Neglect of Brazil’s Yanomami predates Jair Bolsonaro

The federal government on Sunday announced an emergency task force to discuss ways to increase federal oversight over the Yanomami indigenous land. The largest protected indigenous territory in the country, straddling the two Amazonian states near the northern border with Venezuela, it has been the focal point of a humanitarian crisis that shocked the world earlier this year.

In January, photographs that emerged from within the Yanomami territory showed men, women, children, and the elderly, sick and physically ravaged, either with distended bellies or ribs so pronounced they seemed to burst from their chests. Between 2019 and 2022, the entire term of Brazil’s far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro, 570 Yanomami children died of malnutrition.

Mr. Bolsonaro did little to help the Yanomami. His administration turned a blind eye to the invasion of indigenous lands by all kinds of criminal activities, including illegal wildcat gold mining, logging, and drug trafficking. The government also vetoed the shipment of donated food aid to the Yanomami people and ignored six official inspections that found deficiencies in their access to health care.

According to the Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, more than 20 official requests for aid to the Yanomami communities were made over the past four years, but the authorities took no action. This led to Mr. Bolsonaro being included in a federal police investigation into alleged crimes of genocide and omission. Two other complaints are being considered by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

But the social neglect of the indigenous peoples living on Brazil’s northern border is a much older story, and the country has a long track record of trying to shirk its responsibility to protect the Yanomami.

A recent article by researchers Bruno Bioni, from the Federal University of Grande Dourados,...