Een week nadat foto's van een tot dan toe onbekende Indianenstam in het Braziliaan- se Amazonegebied verschenen op het weblog van Altino Machado uit Brazilië, gingen de internationale media met zijn 'oude nieuws' aan de haal. José Murilo Junior, blogger van  GlobalVoices, reconstrueert de gang van zaken.

Brazilian Indians were in the spotlight of world media this week and the local blogosphere has much to say about it. From the images of an uncontacted tribe in the Amazon, which were ‘leaked’ first in a blog that is now claiming attribution rights for its scoop, to the enraged protest caught on camera against the building of dams along the Xingu River in the Amazon basin where an official of Brazil’s national electric company got slashed by traditional machetes and clubs. Bloggers had different takes from the dominant mainstream media narratives.

Here is the Brazilian GLOBO video of the engineer's encounter with the Indians. 

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"Since the gathering in Altamira, the Brazilian media have focused mostly on the issue of violence. GLOBO included a special report in its extremely popular weekend TV magazine FANTASTICO and here's the text (computer) translated into rough English. As you can see, the focus is on the engineer and the Indians associated with the confrontation and there is very little about the many consequences of building the dam. While the Brazilian mainstream media are preoccupied with the “hot” story, various blogs and NGOs have been struggling to deliver the deeper messages. Encontro Xingu ‘08 provides great coverage of the whole event with in-depth analysis by David Cunningham and lots of wonderful photos by Sue Cunningham. The Xingu Encounter was also reported by International Rivers along with English translations of the declarations of the Xingu Peoples. And here's the (computer) translated final statement of the broad coalition of Brazilian grassroots organizations that are opposing building of th,e Belo Monte dam."  Violence - Vision Share

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"If you've seen Wade Davis's unforgettable 2004 TED Talk — where he evokes the magic of the world's cultural diversity, and speaks so eloquently about the alarming rate with which cultures and languages are dying — then you might find this photo as heart-stopping as I did. It's so surreal, I thought at first it must be a hoax. But Reuters just picked the story up, and I'm going to assume they did my fact-checking for me. The photo shows members of one of the world’s last uncontacted tribes, who were spotted and photographed from the air in a remote corner of the Amazon rainforest near the Brazil-Peru border. Survival International, an advocacy group for tribal people, released the photos on their website and quotes Jose Carlos dos Reis Meirelles Junior, who works for the Brazilian government’s Indian affairs department: “We did the overflight to show their houses, to show they are there, to show they exist …This is very important because there are some who doubt their existence.” “What is happening in this region is a monumental crime against the natural world, the tribes, the fauna and is further testimony to the complete irrationality with which we, the ‘civilized' ones, treat the world,” Meirelles said. Apparently, more than 100 uncontacted tribes remain worldwide, with half living in Brazil or Peru. Extraordinary." Unbelievable photo of one of the world's last uncontacted tribes - TedBlog

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"What a miserable class. They wait until some time has passed (five days) and then they publish as if the scoop was theirs. They keep treating the Amazon as an exotic land, as they do not go deep into the issues and that worries the backcountry expert José Carlos dos Reis Meirelles Júnior. [This ignorance] is “The Beginning of an End to the Peruvian Amazon“. Read the message I received today from journalist Tom Phillips –The Guardian's correspondent in Brazil — “My dear Altino, everything right with you? Is there a chance that you have the contact for José Carlos dos Reis Meirelles Júnior? A big hug.” There were many other contact requests with the explorer, which I have attended because of the report on the uncontacted Indians. The Russians are honest. Check it out. Or the Brazilian José Murilo Júnior, from Global Voices."
Miserable Class - Altino Machado

 

"Altino, even the media from Acre! This Renata Brasileiro, from Página 20 [read it here], is an amateur. She wrote “the news came to light through the BBC agency and made headlines in almost all of the online news portals yesterday afternoon. According to the agency, the pictures were made during a FUNAI [Brazilian National Indian Foundation] mission that included a “flight over the isolated region”. I am offended by the omission of the correct source by the national and international media, but I could never suppose that your neighbors would act this way." I am with Altino all the way! - Site Chico Bruno

 

"Who will or not earn dollars with the disclosure of the “Invisible Indians” from Acre? Don't fool yourself, Altino Machado. I understand your journalist's frustration with not being properly attributed in the articles which are now running around the world. In the same way, I see that the backcountry scout José Carlos dos Reis Meireles is happy that his work is being recognized as he gave interviews to dozens of global newspapers and magazines, etc. But what has the [NGO] Survival International (SI) to do with the pictures and with FUNAI's missions? Nothing. Even then the NGO won the jackpot, and with their marketing techniques, they succeeded in pasting the organization's name over the pictures of the uncontacted Indians, without putting out a cent to make what we saw first happen in your blog and in Terra Magazine."
Turn back the dollars, Survival! - Ambiente Acreano

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