The recent massacres of Yanomami Indians in the Amazon, inmates at
Carandiru prison in Sao Paulo, street children in Rio, and workers in
the Rio slum of Vigario Geral all shocked Brazilian society and
revealed that the model of repression last seen during the military
regime has returned in full vigour. Servico Paz e Justica Brasil
(SERPAJ-Brasil) discusses the connections between these killings and
conservative resistance to lasting social change in Latin America's
most diverse nation.
We have been seeing a growing wave of violence against the Brazilian
people. The facts show that this violence has not been happening
spontaneously but is the result of a premeditated plan, brought to a
head by organised crime, by elements in the police, by landowners and
their gunslingers. The victims have always been the poorest of the
poor, grassroots activists, street children, and the indigenous.
It seems that it is not enough that we suffer the consequences of an
unjust political and economic system, but that we also have to face the
bullets of those who are supposed to defend the law and act according
to it.
*** In a democratic system
In periods of socio-economic and political crisis, is it the
marginalised sectors of society which are the first to be sacrificed
for the wellbeing of the elites?
These massacres have taken place under a system of government which
describes itself as liberal and democratic. Nonetheless, its
institutions reproduce violent ideologies and practices which only seek
the maintenance of its power over the oppressed sectors of society. In
this context, all segments of society which cannot be used in the
production of income for the middle class are excluded and
exterminated.
The experiences of indigenous people are examples of the process of
exclusion which is common in Brazil. The massacre in the Yanomami
reserve, which straddles the states of Roraima and Amazonas by the
Venezuelan border, was not the first suffered by this tribe. Groups
which work in support of indigenous groups, like the Missionary
Indigenous Council (CIMI) and the Coordinating Group for the Creation
of a Yanomami Park (CCPI) have spoken out against previous attacks
against the Yanomami. The first of these happened in 1974, when the
military regime built the Northern Perimeter Highway as a means of
occupying and controlling the region. At the same time, the road made
possible the mass invasion of the area by freelance gold miners
(_garimpeiros_).
According to CIMI, in the period 1987-1990 approximately two thousand
Yanomami died, both violently and as a result of diseases introduced by
the garimpeiros. It has to be emphasised that the miners were
encouraged by local politicians in their invasion of indigenous land,
and that they were patronised by economic interests which coveted the
region's natural riches.
The first incomplete information about the massacre and the number of
dead was used by the anti-indigenous lobby in order to launch a new
campaign against the constitutional rights of the Yanomami. The
governor of Roraima state, Ottomar Pinto, and the garimpeiro leader
Jose Altino stated that "no massacre had taken place" and that the
reports were nothing more than a front by groups linked to the
indigenous cause and to Funai (the federal agency responsible for
indigenous issues). The media did their part by sensationalising
reports of the massacre, and at the end, remained true to their role of
servicing the sordid public-opinion campaign for the denial of
indigenous rights.
A report by Bruce Albert, an anthropologist with several years'
experience among the Yanomami, clarified that there had in fact been
two massacres in July. The first happened at the beginning of the
month, when the garimpeiros killed five Yanomami in revenge for the
death of a colleague who had been killed in a robbery. The Yanomami
then came back and killed two garimpeiros, leading to the second and
more bloody massacre of 23-24 July, when 13 Yanomami were killed on the
banks of the Haximu river.
According to Albert, the second attack took place within Venezuelan
territory, leading the government of that country to set up a
commission of enquiry. The Chamber of Deputies also created a
commission which would accompany any investigations by the Brazilian
authorities. For Aristides Junqueira, the Brazilian solicitor-general,
what was happening to the Yanomami could be considered "genocide" as
evidence suggested that there was an attempt to exterminate a people.
*** The same violence
The Vigario Geral massacre of 21 workers and children by 40 military
police [the military police are more numerous than state or local
police and do most civil police work as well as "public order"
policing] appears to demonstrate that violence against indigenous
people is the same as that which affects workers, street children, and
the marginalised in Brazil's urban centres. The government has not set
out concrete proposals to stop the country's apparent state of
ungovernability. To the contrary -- it continues to be at the service
of those conservative groups which use repression and demagogy to keep
themselves in power. If our political structures really were
democratic, here would have been federal intervention, both in Roraima
and in Rio de Janeiro, in response to the massacres in those states.
The conservatives' next move will probably be an attempt to stop social
collective rights being enshrined in the constitution, and to limit
individual rights and guarantees as well. They also wish to see free
rein given to the exploitation of natural resources on indigenous land,
the privatisation of state corporations, and the curtailment of
workers' rights.
There is, in fact, a social problem in Brazil and this has to be
urgently considered. The use of violence, implicit and explicit,
physical and psychological, personal and social, will not overcome
these problems. Killings, massacres, revenge ... serve only to generate
more violence. Moreover, we are aware of the total impunity which
surrounds both those who order such crimes and those who carry them out
-- and how this gives a greater incentive to the use of violence.
Violence against fundamental human rights has to end. The juridical
system requires the means to investigate the facts in such cases, to
determine responsibility, and to name the crimes committed. In the name
of fair play and the national conscience, this should be given priority
and truth should be allowed to surface without any manipulation by
political interests.
source = translated by Ken Simons
Adapted from _Justica e Nao-Violencia_, September 1993.
SERPAJ-Brasil, SDS-Ed Venancio V, Sala 313, 70393-900 Brasilia DF
Brazil (fax +55 61 225 8738)
SERPAJ-Brasil will be the host for the 21st WRI Triennial Conference,
provisionally titled "Viver e' Resistir/To live is to resist", in Sao
Leopoldo (near Porto Alegre) from 10-17 December 1994.