Haximu massacre turns 30 in August

On the morning of July 23, 1993, a group of prospectors entered the Yanomami village of Haximu, on the Venezuelan border with Brazil, and murdered 12 indigenous people. Among the victims were teenagers, children and a baby. All killed by gunshots or machete blows. The slaughter did not happen suddenly. It was built over the course of growing friction between the garimpeiros and the Yanomami community. The relationship between the two groups was not friendly and, in June, the garimpeiros decided to set up an ambush in the middle of the forest and killed four Yanomami men. In retaliation, the indigenous people attacked the mining camp and killed one of the men. From then on, the miners decided to take revenge against the Yanomami community that lived in the village of Haximu, located on the Venezuelan side. Most of the men were out of the village, participating in a party in another location, when the garimpeiros arrived in Haximu to carry out the killings. In all, an elderly man, three women (including two elderly women), three teenagers, four children and a baby were killed. Several others were injured. The crimes only became known to the authorities in August of that year, when survivors left Haximu, arrived at another village in the Homoxi community, on the Brazilian side of the border, and reported everything to the local tuxaua (indigenous chief). The information reached the National Foundation for Indigenous Peoples (Funai) and the National Health Foundation (Funasa). It was later reported by press vehicles and began to be investigated by the Federal Police (PF). Not knowing that Haximu was in Venezuela, the PF went to the place and began the investigation. Of the 12 bodies from the massacre, eleven had already been cremated, as is customary for the Yanomami people. The body of a young woman was not cremated because she was originally from another community and was just visiting Haximu village. As there were no close relatives of the victim to participate in the cremation process, her body was spared and the police were able to find her bones. Based on the expertise carried out on the mortal remains and on the reports of the survivors, the investigators were able to prove that the death had been provoked by shots from firearms. Tried in Brazil Even though it took place on Venezuelan soil, the crime involved Brazilian miners who fled to Brazil after the massacre and some were arrested. Therefore, the case was judged here in the country and ended up being typified as genocide. According to Luciano Mariz Maia, one of the prosecutors who acted in the case, who is now Deputy Attorney General of the Republic, the garimpeiros wanted to eliminate the indigenous people because they were Yanomami. “There was nothing personal against those victims, they didn’t distinguish one victim from another. Garimpeiros gathered in a collective to kill Yanomami Indians as a collective”, explains Maia. Twenty-four miners were charged with the crime, but as the investigations were only able to fully identify five of them (the rest were only known by nicknames), only some of those responsible were convicted. “This was the first case in which the Brazilian courts condemned a scene of genocide. Five ended up being convicted. This case was sentenced by the federal court in Roraima [em 1996]. The sentence was annulled by the Court of the 1st Region [TRF1], to the argument that it would be an intentional crime against life and therefore competence of the Jury Court. There was an appeal and the Superior Court of Justice [STJ] overturned that judgment, claiming that genocide is a different crime from homicide and, therefore, within the competence of the single judge. This decision was confirmed by the Federal Supreme Court [STF]”, he says. According to Maia, before the massacre of the Yanomami, another case of indigenous genocide had already been reported to the Brazilian courts, the Massacre at Boca do Capacete, in Amazonas, which took place in 1988, which resulted in the death of four indigenous people and the disappearance of ten others, all tikuna. But in this case the condemnation came later.

Agência Brasil