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US missionary's body could be lost in battle to preserve isolated tribe
by Staff Writers
Port Blair, India (AFP) Nov 24, 2018

India police watch tribal island after killing of American
Port Blair, India (AFP) Nov 23, 2018 - Indian police reinforcements on Friday took up position near the island where isolated tribal hunters killed an American missionary, though no effort was to be made to recover his body, officials said.

Hampered by restrictions on going to North Sentinel and the hostility of the Sentinelese people, Indian authorities are counting on the expertise of anthropologists and tribal welfare specialists to access the remains of 27-year-old John Allen Chau.

Chau was killed by arrows fired by the Sentinelese hunter-gatherers last week after he illegally went ashore in an apparent attempt to convert the tribe to Christianity.

Indian police have used a helicopter and a ship to get close to the protected island but failed to spot Chau's body or identify the place where he was killed.

"To make the picture better and clearer another police team is being sent to the North Sentinel island waters," Dependra Pathak, Andamans chief of police, told AFP.

- Missionary mystery -

Seven people, including six fishermen, have been arrested for leading Chau to North Sentinel.

Police hope the fishermen can give more clues to the place where he was slain.

"Police have obtained seven days custody for three of the accused," Pathak said.

"They will be interrogated on various aspects of the case including the sequence of events, the sea route followed for the island, the location where the victim landed, the place of incidence and location where Chau was last seen," he added.

Foreigners and Indians are banned from going within five kilometres (three miles) of the island, to protect the Sentinelese, believed to number about 150, from outside disease.

While a murder case has been registered experts have discounted any possibility of action against the tribe for the death.

Indian authorities say Chau paid the fishermen to take him as close to the island as possible and then took his own kayak to North Sentinel.

"It will also be ascertained whether the victim had taken the help of these fishermen or others to venture to the island on an earlier occasion," the police chief said.

Pathak said police will also take a new look at Chau's personal journal, in which he expressed fears that he might be killed.

He said he told the tribe after arriving: "My name is John. I love you and Jesus loves you...Here is some fish!"

Fishermen saw the tribe burying his body on the beach the following day, another missionary wrote in an email to the dead man's mother, according to the Washington Post.

Recovering the body could take days, if it happens at all, as Indian authorities insist they cannot disturb the tribe or their habitat in the highly sensitive zone.

The few photos that exist of the Sentinelese show them all but naked carrying spears, bows and arrows.

The tribe reportedly killed two fishermen whose boat drifted onto the island in 2006. They also fired arrows at a helicopter checking for damage after the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

The body of American missionary-adventurer John Allen Chau may never be recovered from the lost island where he fell in a volley of arrows fired by a reclusive tribe whose existence is threatened by the modern world, say experts.

The menace to the Sentinelese from Chau's one-man invasion is such that tribal rights specialists say no murder charges will ever be laid and Chau's body will have to stay hidden to protect what is probably the world's last pre-neolithic tribe.

Indian authorities -- who do not dare enforce their rule over North Sentinel island -- have not even tried to send police ashore to question the tribe who have been greeting outsiders with hostility for centuries.

Police sent a boat near North Sentinel for the second time since the killing on Friday.

"Due precautions were taken by the team to ensure that this particularly vulnerable tribal group are not disturbed and distressed during this exercise," said a police statement.

Fears that 21st century diseases as mild as the common cold could kill off the tribe, or that experiencing electricity and the internet would devastate their lifestyle, has left them in a guarded bubble that Chau sought to burst with his "Jesus loves you" message.

The American died last week after making several attempts to reach the Sentinelese to preach Christianity -- knowing it was illegal to go within three miles (five kilometres) of the island.

- Double dilemma -

Pankaj Sekhsaria, a tribal rights expert and author on the Andaman and Nicobar islands, said it would be "a futile exercise" to try to retrieve Chau's body.

"I don't think it is a good idea to go anywhere near (North Sentinel) because it will create conflict with the community there," he told AFP.

"I don't believe there is any safe way to retrieve the body without putting both the Sentinelese and those attempting it at risk," added Sophie Grig, senior researcher for Survival International which campaigns for such isolated groups.

Anup Kapoor, an anthropology professor at the University of Delhi, said that anyone wanting to open a dialogue with the Sentinelese had to show they were "on the same level."

"Don't wear anything," he recommended. "Only then you can hope to have some sort of interaction."

Kapoor once had contacts with the Onge, another Andamans tribe, adding: "It was only after I took off my clothes, except my underwear."

The lack of knowledge of the Sentinelese, believed to be the last surviving descendants of the first humans to arrive in Asia -- and who 13th century adventurer Marco Polo called "brutish and savage" -- is the main handicap.

"We have no clue about their communication systems, their history and culture, how can we go anywhere near them," said Kapoor.

"What we know is that they have been killed and persecuted historically by the British and the Japanese. They hate anyone in uniform. If they see someone in uniform, they will kill him on the spot.

"Let them be the way they are. Leave them in peace in the ecosystem they are in. Do not disturb them because that will only make them more aggressive."

- No timeline -

Police in the Indian Ocean paradise are now wrestling with a double dilemma: how to answer the prayers of Chau's family and maintain the privacy around North Sentinel that is essential for the tribe's survival.

Andamans police chief Dependra Pathak has said no timeline can be given for finding a body.

And Sekhsaria warned Indian authorities may now have to strengthen surveillance around North Sentinel to prevent a Chau copycat.

"The administration is seized of the matter, they are already thinking about the surveillance," he said without giving detail.

Indian outsiders have had a rough reception when going to North Sentinel. Arrows were fired at a helicopter that checked on the tribe after the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Two fishermen who strayed too close in 2006 were killed.

Police are talking with anthropologists and tribal welfare experts about the best way to establish contact.

The Anthropological Survey of India has had previous rudimentary contact.

"When we went there, nothing happened," said the survey's Andaman chief C. Raghu. "Our seniors visited the island and they came back. It is because we are experts and know the pulse of the people.

"It's not just the risk of disease. You also have to think of how to handle yourself, what to say and what to share with them. To them, whoever gets there is from the outside, new world."


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