[D66] Indigenous Peoples in the Age of COVID-19

[R.O.]

https://dgrnewsservice.org/resistance-culture/indigenous/indigenous-peoples-in-the-age-of-covid-19/

Indigenous Autonomy
Indigenous Peoples in the Age of COVID-19
July 26, 2020 Deep Green Resistance News Service	1 Comment


The CoViD-19 pandemic is impacting Indigenous peoples across the 
Americas who are already living under ongoing colonization, have poor 
access to health care, and suffer disproportionately from pre-existing 
conditions that compromise the immune system.

by Laura Hobson Herlihy and Daniel Bagheri Sarvestani / Intercontinental Cry

Coronavirus now has spread throughout the Indigenous Americas. The 
Navajo nation reported over 1,600 cases of COVID-19 and 59 deaths on the 
largest US reservation, which expands through Arizona, New Mexico, and 
Utah. Nineteen members of the Afro-indigenous Garifuna people living in 
New York City have died. The Garifuna are migrants from the Caribbean 
coast of Central America, hailing from Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and 
Nicaragua.

South of the U.S. border, iconic groups like the Kakchikel Maya in 
Guatemala, the Kuna in Panama, and the Yanomami of the Brazilian Amazon 
all have reported COVID-19 cases. Hugo Tacuri, President of CONAIP 
(Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Peru), said: “Deaths are 
not recorded in Latin American cities by ethnicity and minorities are 
being mixed in with the greater population.” Tacuri said about 10% of 
the cases in Lima, Peru’s capital, were Quechua people, and a few were 
from the Amazon.

Native peoples in the early colonial period were decimated by diseases 
such as smallpox and measles. They lacked immunity to fight disease from 
outside and from European populations. As if through genetic memory, 
native peoples began extreme measures of social distancing soon after 
the coronavirus pandemic was reported in the Americas.

US and Canadian reservations went into lockdown and denied entrance to 
outsiders. Clément Chartier, leader of the Metís nation in Canada, 
commented, “we created check points along the road and established 
curfews.” Amazonian tribes in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru 
retreated deeper into the forest. A Brazilian tribe stopped missionaries 
aboard a helicopter, from entering their rainforest homeland.

Indigenous elders, valued for their knowledge and transmission of 
cultural ways, language, and traditions, are especially at risk from 
coronavirus. They pass on stories of past epidemics and the remedies to 
heal fever and respiratory illness. Indigenous peoples refuse to discard 
their grandparents and elders. Indeed, they are following their elders’ 
advice to self-isolate.
[...]