The team that traveled to the jungle area was composed of military officers, prosecutors and other officials. Jose Eliecer Pinto Gutierrez told the Venezuelan newspaper Ultimas Noticias, in its Sunday edition, that he and other officials had visited four indigenous communities near the border with Brazil and “everything is fine there.” He said they had visited the communities of Momoi, Uchiche and Plantanal, though the newspaper report didn’t mention the community of Irotatheri. “They should find the survivors, and they should interview the survivors,” Haverkamp said of the officials who are carrying out the investigation. He said last week that it was unclear how many people were killed, but that villagers had sent word that about 80 people lived in Irotatheri and that they found only three survivors who had fled. He said that account had later been relayed to others in the village of Momoi, and to others in the larger community of Parima. He said that people from the village of Hokomawe reportedly had seen victims’ charred remains in the nearby community of Irotatheri and had talked with three survivors who had been hunting in the forest at the time of the violence. Luis Shatiwe, a leader of the Horonami Yanomami group, said last week that the account of killings had been relayed through villagers in nearby communities.
She said finding out what happened, or a possible death toll, is complicated in part because the Yanomami generally avoid talking about the dead and typically use “a lot” when describing numbers higher than three. Haverkamp has worked among the Yanomami for two decades in Venezuela and Brazil, and knows a little of their language. “If they want to find the truth, they will only find the truth (working) together with the Yanomami,” Haverkamp said in a phone interview on Sunday from Hamburg. Based on the account of the indigenous group, she said, “I think there were killings.”
Christina Haverkamp, an indigenous rights activist in Germany, said she thinks it’s possible the officials who traveled to the area simply didn’t find the community in question, and should keep investigating.
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