US missionary who engaged with reclusive Brazilian tribe could be charged with genocide

[NeoGreen]

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12196379

US missionary who engaged with reclusive Brazilian tribe could be charged with genocide
By: Phoebe Loomes, 25 Jan, 2019

An American missionary spreading his beliefs to remote tribes in Brazil has been questioned over his contact with a previously isolated tribe and could be charged with genocide, according to reports.

Steve Campbell has been questioned over an illegal journey he made into the protected area in a remote part of the southern Amazon in Brazil. The area is occupied by the Hi-Merimã tribespeople.

Campbell is a missionary who receives funding from the Greene Baptist Church. He has been inhabiting indigenous land that is occupied by around 100 different tribes for the past month, according to reports. He was questioned by Funai, a local government body who investigate indigenous affairs.

(snip)

"If it is established in the investigation that there was an interest in making contact, using his relationship with other (tribes people) to approach the isolated (Hi-Merimã tribe), he could be charged with the crime of genocide by deliberately exposing the safety and life of the Merimãs," says Bruno Pereira, a general co-ordinator at Funai.

Pereira went on to explain that the group is at great risk of mass death from small infections like the flu or conjunctivitis, and that outsiders needed to "respect the self-determination of these people."

"It's a case of rights violation and exposure to risk of death to isolated indigenous population," said another statement from Funai.

"Even if direct contact has not occurred, the probability of transmission of diseases to the isolated is high."