The Washington Post - 26.08.2019

A8 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, AUGUST 26 , 2019

Brazil into the country’s economic fabric.

“Let’s use the riches that God gave us

for the well-being of our population,” he

said.

The residents of Itaituba, a mining

town of 100,000 just down the river from

the Munduruku tribe, were paying atten-

tion.

Itaituba was the epicenter of a gold

rush in the 1980s that drew miners from

around the country, but by the early

1990s, most of the easily accessible gold

had been taken. The deeper reserves in

the jungle were difficult to reach without

cheap electricity or foreign investment.

Many miners went packing.

Then the federal government floated

the possibility of a hydroelectric complex

just upriver. Its construction and opera-

tion would bring jobs and investment to

the city again. Then foreign companies

could tap the electricity to access gold

reserves that lay beyond the reach of

diesel-powered machines.

Bolsonaro has resurrected hope in Itai-

tuba. For many miners, the dam would

bring back the glory days.

It was the lure of the Amazon that

attracted Jhow Valenzuela to mining

17 years ago. He spent 15-hour days

hunched over the earth, searching for

shimmers of gold glowing in the sun.

That was before he understood the cost

of it all to the environment.

“It is irreversible damage, without a

doubt,” he said. “The environmental deg-

radation is huge. But it has become a

necessary evil.”

“I loved growing up in a country rich in

natural resources,” he added. “I loved

bathing in the crystalline waters of the

river. I want my grandchildren to have

that same right.”

Still, he understands the possibilities

the dam represents for miners like him,

living on less than $600 a month.

Development suggests an escape for a

country exhausted by a flailing economy.

“We need to survive,” Valenzuela said.

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tures the fish they eat, waters their farms

and sustains the animals they hunt. The

Munduruku cosmology holds that life on

Earth originated from a narrow opening

in the river. If the world is to survive, the

Tapajos River must be protected.

“They say we are blocking develop-

ment,” Juarez said. “But we aren’t block-

ing it. We see destruction, not just for us,

but for all Amazonian people.”

The Munduruku have spent centuries

skirting the capitalist economy that came

to dominate their country. They live as

they have for centuries — with no income

and little division of labor.

Their village lies in a small clearing

above a hill surrounded by misty jungle.

They live in wooden huts with braided

palm leaves for roofs and mud floors,

cracked and uneven from daily down-

pours during the rainy season. Pineapples

and bananas are planted in neat rows.

Some Munduruku collect government

welfare. A few earn salaries as teachers.

They pool the money to buy goods for the

whole community.

“The government wants us to live like

white people, to live off of our own in-

come,” said Audora Akai, 21. “We won’t let

them destroy our land, the land where we

have always lived.”

The dense jungle and vast rivers of the

Amazon separate its sparsely populated

communities from the rest of the country.

Large infrastructure projects, Bolsonaro

says, will finally integrate these corners of

BY MARINA LOPES

PHOTOS BY JABIN BOTSFORD

IN SAWRE MUYBU, BRAZIL

P

resident Jair Bolsonaro cam-

paigned on promises to bring devel-

opment to the Amazon. The center-

piece of his project: hydroelectric dams

that would turn the Amazon’s gushing

rivers into cheap and reliable energy.

As Brazil struggles through a pro-

longed economic stagnation, the allure of

the Amazon has grown, even as scientists

warn that development will accelerate

rising deforestation.

On the day after his inauguration,

Bolsonaro decried the fact that 15 percent

of Brazil’s territory is reserved for indig-

enous tribes that make up less than 1 mil-

lion people. “Let’s integrate these citizens

and bring value to all Brazilians,” he

tweeted.

Fifteen hundred miles from Brasilia,

the Munduruku tribe watched Bolson-

aro’s rise with trepidation. Their village

on the Tapajos River was near a proposed

dam that would flood the homes of

100 people and destroy their way of life.

The tribe prided itself on a history of

resilience. In the 16th century, it con-

quered neighboring rivals, placing their

decapitated heads on sticks as trophies.

The Munduruku empire stretched

throughout the river valley. Even the

cannons and guns of the Portuguese

could not force them into submission.

But they struggled to make sense of

this new adversary.

The tribe fought construction of the

dam under successive Brazilian presi-

dents for 10 years. They won a major

victory in 2016, when Brazil’s environ-

mental regulation agency ordered the

project shelved. Tribal chief Juarez Mun-

duruku received the phone call from

Brasilia: There would be no dam — for

now.

“We were happy, but we are always

living with that doubt, that at any mo-

ment, the government can put the project

back on the table,” he said.

That fear has sharpened in recent

months. Bolsonaro wants to speed envi-

ronmental licensing for smaller hydro-

electric dams. And although he has not

specified the Tapajos dam, four years of

economic stagnation have hardened Bra-

zilian voters against environmental con-

cerns.

For the Munduruku, the dam is an

existential threat. The Tapajos River nur-

The World

BANGLADESH

Thousands of Rohingya

mark ‘Genocide Day’

Thousands of Rohingya
refugees marked the second
anniversary of their exodus from
Myanmar into Bangladesh on
Sunday by rallying, crying and
praying as they demanded that
Myanmar grant them their
citizenship and other rights before
they agree to return.
Up to 30,000 joined a rally days
after Bangladesh, with the help of
the U.N. refugee agency,
attempted to start the repatriation
of 3,450 Rohingya Muslims. None
agreed to go back voluntarily,
citing fear for their safety and a

lack of confidence in Myanmar.

More than 1 million Rohingya

live in Bangladesh.

In Kutupalong camp on

Sunday, some carried placards

and banners reading “Never

Again! Rohingya Genocide

Remembrance Day” and “Restore

our citizenship.”

They raised their hands at a

prayer session and cried. The

prayer was held for the victims of

killings, rape and arson attacks by

Myanmar soldiers and Buddhist

militias in 2017.

Buddhist-majority Myanmar,

also known as Burma, has

consistently denied human rights

violations and says the military

operations in Rakhine state, from

where most of the Rohingya fled,

were undertaken that year in

response to attacks by Rohingya

insurgents.

A U.N.-established

investigation last year

recommended the prosecution of

Myanmar’s top military

commanders on charges of

genocide, war crimes and crimes

against humanity for the

crackdown on the Rohingya.

— Associated Press

Clashes between Yemeni forces,

separatists kill 9: Yemeni

officials said clashes between

government forces and

separatists backed by the United

Arab Emirates killed at least nine

people. Yemen’s government and

the UAE are part of a Saudi-led

coalition that has been battling

Iran-aligned Yemeni rebels since

2015. But in recent weeks, an
      internal rivalry has boiled over,
      leading to clashes across
      southern Yemen. Government
      forces took control of the city of
      Ataq, capital of the oil-rich
      Shabwa province, on Friday.
      Sunday’s fighting unfolded about
      20 miles south of Ataq.

State of emergency declared in

Sudanese port: Sudan’s new

sovereign council declared a state

of emergency in the city of Port

Sudan after tribal clashes that

police say killed at least 16 people.

This comes at a delicate time for

Sudan, following the signing of a

power-sharing deal this month.

Clashes between members of the

Beni Amer and Nuba tribes,

which have flared up in the past,

were reignited Wednesday and

continued into Saturday

morning, police said. Port Sudan

is Sudan’s main sea gateway.

3 Turkish soldiers killed in

northern Iraq: Turkey’s official

news agency reported that three

Turkish soldiers were killed in

northern Iraq in clashes with

Kurdish militants. Anadolu

Agency, citing the Turkish

Defense Ministry, said seven

soldiers were wounded and

hospitalized. Turkey launched an

operation in May in northern Iraq

against the Kurdistan Workers’

Party, or PKK. The PKK began an

insurgency against Turkey in the

country’s mainly Kurdish

southeast in 1984. Turkey, the

United States and the European

Union consider the group a

terrorist organization.

7 dead as helicopter, small plane

collide over Spain’s Mallorca: A

midair collision between a

sightseeing helicopter and a small

plane on the Spanish island of

Mallorca killed seven people,

authorities said. The victims were

three adults and two children on

the helicopter and two local men

on the light plane, the regional

government of Spain’s Balearic

Islands, which include Mallorca,

said in a tweet.

— From news services

DIGEST

Amazon

tribe sees

its survival

imperiled

Brazil looks to development,

hydropower dams to revive

a long-suffering economy

CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE: A young

girl, a woman and a warrior of Brazil’s

Munduruku tribe near the banks of the

Tapajos River. For 10 years, the tribe

has fought the construction of a

hydropower dam, a threat that has

been renewed under Jair Bolsonaro.