A highway threatens the survival of the last Indians Jarawa

New Delhi, 7 may 2007. - The last 300 Jarawa tribe members as they can stand in the forests of the Andaman, eastern India, where today met five years of an order-unfulfilled-the Supreme Court to close a road that splits in two its territory.
"In Andaman no need to connect by land stocks that are on the coast: the communication can be done by sea. That road was laid out to exploit the forests and their destruction destroys the Jarawa, "said Pankaj Sekhsaria Efe, a spokesman for the Indian NGO Kalpavriksh.
The Andaman, which form a strip of land about 300 kilometers long located more than 200 of the continent, until recently were rarely visited, so that the Jarawa were able to keep intact their way of life based on hunting of wild boars and lizards.
However, with the construction of the road, whose construction started in the 70's, the Jarawa tribe runs the risk of disappearing, exposed to abuses abroad and the destruction of their habitat, and lack of immunity against diseases that are common in more civilized environments.
In fact, the "tsunami" that hit the Indian Ocean in 2004 and there were concerns about the extinction of the tribes, which were supposed unprepared for disaster, but these, based on their own warning systems and protected by the jungle, just suffered its effects.
And yet, while being able to resist a giant "tsunami", the Jarawa are unable to overcome the logging of their forests and to a small enemy: measles virus.
Last year, 20 percent of the Jarawa suffered an outbreak of the disease, which in the nineteenth century left the brink of extinction to their "cousins" of Great Andamanese tribe (increased from 5,000 to just 41 today days).
On the road, in addition to viruses, have become unfamiliar activities such as logging, tourism, illegal, those who seek to pry into Indian life and even prostitution Jarawa women.
"Piti Piti Eenen (" bad men ") entice us to use us," the Jarawa Enmei in the first interview in the history given by a member of his tribe, the newspaper "Hindustan Times" in 2003.
The Supreme Court ordered the closure of the road just five years ago, but the authorities of the islands have not been implemented so far despite international pressure, released by the British Association Survival on the fifth anniversary of the ruling .
"It is unusual that the Indian government has ignored for five years, the order of the Supreme. The road should close before it is too late, "said Survival's director Stephen Corry.
In fact, local government froze the pending measure that justice favorably resolved an appeal to maintain the road, which improves communication between north and south of the islands but halved the Jarawa reserve.
"We know that the Jarawa reject the road because for years attacked the workers. The road facilitates forest destruction and illegal hunting and allows the invasion of their space, "said Efe Sekhsaria.
In 1990, local authorities have announced the forced relocation of the tribe, but withdrew their plan to the heated controversy and risks of the measure-uprooting, disease-for survival.
Because, after thousands of years without compromising its way of life, filed the Jarawa no contact with foreign residents until 1998.
In that year, the Jarawa changed their aggressiveness by a more friendly, has Sekharia, after recovering in a hospital Enmei Jarawa, who suffered a broken ankle and was isolated from her tribe.
"The jungle is better. Even if I have to be out a few days, I like to go back to my family, "he said in the interview Enmei

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