Bolsonaro Tells Miners He Might Send the Armed Forces to Serra Pelada

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – President Jair Bolsonaro has personally assured a group of miners that, should there be legal justification, he might send the Armed Forces to the Serra Pelada region, in southern Pará, and ensure exploration operations there.

Bolsonaro again criticized foreign interests in Brazil and in the Amazon region. The president said that interest in the Amazon is not in Indigenous people, nor in trees, but rather in the ore.

Representatives of the Cooperative of the Serra Pelada Miners (COOMIGASP) have been in Brasília since Tuesday morning, October 1st, in an attempt to speak with the president.

Earlier, they were at the Palácio da Alvorada but were unable to enter. Later, they were personally seen by Bolsonaro, who spoke with them for approximately ten minutes.

On several occasions, Bolsonaro mentioned a video of a Russian scientist who could “open the people’s minds” about interests in the Amazon forest. With the increase in forest fires, the government’s environmental policies have been challenged in Brazil and abroad. The president stressed that the video shows that interests in the Amazon are in the ore.

Bolsonaro once again criticized the indigenous leader Raoni Metuktire, of the Caiapó ethnic group, whom he mentioned in the opening speech of the United Nations General Assembly debates.

“Raoni speaks for his village, he speaks as a citizen, he does not speak for all the Indians. (Raoni) is yet another who spends his life drinking champagne in other countries out there,” said Bolsonaro.

The president said that there are many problems in Brazil and that he “loses sleep” considering solutions. He also said that he will give an answer this Tuesday to the miners’ demands for military intervention in the Serra Pelada region.

“I have to comply with the law. I tell you, only if I have legal justification, will I send the Armed Forces there. I won’t promise you because I can’t,” he said.

“There are many problems in Brazil. God wanted me to be here. A wealthy country like ours, it has all of the periodic table [minerals] under the earth and continues to see you suffering; for more than 30 years, since I arrived in parliament in 1991 I know that you are fighting for this. I know that you were happy during the time of (former president) Figueiredo,” he said.