Published on Portside (https://portside.org)
Stop
Genocide!
Ruth Needleman
Monday, November 21, 2016
A recent
video, sent to me by a university professor in northern Brazil, features an
indigenous woman activist pleading for help from all her brother and sister
movement activists to publicize the genocidal attacks against the Guarani
people in Matto Grosso do Sul, Brazil. Her story is far from isolated or
unique. African descendant and indigenous communities have been targeted
because they live on lands that agribusiness, mining industries and financiers
want to exploit.
In
Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela and so on, these communities have survived
in isolation, in distant places they had fled to during colonization and
slavery. Often in hard-to-access places, on mountains and unpopulated areas,
indigenous and African descendant communities had begun to receive support and
sometimes protections from more democratic governments. Certainly in Brazil,
beginning with the election of Lula in 2002, the right to self-determination
and the resources for self-sustainability were provided and protected by the
federal government. New laws, codes and programs multiplied, based on President
Lula’s public acknowledgement that former policies had amounted to genocide.
Land was being returned to communities, with access to health care, employment,
housing and training.
Since
former vice-president Michel Temer took over the presidency of Brazil through
what was certainly a congressionally-maneuvered coup, all the commissions,
social programs and new laws are being undone. Now there is a resurgence of the
kind of military state that had existed after the 1964 fascist coup.
The recent
attack against the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) has reached the world
social media. The plea for the Guarani has dropped from public scrutiny.
MST
The MST is
one of the oldest, largest social movements in Brazil, part of an even larger
movement of rural workers throughout Latin America. The MST was a vital part of
the Workers’ Party coalition that brought Lula and then Dilma to power.
Thousands of poor rural workers were able to win the right to lands through
occupation and court decisions.
The Temer
government is focusing on criminalizing the MST in order to stop resistance to
its policies: close down its schools, wipe out those who will lead resistance,
at the same time recapturing lands for neo-liberal interests, looking to profit
from palm oil, mining, and other export crops.
The MST has
built a network of schools throughout Brazil that are based on popular
education, teaching political economy, history, and advanced agricultural
techniques in ways that grow self-confidence and critical consciousness, along
with organizing skills based on relationship-building and community. The MST
has contributed to developing a new generation of critical and deeply humane
leaders who value the earth, community and justice.
I have met
some of these committed social justice organizers. More than ten years ago I
gave a talk to rural activists from all over Latin America at Florestan
Fernandes, sharing my experiences in Allende’s Chile. The participants ranged
in age from 16 to 60. They were astute politically, passionate in their
commitment, and their questions were insightful.
MST’s
educational programs are very threatening to the Temers and Trumps of the
world. The pedagogy of their schools is transformative. It was this remarkable
educational center, Florestan Fernandes, that was invaded by police firing guns
just a week ago on November 4, 2016. The center’s resident members were charged
with criminal actions, and taken away.
The
following day, 1000 people from 36 countries arrived at Florestan Fernandes to
stand with the MST.
The MST has
continued to be the strongest most united social movement in Brazil over the
past 12 years; it is not surprising, therefore, that they became a target for
police repression and criminalization.
Indigenous
Communities
African
descendant communities, known as Quilombos in Brazil, exist in
all the Latin American countries with a heritage of slavery. Fugitive slaves
set these up inside the Amazon Region and on distant mountains.
African-descendant Colombians have been the central victims of death threats
and murders in Colombia for some time now.
The “new”
Brazilian government has launched a genocidal attack against those who occupy
valuable land. In the video mentioned at the beginning, an indigent activist of
the Tucanos denounces a recently-established police state in Matto Grosso do
Sul where the Guarani community faces elimination through massacres. She says,
We are facing a very difficult moment in Matto Grosso do Sul; the
government has created a police state, like the military state before in
Brazil. National forces have been sent in. Police have arrived from state,
federal and border units, and they patrol the area like lawless militias,
causing genocide. They are acting in the interests of the large landowners and
big business.
Speaking
with difficulty through tears, she begs her brothers and sisters from every
movement in Brazil to help publicize their plight before the Guarani are
eliminated.
The indigenous people of this land are under assault, the poorest
and original people of this land. We have suffered the worst genocide of any
group in the history of humanity. We need justice and we need your support in
any way possible. We need your help in communicating this situation to national
media and the whole country, for we have no other way of putting pressure on
the government.
As
right-wing governments ascend to power, not just in Latin America but in the US
as well, international solidarity represents survival for many of our
communities. Those most vulnerable communities are under attack:
You who are our brothers and sisters we ask for you to share this
message. It is necessary to talk about this now within all the social
movements. In the weeks ahead you will see a war and massacres. We will be cut
down. We are very few; there are so few of us left. We need help against this
massacre of our indigenous people. Please help us!
It is a
global fight against racism and genocide, whether Standing Rock or Matto Grosso
in Brazil, Chicago or Sao Paulo.
Brazilian
Embassy: (202) 238-2700
U.S. State
Department: (202) 647-6575
Ruth
Needleman, professor emerita, Indiana University
Source URL: https://portside.org/2016-11-21/stop-genocide
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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