Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) (AFP)

Indigenous chief Paulinho Paiakan, one of the country's staunchest supporters of the Amazon rainforest, has died after being infected with the new coronavirus, indigenous activists said on Wednesday.

Paiakan, cacique of the Kayapo people aged around 65, had become famous by speaking out against the construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric project in the 1980s.

He died in a hospital in the city of Redencao, in northern Brazil, Gert-Peter Bruch, president of the French NGO Planète Amazon, told AFP.

"He is someone who has worked his whole life to create global alliances around indigenous peoples to save the Amazon and to unite indigenous peoples," Bruch told AFP.

"He is really a leader who was far ahead of his time. We lose a guide, someone extremely precious who also held the knowledge of his people (...) one of the pioneers of this indigenous struggle that 'It has successfully exported internationally,' he added.

The Kayapo chief had mobilized indigenous peoples and foreign activists, including celebrities like the singer Sting, and had organized the meeting of Altamira, a conference which had gathered in 1989 the opponents of this project.

The World Bank had finally withdrawn its funding at the Belo Monte dam, but that did not prevent its construction, completed in 2011, in the State of Para.

However, Paiakan's image had been tainted in 1992 by accusations of rape by a white student.

He was acquitted in 1994 and sentenced four years later after a second trial. He spent part of his six-year prison sentence under house arrest on a reserve.

His allies claimed that he had been the victim of a false accusation while his political power was increasing and that his name was mentioned for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Other kayapos caciques, notably the chef Raoni Metuktire, with his famous labial plate, then overshadowed him on the international scene.

But Paiakan had resumed activism in recent years, speaking out against the plan of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to deliver the Amazon rainforest to agricultural and mining activities.

Paiakan tested positive on June 8 after visiting his village, A-ukre, said Bruch.

The indigenous people are not spared from the coronavirus which has been sweeping Brazil for three months.

Nearly 5,500 indigenous people were infected with Covid-19 and 287 died, according to APIB, the Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil.

The APIB spoke of "a father, a chief and a warrior" after Paiakan's death, and expressed his "sadness and anger at the hundreds of lives taken by the pandemic".

© 2020 AFP