Rains Stall Effort to Move Prospectors Off Indian Land : Brazil: Gold rush has brought hunger, disease and death to an Amazon basin tribe.

Heavy tropical rains are stalling a government effort to relocate thousands of gold prospectors who have illegally invaded tribal lands of Brazil’s Yanomami Indians and endangered their pristine society, a Justice Ministry spokesman said Wednesday.

A gold rush that began in 1987 has lured the prospectors to large areas of Yanomami land, exposing the previously isolated Indians to diseases and disrupting their traditional means of livelihood. Sickness and hunger have spread, and pro-Indian organizations estimate deaths in the hundreds.

The plight of the Yanomami has drawn international attention as an example of the harm that is befalling Brazil’s 220,000 Indians with settlement of the Amazon wilderness. The search for gold on Yanomami lands, said to have yielded up to $1 billion, is part of a widespread rush that has drawn hundreds of thousands of prospectors into the Amazon River basin over the past several years.

Last week, Justice Minister Saul Ramos reached an agreement with prospectors’ representatives for the voluntary evacuation of outsiders from areas designated as Yanomami tribal lands. In return, Ramos promised to push for the designation of areas where gold prospecting would be permitted.

But this week, the onset of seasonal downpours has all but stopped evacuation of prospectors from the Indian areas by light plane and helicopter.

“It is raining all day,” said Ovidio Martins de Araujo, a Justice Ministry spokesman. “So we don’t have any way of getting the prospectors out.”

For example, he said, 900 prospectors were ready and waiting for evacuation from a camp called Bahiano Formiga but aircraft were unable to land because of rain.

De Araujo said by telephone from Brasilia, the capital, that 18,000 to 20,000 prospectors will be evacuated, but he gave no estimate of how long this will take. “It’s going to depend a lot on the weather,” he said.

The rainy season could continue into June in that part of the Amazon basin.

A few years ago, the Yanomami were believed to be the largest South American tribal group still isolated from outside society. Brazilian authorities currently estimate the number of Yanomamis in this country at 4,000, but unofficial estimates put the number as high as 10,000. Yanomamis are spread over a wilderness area of 36,000 square miles in the Brazilian states of Amazonas and Roraima, and also in southern Venezuela.

Indian advocates have long claimed that the 36,000 square miles belong by tradition and law to the Yanomami. The area was once recognized as “Yanomami indigenous lands” by the government Indian agency, but in 1988 President Jose Sarney issued executive orders to create two national forests on nearly half of the area.

The Sarney administration designated 19 smaller areas with a total of 10,000 square miles as traditional Yanomami tribal lands. Pro-Indian groups argue that the 19 areas and the two parks are illegal.

In early January, federal police acting on a court order began operations aimed at removing gold prospectors from the 36,000-square-mile area. Last week, prospectors demonstrated in Boa Vista, the capital of Roraima, demanding access to at least part of the area.

Justice Minister Ramos and other officials met with officials of the Amazon Prospectors Union, who promised that the prospectors would leave the 19 new Indian areas if they are permitted to extract gold from other parts of the 36,000 square miles.

Ramos promised government efforts to create two previously proposed prospecting areas with a total of 1,500 square miles within one of the newly created national forests. Ministry spokesman De Araujo emphasized that the prospectors must leave Indian areas first, but he acknowledged that the government is doing nothing to stop them from entering the two areas proposed for prospecting.

Aldo Mongiano, the Catholic bishop of Boa Vista, predicted that the two proposed prospecting areas will not solve the problem. “The presence of the prospectors in those areas next to Indian villages should not be permitted, because it will be impossible to monitor them and prevent the prospectors from invading the Indian reserves again,” the bishop said.

Abel de Barros Lima, legal representative of the Committee for the Creation of Yanomami Park, said the agreement with the prospectors is illegal because only an act of the Brazilian Congress can reclassify land within the 36,000-square-mile area claimed for the Yanomamis.

Lima said by telephone from Sao Paulo, where the committee is headquartered, that the Sarney administration is stalling for time so that it can pass the problem on to the administration of President-elect Fernando Collor de Mello, who takes office March 15.

“We know that there is no will within the government to carry out the evacuation of the prospectors,” Lima said.

He said that to save the Yanomami Indians, the entire 36,000 square miles must be evacuated, not just the 19 newly designated Indian areas, which he called “islands.” While the Indians live in the 19 areas, they need to move freely among them,to maintain their traditional customs, he said.

Meanwhile, he said, malaria and other diseases spread by prospectors are rapidly undermining Indian health. Sickness decreases their ability to hunt and gather food, while contact with the outsiders increases their dependence on scarce commercial supplies.

“There are hundreds and hundreds of Indians dying because of that invasion of prospectors,” said Lima. “It is impossible to prevent the malaria and stop the genocide of the Yanomami if the prospectors are not removed.”