Section:GDN 1N PaGe:37 Edition Date:190830 Edition:03 Zone: Sent at 30/8/2019 0:18 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
Friday 30 Aug ust 2019 The Guardian •••
World^37
Angels
among us
Survivors of
the Sri Lankan
bomb attacks
in April, in
which 263
people died,
dress as
angels for the
arrival of the
archbishop of
Canterbury,
Justin
Welby, in
Katuwapitiya,
Negombo.
PHOTOGRAPH: ERANGA
JAYAWARDENA/AP
Fears grow for Amazon
tribes as blazes rage on
indigenous reserves
Dom Phillips
Rio de Janeiro
Fires have been reported in protected
indigenous reserves of the Brazilian
Amazon , raising fears that loggers
and land grabbers have targeted these
remote areas during the dramatic
surge in blazes across the world’s big-
gest rainforest.
Yesterday’s blazes were seen on
the Araribóia indigenous reserve in
Maranhão state – a heavily defor-
ested reserve on the Amazon’s
eastern fringes. It is home to the Gua-
jajara tribe and about 80 people from
an isolated group of Awá indigenous
peopl e, described by the NGO Sur-
vival International as the world’s most
endangered tribe.
Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bol-
sonaro, who has been widely criticised
for failing to respond quickly to the
crisis, issued a decree yesterday ban-
ning fi res in the Amazon for 60 days ,
a move environmentalists described
as largely symbolic.
The fi res are often used to clear
pasture and deforested areas in the
Amazon during dry winter months but
there have been 28,000 this month,
more than any August since 2010.
Bolsonaro has been accused of help-
ing stoke the crisis by encouraging
invasions of protected reserves with
his promises to develop the Amazon,
and of forc ing his vision of progress on
indigenous peoples
Groups such as these are often
described as “voluntarily isolated”
because they avoid contact with
modern society. But campaigners say
indigenous territories make easy tar-
gets for loggers, farmers and settlers.
Tainaky Tenetehar , 34, a coordi-
nator for the Guardians of the Forest- a volunteer indigenous force that
patrols the reserve – said the fi res had
been set by loggers. “To make it harder,
they are stopping the indigenous fi re
brigade from combating the fi res.”
Images from Brazil’s space research
institute, INPE, have shown numer-
ous fi res inside the reserves in recent
days although the latest images indi-
cate a reduction.
Tenetehar, who said the fi res were
“ being controlled so as not to put the
Awá that are in the forest in danger” ,
challenged criticisms Bolsonaro made
of the size and quantity of indigenous
reserves during a crisis meeting with
Amazon state governors on Tuesday.
“There are farmers with lands big-
ger than ours,” he said. “We want
support from other countries ... if we
depend on our own country we are all
dead, destroyed.”
On the other side of the Amazon,
fi res have broken out in the Uru- eu-
wau- wau reserve in Rondônia state ,
home to three voluntarily isolated
indigenous groups. “That is what most
worries us, because we don’t know
what will happen with these groups,”
said Ivaneide Bandeira , a coordinator
at Kanindé , an indigenous non-profi t
group. “We have been denouncing
invasions by land grabbers and defor-
estation since the start of the year.”
Fiona Watson, advocacy director at
Survival International, said: “It’s clear
to me that a lot of these fi res are set
off deliberately. The diff erence now
is that with Bolsonaro’s message, the
Amazon is up for grabs.”Journal Rebecca Solnit Page 3 ‘We want support
from other countries.
If we depend on our
own, we are dead’Tainaky Tenetehar
Guardians of the ForestFor mer Fa rc
rebels rekindle
war three years
after peace bid
Joe Parkin Daniels
BogotáTwo former commanders of the
demobilised Colombian rebel group
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia – Farc – have announced
that they are returning to war, nearly
three years after a peace deal which
sought to end South America’s long-
est guerrilla confl ict.
The two men, known by their ali-
ases, Iván Márquez and Jesús Santrich,
released a video on You Tube in which
they lambasted the president, Iván
Duque, and his government for not
keeping its end of the deal, negoti-
ated over four years of talks in Cuba.
Dressed in fatigues and fl anked by
armed fi ghters, Márquez said: “This is
the continuation of the rebel fi ght in
answer to the betrayal of the state of
the Havana peace accords ... We were
never beaten or defeated ideologically,
so the struggle continues.”
The 2016 deal sought to formally
end 52 years of war that killed more
than 260,000 people and forced 7
million from their homes in a bitterconfl ict between left wing rebels, gov-
ernment forces and state-aligned
paramilitaries.
Márquez led the Farc’s negotiating
team, assisted in part by Santrich – who
is wanted by US authorities for traffi ck-
ing cocaine.
The deal initially fail ed to pass a
public referendum by the narrowest
of margins. Many took umbrage at the
accord’s guarantees of uncontested
seats in congress for Farc leaders, and
softer sentencing guidelines for those
who committed atrocities.
About 7,000 Farc fi ghters turned
in their weapons to a United Nations
monitoring body, but smaller rebel
groups, Farc dissidents and drug traf-
fi cking gangs have fi lled the void.
Mass displacements continue as rival
groups contest territory.
Activists and social leaders, partly
responsible for the grassroots imple-
mentation of the accords, are being
murdered at alarming rates. Since
the deal was signed, 627 local activ-
ists have been murdered , according
to the local watchdog Indepaz. A bout
150 former Farc fi ghters have also been
killed. Ex-combatants say Duque has
not done enough to protect them.
The Farc’s political leader, Rodrigo
Londoño, better known by his alias
Timochenko, said yesterday that the
Farc – now a legal political party –
would continue to honour the deal.
Duque downplayed the threat
posed by the new faction and repeated
accusations that dissident rebels were
being sheltered by Venezuela’s leftist
president, Nicolás Maduro.RELEASED BY "What's News" vk.com/wsnws TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws