Local authorities in the Brazilian Amazon have been accused of racism after locking down a string of indigenous villages and banning indigenous people from entering a local town because of a coronavirus outbreak.
Federal prosecutors on Friday called for the mayor of Pau D’Arco in the Amazon state of Pará – population 6,000 – to revoke the decree, which he said had been issued to protect public health.
“It’s absurd. This shows total disrespect,” said Takwyry Kayapó, an indigenous leader from the local Kayapó tribe. “This is prejudice, discrimination – or racism.” He said indigenous communities had not been consulted.
Coronavirus cases are soaring in Brazil, which earlier this month overtook the UK as the country with the world’s second-highest Covid-19 death toll. More than 47,700 people have died from the virus and nearly 1 million have been infected.
Infection rates appear to be stabilising in the country’s main cities, but infections are now spreading across the country’s vast interior.
The decree prohibits the “circulation of indigenous people in the municipality of Pau D’Arco, especially the urban zone … with the declaration of a LOCKDOWN around villages of the Kayapó ethnicity. Indigenous people will only be permitted to move around the municipality of Pau D’Arco – in the rural or urban zone – for essential activities.”
The decree makes no mention of non-indigenous people. Mayor Fredson da Silva said he signed it after 20 indigenous people in the nearby reserve tested positive.
“I want to avoid the disease spreading – as much for the indigenous people as all the people of my town,” he said. “I was frightened.”
13 non-indigenous people in the municipality had tested positive since the pandemic began, he said. On 15 June, the municipality reported that it had the lowest Covid-19 levels in the south of Pará state, with 12 confirmed cases and one death. Da Silva said he did not know how many non-indigenous people had been tested, but claimed health teams had made 800 house visits.
He did not consult local communities, the national indigenous agency, FUNAI, or the indigenous health agency, SESAI, before signing the decree.
The region is known for conflicts over territory. In 2017, 10 rural workers were killed during a police raid to expel them from farmland they were occupying near Pau D’Arco. Nobody has yet been convicted.
On Friday, federal prosecutors recommended the town either revoke the decree, include non-indigenous people in the lockdown order, or coordinate with indigenous agencies to set up sanitary barriers in local indigenous communities. They gave the town 24 hours to respond.
