‘It’s a war zone out there. It really is a war zone’
Interview with human rights campaigner Fiona Watson, recently returned from Yanomami territory in north-west Brazil
2022 marks the 30th anniversary of the demarcation of the almost 10 million hectare Yanomami Indigenous Territory in the far north-west Brazilian Amazon, adjacent to the border with Venezuela. Fiona Watson, my former colleague at the NGO Survival International, has recently returned from the region where she joined 100s of Yanomami men, women, children and others to mark the milestone. Here she explains how significant the demarcation was, the horrors and challenges that the Yanomami face today, and why she remains hopeful for the future:
DH: Can you put into perspective the importance of demarcating the Yanomami’s territory? How much of an achievement was that?
FW: It was colossal because it was something the Yanomami and their supporters, in Brazil and outside, like Survival, had been campaigning for for years. Before it was demarcated there had been many people - and there still are many people - eyeing the area up for its rich natural resources, and the military government, who were very against demarcating it, had bulldozed a road through the southern area. In fact, they came up with this crazy idea to demarcate just 19 little islands and open up the rest to gold-mining. There was a huge amount of opposition to demarcation, not just from the military but also many politicians. Of course, it was also crucial because it was fundamental to the Yanomami’s survival, because without their land no tribal people will survive. They depend on it. It gives them their autonomy, their self-sufficiency, and it’s theirs by right.
DH: Looking back on it now, what would you say were the main strategies the Yanomami and others adopted?
FW: A key moment came when Survival invited Davi [Kopenawa, a Yanomami leader and shaman] out of the territory, out of Brazil. It was the first time a Yanomami had left the country. He wasn’t known at all, and so here was this young, charismatic shaman with the weight of his people on his shoulders because at that time the Yanomami were being literally decimated by an illegal gold-mining invasion. To have him come out and accept the Right Livelihood Award on our behalf - which Survival had won - projected him onto the international stage, so there he was in Stockholm speaking to the parliament, and then we brought him to London where MPs met him and he gave a number of public talks and interviews, and then we organised his first trip to the US a couple of years later, when he met the UN Secretary-General. Davi has this charisma, this ability to communicate with people, this incredible knowledge of his territory and its history, and so he became a bridge between the Yanomami world and the outside. He has this ability to convey very important messages, especially his critique of the Western world and our never-ending consumption and how it’s destroying indigenous peoples in the forest. The media attention, the lobbying and Davi’s voice were all very important.
DH: This was before demarcation, right? Before 1992?
FW: Yes. Davi’s first trip abroad was 1989. But even prior to that he’d been speaking out in Brazil and so he was getting media attention there and becoming well-known. His presence and oratory were really, really important. Of course, there were many other people in Brazil and outside too who had also been raising the issue, pressurising and fighting for their rights. It was a combination.
DH: You’ve been in and out of Yanomami territory numerous times over the years, haven’t you?
FW: Yes.
DH: Can you tell us about what it’s like out there? Perhaps the first time you visited?
FW: The first time was 1990. It was such an amazing experience. What struck me most was going into this huge “shabono" - this huge collective dwelling - where there were dozens of families all living together under the same roof. Extraordinary architecture! It was a very beautiful building which opened up to the sky. I remember lying in my hammock at night and looking up at the stars, hearing the shamans chanting, people talking, ritual dialogue happening, and feeling completely transported into another world. What impressed me was that ability to live collectively and share things, and how open they were and what a great sense of humour many people have. I loved going into the forest, whether it was with the kids or the hunters and they would laugh at my very European inability to keep to the trails - but it was always done with humour, never malice. For me, it was like seeing a people completely at one with their environment and not needing anything from us, being self-sufficient, and having such a remarkably light footprint.
DH: I saw a recent Survival statement saying the situation currently is extremely serious, with an estimated 20,000 illegal gold-miners there. Did you see any of that when you were there?
FW: I didn’t see any of that because the meeting [to mark the 30th anniversary] had to be held in an area that’s not a conflict zone, for obvious reasons, but I did hear Yanomami talking about it. Also, quite a lot of footage of the disastrous impacts of the mining was shared at the meeting. My conclusion, listening to all of that and reading testimonies and hearing directly from people, is that it’s a war zone out there. It really is a war zone. It’s now reached the stage where parts of the territory have been taken over by criminal gangs and narco-traffickers, and the gold-mining has become really large-scale. When I lived in Roraima state in the 1980s when the first gold-miners invaded it was obviously very serious, it was appalling, because it brought in diseases like malaria which the Yanomami had no resistance to, and because it created so many social and environmental problems, but the difference now is the scale of the invasion and the machinery they’re using. Huge dredges! And some of these goldmines have become like towns, with shops, football pitches and houses. It’s incredibly frightening and disturbing. It’s becoming permanent and there’s so much violence. For example, communities like Palimiu have been subjected to a number of armed attacks by gold-miners repeatedly firing on them and throwing tear-gas canisters. Really heavy intimidation. And one of the worst stories to have come out recently is the gang-rape of a young girl. I don’t think we’re going to know for a while what really happened. Hutukara [a Yanomami NGO], in its latest report “Yanomami Under Attack”, has catalogued rape of Yanomami women, and two men were murdered last year, which wasn’t properly investigated by the authorities. There ’s immense pressure on them. And then there’s the question of the mercury, a completely toxic substance. It’s illegal to buy it.
DH: Are the miners definitely using it?
FW: Definitely. Teams from FioCruz [the Oswald Cruz Foundation] have gone into the area and done studies in communities near to the goldmines and found that some Yanomami have extremely high rates of mercury in their systems. FioCruz tried to go in recently but the government prevented them.
DH: That’s leading onto my next question. What has the state or government’s response been so far?
FW: It’s been utterly, utterly disgraceful. Far from protecting their territory, Bolsonaro - who’s anti-indigenous and has this rhetoric incentivising and encouraging people to invade indigenous land, and is trying to push through a bill in Congress that would open indigenous territories to mining - praises these kinds of wildcat gold-miners, like there are in the Yanomami territory, albeit it’s becoming much more mechanised. To him, these people are like adventurers and heroes. So people, whether they’re gold-miners, land-grabbers, loggers or whatever, know they have the support of Bolsonaro and his allies in Congress, and that they can get away with committing crimes. Impunity has always been a big issue, particularly in areas like the Amazon, where there’s very little federal presence, but Bolsonaro has taken that to the nth degree. He has completely weakened FUNAI [the National Indian Foundation, part of the Ministry of Justice], IBAMA [the Environment Ministry], and even INPE [the National Institute for Space Research], which has done all those fantastic satellite images documenting the deforestation and fires. He fired INPE’s head, a very respected scientist. What’s going on in Brazil is the dismantling of the structures of law, order and protection, so that all that indigenous peoples are left with is the Public Prosecutors’ office. Some of them - the prosecutors - are doing a great job trying to hold the government to account. I’ve never seen anything like this in 30 years: the lawlessness, the deforestation rates skyrocketing, and even if Bolsonaro doesn’t get back in power [after elections scheduled for October] whoever takes over simply can’t put right the amount of damage that has been done. The government’s response has been criminal.
DH: For members of the public outside Brazil, in the UK, the EU, the US and elsewhere, what would you say to people concerned about what is happening in Yanomami territory? Is there some way they can help at all?
FW: There are lots of ways they can help. First of all: by supporting Yanomami organisations, financially or participating in their campaigns. And there’s no doubt that public pressure, both inside a country and internationally, is important. It can include putting pressure on our politicians here to get them to take action, or any big institute funding Brazil, as well as researching your role as a consumer. For example, where’s the demand for the gold coming from?
DH: I was going to ask you that!
FW: My view is that there is so much Brazilian gold that is illegal that the onus should be on importing countries to prove it hasn’t come from an illegal source. The gold is being laundered: for example, there’s a lot coming from Roraima, but there’s not a single legal goldmine there.
DH: I’m pretty sure I read that some or a lot of Brazilian gold comes to the UK.
FW: The UK is a big importer. I suspect they claim “It’s all legal”, but how can they be sure? I think gold from Brazil, or at least the gold coming out of the Amazon, should be labelled “conflict gold.”
DH: Or “blood gold”?
FW: Blood gold. It’s blood gold! That’s what the Yanomami are saying. And why do we even need gold? It’s not like oil, gas, copper or lithium, which is useful.
DH: Just one question to finish. I don’t want to not mention this. I understand you knew Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira [a British journalist and ex-FUNAI employee who were recently murdered in the Brazilian Amazon] for some years? What about the government's response to that?
FW: It has been disgraceful. After UNIVAJA, the regional network of indigenous organisations in the Javari Valley, a small organisation with few resources, first raised the alarm and sent out two search parties, the government belatedly sent out its own search party. This is a frontier area, so the Brazilian army has a big base relatively nearby and yet it took them days to mobilise, and even then the mobilisation wasn’t sufficient. We know they went missing on a fairly large river. If they’d got a helicopter up quickly, there might have been a chance of finding [Phillips’s and Pereira’s] boat at least, or finding them, or working out what had happened. The whole thing has the hallmark of sluggish government reaction, and almost not caring, almost not wanting to do anything. That’s the way I read it. I think it’s been terrible.
DH: To finish, is there anything else you’d like to say about the situation in the Yanomami’s territory?
FW: Things are really bad, but I’m also optimistic. If we look at what the Yanomami themselves have achieved, we have to hold on to that. If you consider both sides of the border - in Brazil and Venezuela - then they’re managing the largest area of tropical rainforest under indigenous control anywhere in the world. That’s an amazing achievement. They’re still going and they’re resilient - and the same can be said for many indigenous peoples around the world. They’re facing all these massive pressures and challenges from all sorts - including the conservation industry - and yet there’s this extraordinary strength and determination. That gives me hope for the future, and that’s why Survival, many others and the public-at-large should support them in whatever way they can. We shouldn't underestimate the power of individual voices coming together.
DH: Fiona, that’s a very nice note on which to end. Thank you.