step towards the eradication of indigenous cultures, languages and people in Brazil. When the Portuguese "discovered" Brazil in 1500 there were as many as six million Indians already living there. Today, according to government figures, there are less than 400,000.

"There are social consequences that must be taken into consideration Illnesses could arrive, money will arrive, bringing bad things such as alcohol."

"In Brazil, we have already seen these problems happen with the Yanomami. There was a genocide here, and it nearly finished off the Yanomami people," Wapichana warned following a recent presentation in the indigenous village of Manalai, where she had travelled to discuss the government plans with members of the Ingariko tribe who share the state of Roraima with the Yanomami.

"Brazil wants to be a big power. But this does not give it the right to steamroll over the rights of the Indians," she said. "The development of our country cannot be achieved through the extinction of its indigenous people and the disrespecting of their rights."

With so much money at stake such strong words may not be enough to fend off the advance into Yanomami lands.

Already signs of the white man's presence can be seen in the Yanomami villages of Roraima state; in the football shirts sported by young, Portuguese-speaking Yanomami, in the Western-style underpants which many Yanomami men now prefer to their traditional clothes and, most worryingly, in the STDs (or simply "penis" as many Yanomami generically refer to such illnesses) that have invaded such communities. In Xitei, Yanomami Indians based here on the Brazilian side of the border whisper nervously that Yanomamis in Venezuela have begun using shotguns rather than the tribe's traditional bow and arrow.

Nor does one need to look far for signs of the miners recent presence here. At Xitei, a rusty tractor used to flatten the runway and a burnt out helicopter serve as a reminder of the area's gold-mining days. It is something that orphaned Indians such as Graciano Yanomami never want to see again.

"Things are getting better here now," he says. "Before things were really bad, we had malaria, we had river blindness, we had flu and lots of other illnesses. Now we have health, there's less diarrhoea.

"Before, we had nothing. It's been five years since the gold miners have left and these problems are going away," he insists.

Flying out of Xitei is a terrifying and depressing experience. The plane rattles down the mud airstrip before being catapulted through the thick white mist that hangs low over the community and quickly swallows up the ground below.

It takes only a few seconds for the clusters of Yanomami Indians standing below to disappear from view. And as the plane climbs up into the skies above, it is impossible not to wonder if those last few lingering seconds, gazing down at these ancient, virtually untouched indigenous men and women will be your last.

- This article was first published in the Sunday Herald