A GROUP calling itself the Brazil-Guyana Development Institute has come out swinging against the Guyana Police Force (GPF) for its inability to protect miners in Guyana’s hinterland regions.
Managing Director of the Institute Rogeria Michael told this publication yesterday that the robberies and killing of miners, particularly Brazilian miners, illustrate the weakness of the Guyana Police Force to tackle crime in the country’s hinterland regions.
“We are highly concerned, because Brazilians come here to work in the interior, but there is no security for them. When they work, they don’t know who they are working with; it is never one place. They try all over to make money,” she said.
On Sunday, the decomposed bodies of two Brazilian nationals, 45-year-old Jose Carlos Barbosa Araujo and 37-year-old Adonias Ferreira, believed to be miners, were discovered by passersby at a swamp in the Aramau Backdam, Cuyuni.

The cause of death of the two men is yet to be determined, as autopsies are yet to be conducted. Earlier this month, another Brazilian national, Jose Mar Perrieria Silva, was found dead at a camp at Mowasi Backdam, in Mahdia. He died as a result of blunt trauma to the head. Many Brazilian miners have been the subject of robberies and killings over the years.
Michael believes that the inexperience of some Brazilian miners working in Guyana’s interior is partially responsible for many of the robberies and murders. She explained that those who prey on Brazilian miners recognise that they lack the experience and oftentimes mislead them.
She said that “greed and jealousy” are also contributing factors to the spiralling criminal activities against miners.
“Many of them are in there; they work and don’t come out; they work for gold and drink nothing more. Sometimes it is just greed and jealousy responsible for those killings”, she told the Guyana Chronicle.
The institute, she said, urges Brazilians who come to Guyana to work in the hinterland to become registered and work legally in the mines. “We try to inform them to come here to work legally, so that if something happens to them, we can get help from the government and stakeholders,” she explained.
But whether or not Brazilian miners are operating legally, Michael believes that members of the mining community ought to be properly protected. “I don’t see proper security,” she said. “The police and the GGMC are only there for other things; they are not concerned for the people in mining.”
Notwithstanding Michael’s belief, she remains optimistic that security can be beefed up. “People can just kill; there is no security while in the interior working as miners… I hope that something is done to protect miners,” she told this publication.
Also of great concern to Michael and the institute is the fact that many Brazilian nationals have disappeared without a trace. She explained that because of the nature of mining and miners moving from one location to another, it is oftentimes difficult to keep track of the whereabouts of some Brazilian miners.
“They come here to get gold; they move from place to place, but then they just disappear,” she said. Michael explained that the institute is in the habit of keeping record of those Brazilians who are in Guyana, so that should something happen to them, it can make contact with their relatives back home in Brazil.
“This is of grave concern to us; we just can’t locate some people; we don’t know where they are, if they are dead or alive… Most times when Brazilians go into the interior, they don’t come out; they just live there,” Michael said.

 
By Ariana Gordon