Brazil moves to prevent 'massacre' of Amazon tribe by drug traffickers

Guardian ^ | 8/9/11 | Tom Phillips

[LibWhacker]

Brazilian indigenous protection officers to make emergency visit to isolated community facing threat from heavily armed gangs

The head of Brazil's indigenous protection service is to make an emergency visit to a remote jungle outpost, amid fears that members of an isolated Amazon tribe may have been "massacred" by drug traffickers.

Fears for the tribe's wellbeing have been escalating since late July when a group of heavily armed Peruvian traffickers reportedly invaded its land, triggering a crisis in the remote border region between Brazil and Peru.

On 5 August Brazilian federal police launched an operation in the region, arresting Joaquim Antônio Custódio Fadista, a Portuguese man alleged to have been operating as a cocaine trafficker.

But after the police pulled out, officers with the indigenous protection service (Funai) decided to return fearing a "massacre". They claimed that groups of men with rifles and machine guns were still at large in the rainforest. Reports suggest the traffickers may have been attempting to set up new smuggling routes, running through the tribe's land.

[gleeaikin]

Would this anthropology orientied story be appropriate for GGG ping?

[FreeAtlanta]

Drug smuggling, terrorist rebels.... aka. Heroes of the left.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks gleeaikin. This doesn’t look pingworthy to me from the GGG perspective, but the other, other operation (my free-for-all ping list) will probably find this interesting. It’s a “if you wanna get down, down on the ground” ping.

[gleeaikin]

The various recent posts about impact craters and their effects inspired me to Google “Impact Craters” plus Argentina, Iraq Marshes, and Shiva, Chatterjee. Here is a very interesting link about various accepted and conjectured craters connected to the dinosaur extinction. YOu might want to post this to your Catastrophism ping list.

http://starmon.com/KT_craters.html

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks gleeaikin! I’m reading it, looks like a devoted amateur (like me), but it may be postworthy. :’)