Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 19, 1993 TAG: 9309190011
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: C-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAMES BROOKE THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: CARACAS, VENEZUELA LENGTH: Medium
Stung by the news that the 16 Indians killed were in its territory, Venezuela started Wednesday to expel the hundreds of Brazilian miners who illegally pan for gold in national park areas of Amazonas state.
Earlier this month, the governor of Amazonas, Venezuela's southernmost state, warned of "a Brazilian invasion." On Tuesday, Yanomami representatives denounced the gold miners.
"The miners are entering our homeland," one Yanomami leader testified in Congress through an interpreter. "The miners are exterminating us. We are tired of being killed."
In the Colombian Amazon, the authorities prepared this week to deport 29 Brazilian miners detained in raids.
And in Brazil, a hard line toward the miners was voiced on Thursday by the nation's new minister of the environment and the Amazon. All miners will be expelled from Brazil's Yanomami reserve, Rubens Ricupero, the new minister, vowed at his swearing-in ceremony.
The Brazilian police are concluding a two-month operation that has expelled 1,500 miners from the Pico da Neblina National Park, a protected area next to Venezuela.
On Wednesday, a Brazilian judge in the Amazon frontier city of Boa Vista issued arrest warrants for 19 miners suspected of involvement in the killings. In addition, four more suspects have been arrested over the last week in Boa Vista.
In Venezuela, the first investigative team is to arrive at the site of the killings next week, a month after Brazil's justice minister visited the charred village near the poorly marked border, thinking he was in Brazil. Brazil's Indian protection service, Funai, initially reported that 73 Yanomami had been killed in Brazil.
by CNB