Missionary from Maine could be tried by Brazil for genocide after entering land occupied by isolated tribe and exposing them to deadly disease
Daily Mail
January 24, 2019
An American missionary has been accused of exposing an isolated indigenous tribe in Brazil to potentially fatal diseases.
Steve Campbell, from Maine, is being investigated by officials from FUNAI, the Brazilian government’s Indigenous Affairs Department, amid reports that he could be tried for genocide.
He allegedly entered an area occupied by the Hi-Merimã tribe last month to carry out missionary work there.
The tribe is one of a few dozen isolated communities in Brazil that have had almost no contact with the outside world. Natives there have previously rejected attempts at contact.
It is unclear what penalties Campbell may face, with federal prosecutors or police officials yet to be notified of his actions.
EDITOR’S NOTE; In 1993 my son and I received permission from the Venezuelan government to go into the Yanomami Indian territory … at our risk. These are stone-age Indians whose warriors still raid each other’s villages to kidnap women members of the tribe. We managed to visit two Yanomami villages.
Unfortunately, the Yanomamis are dying off from malaria. And like in Brazil, missionaries have introduced deadly western diseases to the primitive Indians of the Venezuelan Amazon.
The Padamo Mission is located by the Padamo River on the border of the Yanomami reservation. At the time, the well-intentioned evangelical missionaries had been luring members of the tribe away and converting them to Christianity while looking after their health.
But many of the converted Yanomamis end up as drunks in the in the street gutters of Puerto Ayacucho, the capital of the Amazonia Territory.
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