"Apib denounces violations of indigenous peoples' rights in Belo Sun mining project in Xingu", 29 June 2023

...The Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (Apib), through its legal department, denounces a series of violations of the rights of indigenous peoples in the mining project of the company Belo Sun in Volta Grande do Xingu, in the state of Pará....

The company belongs to the Canadian group Forbes & Manhattan, an investment bank focused on international mining projects, and intends to build the largest open-pit gold mine in Brazil and remove more than 800 families from the region, who are to be relocated to the state of Mato Grosso.

In its project, Belo Sun foresees the constant use of explosives to enable the extraction of five tonnes of gold per year over a minimum period of 12 years. In addition to the installation of two open-pit mines, a dam to store chemical mining tailings, an explosives deposit, a sanitary landfill, a fuelling station, accommodation and roads.

Belo Sun occupies an area of 2,000 ha of public land, where it is preventing the transit of the original and traditional peoples who lived and used the area for hunting, fishing, extraction and leisure. According to the document, the mining company has not carried out prior, free and informed consultation with the impacted indigenous communities...and has tried to intimidate and silence discussions about the project....

...[R]essalts that Belo Sun also practised abuse of economic power by acquiring land in agrarian reform plots illegally...

For Apib, the construction of the mine will directly impact at least five indigenous peoples, including peoples in voluntary isolation, as well as twenty-five traditional riverside communities and approximately five hundred families of agrarian reform settlers...

(Translated by the BHRRC)