The pandemic has reached many contacted indigenous communities. We’re working flat out to amplify their calls for support for their own organizations.
Dear Jack,
Survival does well and thinks well. It was born to look over us. Survival's role is very important, to spread the word about us indigenous peoples around the world. I want it to be our friend always and to be by our side. It mustn’t change andmust continue to fight.
– Davi Kopenawa Yanomami.
I last wrote that I would pass on good news from Brazil, but I must begin with the bad!
The pandemic has reached many contacted indigenous communities. We’re working flat out to amplify their calls for support for their own organizations, with hundreds of articles and interviews in several languages, an enormous push in our lobbying for land rights, and for them to get the best medical care possible. We’re also helping in many other ways which remain unpublicized as always because of the threats they face.
For decades, Survival has brought international pressure to support Yanomami calls to evict illegal gold miners from their territory. It’s worked over and over again, but after a few years there’s a reinvasion. Now they’re back in large numbers and things are desperate. To help, please sign the Yanomami petition and ask others to. It’s easy to do and doesn’t seem much but, in conjunction with other campaign actions, it does make a difference. If you can do more, please see
svlint.org/Bolsonaro for suggestions.
This fight will go on and on and we should beware of any claims of quick fixes! There may never be a time when indigenous land will be completely safe. They’ll always need people all over the world prepared to stand with them. In the midst of the gloom, there is one vital improvement in the situation in Brazil as compared to when Survival started over 50 years ago. It’s that the indigenous peoples – those who’ve survived the centuries of genocidal onslaught – are more united now than ever before. They have more information about the breadth and depth of their enemies, and they also know more about their international allies like Survival. They’re vociferous and unintimidated. This is so good to see.
That strength, supported by you, is enabling them to push back successfully against the theft of their land and fundamentalist missionaries’ insidious attempts to take over their lives and ways of being. They recently saw the dangerous head of the Uncontacted Indians Unit of the Indigenous Affairs Agency (FUNAI) removed from his post. To find out more about how we helped see here. (Stop press: As I write this, he’s back, the decision has been overturned! We’re immediately back on the case of opposing him again.)
In more good news, the Javari Valley indigenous organization stopped the evangelical New Tribes Mission (“Ethnos360”) from using its new helicopter to “reach the unreached” which would have killed many, even before Covid-19 struck. This mission group are the last people on the planet anyone would want anywhere near uncontacted tribes. Survival has been fighting them for 50 years. Of course, many churches in Latin America don’t behave like “New Tribes.” There’s a long tradition of a progressive “liberation theology” which has stood with the dispossessed against the powerful for generations, but the fundamentalists who helped put Bolsonaro in power aren’t the same! That lot are in with the
powerful élite who want the riches of the earth for themselves.
We at Survival are privileged to be able to fight back effectively and we’re so lucky to have the support of so many extraordinary people, like you, our supporters.
Thank you,
Stephen Corry Survival International
Director
Twitter: @StephenCorrySvl
P.S. Unlike many NGOs, we reject government funding so our integrity is never compromised. We rely entirely on your donations to keep fighting for tribal peoples worldwide. Please donate today. Without you, there can be no Survival.
Survival International USA, PO Box 26345, San Francisco, CA 94126 | A 501(c)(3) organization tax I.D. 26-3208869
Survival International, 6 Charterhouse Buildings, London EC1M 7ET, UK | Charity no. 267444
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