They swept through a remote northern stretch of the Amazon rain forest on a mission to rescue one of South America's most primitive peoples. Swooping over the jungle canopy in helicopters and small planes, 80 Brazilian troops and government officials have spent the past three weeks dynamiting airstrips used by thousands of garimpeiros, or prospectors. Lured to the Brazil-Venezuela border by one of the world's richest deposits of gold, the garimpeiros have not only damaged a precious patch of rain forest but have also threatened the survival of the Yanomami, the Amazon's largest Stone Age tribe.
This marks the government's second...
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