In the UPA era, I remember Manmohan Singh appointing a Christian evangelist type in charge of a committee tasked with suggesting measures for the welfare of the Scheduled Tribes!
India is a 'lovely' country, of course, having allowed the ethnocidal Christian missionaries a free run of its vast landscape, so that they can undermine the syncretism, autonomy and diversity of the Great Indian Cultural Matrix that has sustained humanity for millennia.
In India, if you are not putting a fox in charge of the hen house, you must be a Manuvadi-Brahmanical-Hindutva-Sanghi-Right Wing-Fascist!!!
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Prosecutors seek to remove ex-missionary from indigenous post
(Anthony Boadle, Reuters, 11 Feb 2020)
The accused sexual predators are living freely in communities around the U.S., their sordid pasts known only to a few.
India is a 'lovely' country, of course, having allowed the ethnocidal Christian missionaries a free run of its vast landscape, so that they can undermine the syncretism, autonomy and diversity of the Great Indian Cultural Matrix that has sustained humanity for millennia.
In India, if you are not putting a fox in charge of the hen house, you must be a Manuvadi-Brahmanical-Hindutva-Sanghi-Right Wing-Fascist!!!
---------------
Prosecutors seek to remove ex-missionary from indigenous post
(Anthony Boadle, Reuters, 11 Feb 2020)
BRASILIA, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Federal prosecutors sought on Tuesday to reverse a controversial decision by Brazil's right-wing government to appoint a former evangelical missionary to protect isolated and recently contacted indigenous tribes in the Amazon.
The prosecutors cited a conflict of interest in the appointment of Ricardo Lopes Dias as head of the department in charge of protecting indigenous tribes from contact with non-indigenous people because he was linked to a missionary group, the New Tribes, whose aim was to convert "unreached people" to Christianity.They asked a Brasilia court to suspend the appointment because it raises the risk of "genocide and ethnocide" among Brazil's 107 non-contacted or barely contacted indigenous groups living in the Amazon rainforest, the lawsuit said.
Dias, a theologian and anthropologist, was from 1997 to 2007 a member of the New Tribes, a group founded in the United States in 1942 and now called Ethnos360, whose mission is to evangelize indigenous peoples by bringing the Bible to them in their own languages.
He was formally appointed last week to head the most sensitive department of the government's indigenous affairs agency Funai, which under far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has defended the interests of farmers and ranchers in land conflicts with indigenous groups.
Bolsonaro has also unveiled a bill to allow mining on protected reservations, a move most indigenous leaders oppose as a threat to the survival of their communities that are facing increasing invasions by illegal loggers and miners.
After taking office last year, the president picked a police officer to run Funai, Marcelo Xavier, a farm lobby appointee who has replaced most of the agency's experienced coordinators.
Funai said the prosecutors were being "intransigent" in rejecting Dias because he is an evangelical Christian and added in a statement that the government's solicitor general would defend his appointment.
Dias told Reuters by WhatsApp he was being "persecuted."
Anthropologists, indigenous rights activists and other church groups have condemned his appointment, fearing it marked a departure from Funai's policy adopted in 1987 of not seeking out isolated indigenous groups, shielding them from diseases they have no defense against and allowing them to decide if they wanted contact with Brazilian society or not.
"Putting an evangelical missionary in charge of the uncontacted Indians department of Funai is like putting a fox in charge of the hen house," Survival International said last week, warning that forced contact would destroy isolated tribes.
The group that advocates for tribal people's rights called the appointment, along with Bolsonaro' proposal for mining on reservations, "a genocidal plan for the total destruction of the most vulnerable peoples on the planet."
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Ungodly abuse: The lasting torment of the New Tribes missionary kidsDias, a theologian and anthropologist, was from 1997 to 2007 a member of the New Tribes, a group founded in the United States in 1942 and now called Ethnos360, whose mission is to evangelize indigenous peoples by bringing the Bible to them in their own languages.
He was formally appointed last week to head the most sensitive department of the government's indigenous affairs agency Funai, which under far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has defended the interests of farmers and ranchers in land conflicts with indigenous groups.
Bolsonaro has also unveiled a bill to allow mining on protected reservations, a move most indigenous leaders oppose as a threat to the survival of their communities that are facing increasing invasions by illegal loggers and miners.
After taking office last year, the president picked a police officer to run Funai, Marcelo Xavier, a farm lobby appointee who has replaced most of the agency's experienced coordinators.
Funai said the prosecutors were being "intransigent" in rejecting Dias because he is an evangelical Christian and added in a statement that the government's solicitor general would defend his appointment.
Dias told Reuters by WhatsApp he was being "persecuted."
Anthropologists, indigenous rights activists and other church groups have condemned his appointment, fearing it marked a departure from Funai's policy adopted in 1987 of not seeking out isolated indigenous groups, shielding them from diseases they have no defense against and allowing them to decide if they wanted contact with Brazilian society or not.
"Putting an evangelical missionary in charge of the uncontacted Indians department of Funai is like putting a fox in charge of the hen house," Survival International said last week, warning that forced contact would destroy isolated tribes.
The group that advocates for tribal people's rights called the appointment, along with Bolsonaro' proposal for mining on reservations, "a genocidal plan for the total destruction of the most vulnerable peoples on the planet."
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The accused sexual predators are living freely in communities around the U.S., their sordid pasts known only to a few.
(NBC News, Feb. 7, 2019; By Kate Snow, Aliza Nadi and Rich Schapiro)
When the clock struck 8 p.m. inside the Aritao boarding school in the Philippines, the children would gather in a common area for their evening routine.
A nightly devotional. A Bible reading. Prayers.
The children were the sons and daughters of American evangelical missionaries. The sessions were led by mission caretakers known as the "dorm dad" and "dorm mom."When the clock struck 8 p.m. inside the Aritao boarding school in the Philippines, the children would gather in a common area for their evening routine.
A nightly devotional. A Bible reading. Prayers.
When the prayers were over, the boys and girls as young as 6 would march off to bed. Sometimes, the dorm dad would trail behind the girls, slip into their rooms and do ungodly things to them in the dead of night.
He would put "his hands under the covers and would touch me," recalled Joy Drake, who says the sexual abuse started when she was 9.
"I would pretend that I was sleeping because I was terrified that he would get angry or something worse would happen if I moved. So I'd hold my breath and wait till it was over."
The Aritao school was run by a Florida-based group formerly known as New Tribes Mission, one of the largest Christian missionary organizations in the world.
New Tribes missionaries have operated in more than a dozen countries, spreading the gospel in some of the most remote corners of the globe.
Devoting one's life to God in this way requires a particular sacrifice. Missionary parents would often go several weeks in the field without seeing their young children, leaving them in the care of New Tribes boarding schools in places like the Philippines, Senegal and Brazil.
Some of the schools, former students say, employed missionaries who were like wolves in sheep's clothing.
In interviews with NBC News, more than a half-dozen women said they were sexually abused by New Tribes staffers while attending the mission schools in the 1980s and '90s.
The women say New Tribes covered up the abuse for years and scared the victims into silence by telling stories of Africans going to hell or missionaries ending up in foreign prisons if the allegations ever got out.
The organization, after facing pressure from abuse survivors, did eventually commission an independent, pull-no-punches probe of one of its schools, in Senegal. The 2010 report painted a damning portrait of New Tribes, accusing the organization of creating a culture of systemic abuse that included sexual harassment and abuse of more than 20 children.
But the report, released long before the #MeToo movement triggered a national reckoning over the abuse of women and girls, garnered little attention.
Nearly a decade later, the accused sexual predators are living freely in communities around the U.S., their sordid pasts known only to a few.
Because the alleged abuse took place overseas and was never reported to local law enforcement authorities, the men have never stepped foot in a jail or appeared on any sex offender registry.
"The scariest thing is thinking that they're still out there," said Jaasiel Mashek, 38, who says she was abused by the dorm dad at the Philippines school. "Who knows what has happened since they've been back?"……………..
He would put "his hands under the covers and would touch me," recalled Joy Drake, who says the sexual abuse started when she was 9.
"I would pretend that I was sleeping because I was terrified that he would get angry or something worse would happen if I moved. So I'd hold my breath and wait till it was over."
The Aritao school was run by a Florida-based group formerly known as New Tribes Mission, one of the largest Christian missionary organizations in the world.
New Tribes missionaries have operated in more than a dozen countries, spreading the gospel in some of the most remote corners of the globe.
Devoting one's life to God in this way requires a particular sacrifice. Missionary parents would often go several weeks in the field without seeing their young children, leaving them in the care of New Tribes boarding schools in places like the Philippines, Senegal and Brazil.
Some of the schools, former students say, employed missionaries who were like wolves in sheep's clothing.
In interviews with NBC News, more than a half-dozen women said they were sexually abused by New Tribes staffers while attending the mission schools in the 1980s and '90s.
The women say New Tribes covered up the abuse for years and scared the victims into silence by telling stories of Africans going to hell or missionaries ending up in foreign prisons if the allegations ever got out.
The organization, after facing pressure from abuse survivors, did eventually commission an independent, pull-no-punches probe of one of its schools, in Senegal. The 2010 report painted a damning portrait of New Tribes, accusing the organization of creating a culture of systemic abuse that included sexual harassment and abuse of more than 20 children.
But the report, released long before the #MeToo movement triggered a national reckoning over the abuse of women and girls, garnered little attention.
Nearly a decade later, the accused sexual predators are living freely in communities around the U.S., their sordid pasts known only to a few.
Because the alleged abuse took place overseas and was never reported to local law enforcement authorities, the men have never stepped foot in a jail or appeared on any sex offender registry.
"The scariest thing is thinking that they're still out there," said Jaasiel Mashek, 38, who says she was abused by the dorm dad at the Philippines school. "Who knows what has happened since they've been back?"……………..