A AMAZÔNIA ARRASADA ENFRENTA O COVID-19

 Por Mônica Dias Martins e Bernardo Mançano Fernandes 

I.                     

Durante a pandemia que assola o planeta, a Amazônia com uma extensão de 7 milhões de quilômetros quadrados, abrangendo territórios de 9 países, sofre uma nova ofensiva capitalista, neocolonialista e etnocida respaldada pela cumplicidade ou inércia dos governantes. 

Os povos da floresta persistem sendo submetidos à violência do genocídio cultural e físico por parte de grandes empresas agropecuárias e extrativistas (madeireiras e mineradoras), em especial os povos isolados. A devastação ambiental ameaça diretamente o modo de vida das populações indígenas que ao perder seu entorno natural veem desaparecer suas fontes de alimentação, têm suas águas contaminadas, perdem seus espaços de convívio social e religioso. Desde sempre o contato com o “homem branco” encontra corpos fortes e sadios, mas despreparados para reagir às enfermidades da “civilização ocidental”.                                                                                                                     

Os problemas ambientais e sociais são gigantescos e há resistências, sendo notável o surgimento de uma gama variada e crescente de militantes e cientistas indígenas. O modo de gestão territorial indígena e a ideia de florestania (em contraposição à cidadania) são duas importantes contribuições ao reivindicar um lugar na sociedade sem renunciar a sua identidade indígena.

II

No Brasil, país que concentra a maior parte do território e da população da Amazônia, aumentam assustadoramente os casos de pessoas infectadas e de mortes pelo COVI-19, apesar de não se dispor de estatísticas oficiais confiáveis devido à subnotificação e ao ocultamento de dados por parte das instituições públicas, a exemplo da Secretaria Especial de Saúde Indígena e da Fundação Nacional do Índio (FUNAI). A situação é agravada com o desmonte do Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS) e o fim do Programa Mais Médicos (novembro de 2018), que contou com ajuda de 8.600 médicos cubanos em 3.600 municípios atendendo cerca de 113,3 milhões de pacientes nas localidades mais inóspitas do país.  É notória a negação pelo atual presidente brasileiro da seriedade da pandemia, dificultando medidas rápidas e eficazes para seu enfrentamento, particularmente para proteção daquelas pessoas em situação de risco e vulnerabilidade.  

A tragédia que se anuncia para as próximas semanas afeta tanto os indígenas que vivem nas aldeias quanto os que habitam as áreas urbanas das grandes cidades da região. Estima-se que sejam cerca de quase um milhão de pessoas, em sua maioria morando em zonas rurais afastadas e que não tem recebido o devido tratamento do Estado brasileiro. Considerando que grande parte das terras indígenas ainda não foram demarcadas (237 processos aguardam homologação), a insegurança é ainda mais gritante. O isolamento social não preocupa aos que praticam impunemente ações ilegais na região amazônica, se aproveitando da falta de fiscalização e de uma gestão político-administrativa favorável à legalização da grilagem de terras, ao desmatamento e aos empreendimentos multinacionais.  

III

Está na Amazônia a maioria das terras indígenas em situação crítica para a pandemia do COVID-19. Estudo realizado pela Associação Brasileira de Estudos Populacionais (ABEP) mostra que das 471 terras indígenas avaliadas, 239 apresentam índices de vulnerabilidade intensos ou altos, com base em fatores como a distância de centros com unidades de terapia intensiva, saneamento e porcentagem de idosos na população, entre outros.                                                                       

O relato de alguns casos permite tirar do anonimato algumas vítimas do Covid-19, como o do jovem Yanomami de 15 anos, natural da aldeia Rehebe, em Roraima; o de uma mulher da etnia Borari, de 87 anos, em Alter do Chão, Santarém (PA);  o de um homem de 55 anos, do povo Mura, em Manaus (AM). Chama atenção, ainda, a recente morte (28.04) de um professor, músico e compositor Tikuna, uma das etnias mais populosas do Brasil, enterrado em vala coletiva na cidade de Manaus sob protestos da comunidade Wotchimaücü, da qual era vice cacique.                                    

Em um contexto neoliberal de corte de gastos públicos, o sistema de saúde se encontra com sua capacidade limitada e há uma carência de leitos de UTI, o que diminui a possibilidade de atendimento a pessoas, normalmente desassistidas, mesmo agora estando contaminadas com o coronavírus. Diante deste triste quadro, os indígenas veem tomando iniciativas para evitar o vírus, seja mediante bloqueio por conta própria do acesso às aldeias, seja por meio da Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil para envio de carta aos governadores reivindicando planos emergenciais, seja pressionando a Frente Parlamentar Mista em Defesa dos Direitos dos Povos Indígenas.

 

Membros do Comitê Diretor do Conselho Latino-americano de Ciências Sociais (CLACSO)

Mônica Dias Martins                                                                                                                                Programa de Pós-Graduação em Sociologia, Universidade Estadual de Ceará – PPGS/UECE, Brasil

 

Bernardo Mançano Fernandes 
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Geografia, Universidade Estadual Paulista – PPGG/UNESP, Brasil

 

Political Report # 1440 Ecuador: An October that lights up March

Political Report # 1440 Ecuador: An October that lights up March by  Gladys Tzul Tzul, Toward Freedom

Luisa Lozano is the director of women’s organizing of the National Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities in Ecuador (CONAIE), which incorporates 18 communities from 14 Indigenous nations from the coast, the Amazon and the Andean region. She was one of the key women who participated in organizing and sustaining the Indigenous and popular uprising that took place in Ecuador in October of 2019, against Decree 883.  In August of 2015, Lozano was imprisoned while protesting against neoliberal measures that threaten the lifeways of communities and against the organizational forms of rural smallholders. She was charged with paralyzing public services and instigation, and sentenced for four years in jail. Together with her lawyers she fought against incarceration. She was in prison for 16 days and spent more than three years under house arrest, after which she was absolved.  Today, Lozano is participating together with a team of lawyers in the legal case against the state of Ecuador. They are seeking to establish the causes of the nine assassinations and many other injuries, including serious injuries to those who were shot with buckshot, that took place during the Indigenous uprising. The goal is to ensure that these crimes do not remain in impunity. In our conversation, Lozano analyzes the effects and the responses of the police and army attack against communities who participated in the uprising in Ecuador in October. She discusses how women led the call to end violence, while at the same time looking after feeding a massive mobilization of over 50,000 people who were in the streets of Quito with their children in protest against the economic measures and structural adjustment contained in Decree 883. She also talks about what happened when President Lenin Moreno abandoned the Carondelet (the seat of government) in Quito and moved to Guayaquil, among other things. What follows is a transcript of our interview, edited for length and clarity. Gladys Tzul Tzul: I’m calling this interview “An October that lights up March” because as Indigenous women, we are entering the month of March this year with the very important precedent of the Indigenous and popular uprising in Ecuador. Women were the backbone of the October strike, in terms of care, discourse and leadership. How did you experience those days in October? Luisa Lozano: During the uprising, as women we were the ones making an appeal to stop the violence. We put ourselves in front of the police to say to them: “Don’t kill us. Our children are waiting for us at home. Why are you killing us, we are just protesting.” It was women who managed to calm the violence.  The state didn’t take into account the consequences, or the impacts that would take place in the communities. The state declared a curfew. They sent busses, horses, motorcycles, bullets, bombs, police and soldiers to repress us. The state never respected the peace zones, of which the CONAIE created four: the Universities, El Arbolito Park, and the agora of the Casa de Cultura. They entered those areas and repressed women, boys and girls. Regardless, the women stayed. We united with women from the countryside and led a march of more than 15,000 women.  When the state saw our strength, and saw that everyone was rising up, it abandoned the Carondelet and left for Guayaquil. The congresspeople left. We were never armed, our hands were empty, but we were intensely repressed. The police went against their word. GTT: Explain a little more what you mean when you say the police went against their word. LL: In Indigenous communities there is great value placed on our word. If you give your word, you must follow through. That’s how it is in Indigenous communities. The value of our word is fundamental. If you make a promise, you must follow through. We spoke with the police commander, we spoke with the head of the army, we also spoke with a woman police officer who was in charge during some of those shifts.  We told them we were unarmed, that we were peacefully protesting for the annulment of Decree 883, and demanded the congresspeople return. We told them to stop the violence before there was a bloodbath. They agreed that they would not repress us, but it didn’t end up that way. Women from the communities and from the city held a march to demand the cancellation of 883. When we women took over the National Assembly, we demanded that they return to do their work. We were singing, dancing, eating, and calling for an end to violence. And that’s when they repressed us. There were more than 15,000 women. And the repression was intense, really harsh against the women. Our hands were empty, they attacked us with buckshot, with gas canisters. It was made very clear to us that violence against women comes from the state as well. We suffered violent attacks and also political attacks, because there was fake news created that said we had sold out. GTT: How did you interpret those attacks, and how did you react?  LL: The best strategy, so that the Indigenous movement didn’t end up getting crushed, was to hold an open public dialogue. We made our dialogues public, so that people could see on TV and hear on the radio who was negotiating and who refused to change their position. Unfortunately, that public dialogue required a huge amount of energy. We organized the dialogue, but there, the dead and wounded passed under our noses. As leaders, we ended up exhausted, because our base was asking us to look after our interests and the government was attacking us. After 11 days we were tired, hungry, under-slept, we hadn’t bathed, we were even looking after the wounded. And at the same time as we were avoiding direct persecution by infiltrators, secret agents and police who were following us. We even went into hiding in order to care for ourselves. With all of our strength combined we managed to take down the Decree. The goal is to establish decrees that don’t hurt the communities. We were accused of being terrorists, saboteurs, criminals. But we even planned and carried out a day to clean up the streets in the city of Quito. GTT: What do you think about the next step after the strike? How are the struggles of the women from the communities? LL: There are nine people who were killed, one person in a coma, our records show that 1,300 people were injured and 1,160 more were criminalized. The CONAIE has taken on the important goal of seeking justice. The health of the wounded is not being guaranteed. As a woman leader, we’re working so that neither state violence nor femicide (the killing of women because of their gender) remain in impunity. The army and the police shot directly at us, all we had were gas masks. The period after the strike brought criminalization to the communities and to families. But it is clear to everyone in Ecuador that Decree 883 and the state apparatus function without consulting. Their actions impact not just communities, but everyone. In addition, we’ve been attacked, because they say we don’t allow development. [In the last week of February] there were three femicides in Ecuador. We have to keep working on prevention strategies from below, at the community and family level.  But it is also the responsibility of men to look after life. Men have that responsibility. It is the responsibility of the whole community. Just as we work in chacra (communal work), that’s how we have to work against violence against women. During the march in October, it was the communities that came out, women and men, to topple a Decree. We’ll struggle in the same way against violence.  Finally, we salute the [feminist/women’s] struggles in March, these are women who have given up their lives to fight for better working conditions. In the case of Indigenous women, we celebrate on September 5 (the International Day of Indigenous Women, which is commemorated on the anniversary of the assassination of Bartolina Sisa, an Aymara women who fought shoulder to shoulder with Tupac Katari). That is also a day of struggle.  Translated and slightly edited by Toward Freedom with permission and input from the author. Read the original here. Original article can be found (here). URL:      https://towardfreedom.org/story/ecuador-an-october-that-lights-up-march/

Political Report # 1441 'Project of death': alarm at Bolsonaro's plan for Amazon-spanning bridge by  Dom Phillips, The Guardian

Residents of riverside communities in the state of Pará are unconvinced by the Bolsonaro government’s claims of jobs and other benefits that a dramatic extension of a trans-Amazon highway would bring. From the veranda of her wooden home, Joaci da Silva looked out across her garden towards the waters of the River Amazon, and shuddered as she considered the future. “Today we live in a paradise,” she said. But the future of that paradise is in doubt after Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro backed plans to build a bridge across the river, and extend a busy highway hundreds of miles through protected forests. “We know there will be a big impact,” said Da Silva, 51, who – like many people in the tiny riverside community of Santíssima Trindade – fears the project will bring crime, noise and pollution. “It will bring some benefits and jobs, but there will be devastation.” A short boat ride away from her home is the quaint colonial backwater of Óbidos; beyond that is 500km of rainforest stretching to Suriname – the “Calha Norte”, or “North Zone” of Pará state. Military officers in the government say the region should be settled and developed, as happened in other parts of the Amazon during Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964-1985), a period revered by Bolsonaro. Along with economic benefits, they argue that populating the Calha Norte could also help defend Brazilian territory – even raising the spectre of a supposed threat posed by Chinese migrants in Suriname. Advertisement The plan – known as the Baron Rio Branco programme – revises an elaborate infrastructure scheme first proposed in 1953 which includes constructing a major hydroelectric plant, building a bridge across this narrow stretch of the Amazon and extending a major highway all the way to the Suriname border. The US government briefly offered support to the some of the plans through an Amazon “megaprojects” scheme run by a private contractor for its development agency, USAid, but that programme was shut down in December under pressure from indigenous organisations and environmental groups. Bolsonaro and his ministers say that the Amazon’s 23 million people want development and argue that reducing poverty will combat rising deforestation. But environmentalists, indigenous leaders and riverside dwellers like Joaci da Silva are deeply dismayed by the project. Three-quarters of Pará’s North Zone consists of protected areas and indigenous reserves. Environmentalists say building a highway will open the region up to loggers, wildcat miners and land-grabbers, as happened further south in the Amazon where the same highway – the BR-163 – borders one of the most devastated conservation areas in Brazil, the Jamanxim forest. The BR-163 connects the agricultural powerhouse state of Mato Grosso to the Amazon ports Miritituba and Santarém, and in November the army finished asphalting its last unpaved section. The plan includes two alternative routes to link the road to the proposed bridge at Óbidos and points north. Forest peoples see the highway as a threat. “It will bring land invasions and looting of minerals and wood,” said Juventino Kaxuyana, a leader from the remote Kaxuyana-Tunayana indigenous reserve – home to voluntarily isolated indigenous groups – which the highway will cross. “The Amazon is asking for help,” said Ivanildo de Souza, president of Cachoeira Porteira, a settlement founded by descendants of enslaved people which is threatened by a hydroelectric plant included in the plan. Bolsonaro’s government started working on the Baron Rio Branco programme after he took office in January 2019. Maynard Santa Rosa, an army general put in charge of the scheme, said that the government was working to integrate the North Zone – adding that the area was “still a desert”. Santa Rosa has since resigned – but not before arguing at a meeting in the state capital, Belém, last April that the programme would protect the country from a putative invasion of Chinese migrants in Suriname. There are currently 14,000 Chinese in Suriname, 2% of its population of 583,000. Brazil’s population is around 210 million. Details of the meeting were first published by The Intercept and Open Democracy. On a recent morning, some in Óbidos were enthusiastic about the plans. Most local people live from fishing, work for city hall or in two Brazil nut processing plants. “It would improve things for the town,” said Jean Reis, 45, slicing jagged rows of fins off the black cujuba fish he was selling on the waterfront. At the dusty town museum, Regina Figueira, 56, said she hoped the bridge might revive prosperous times, when the town was an important port. “People had more purchasing power,” she said. In August a group of military officers came to Óbidos to promote the scheme. They told the mayor, Francisco Alfaia, that populating areas around the highway would protect the North Zone from being “colonised” by foreign NGOs. The argument failed to convince him. “They haven’t explained it very well,” Alfaia said. “I don’t see what benefits it would bring us.” Alfaia’s doubts were fed by his own experience in another Amazon region battered by an ambitious development project. He previously worked as a bank manager in Altamira, the Pará town whose population almost doubled after the mammoth Belo Monte hydroelectric plant was built nearby. Riverside communities were flooded and residents now live in crime-ridden, urban slums. The murder rate soared by over 1,000%. “We’re going to turn our town into a bunch of favelas while prostitution and robberies grow,” Alfaia said. The officers also visited Nélio Aguiar, mayor of the nearby port of Santarém, who was similarly skeptical of the plan which includes the construction of several hydroelectric plants. “Brazil can’t be hostage to this energy model,” Aguiar said, arguing for more sustainable energy sources. When approached for comment, the Brazilian government’s strategic affairs department pointed to a statement on its website. “The Baron Rio Branco programme is still under discussion,” it said. “The expectation is that a development cluster would be made possible, by increasing the presence of state institutions in the region.” Environmentalist groups and indigenous leaders have repeatedly raised the alarm over the programme. The Brazilian Indigenous People’s Articulation called it an “atrocity” that contravened indigenous rights enshrined in Brazil’s 1988 constitution. Auricélia Arapiun, 32, a law student and indigenous leader in Santarém, said that rather than developing the region, the government’s plans would “make the Amazon a desert”. “This is a project of death,” she said. Original article can be found (here). URL:      https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/mar/10/brazil-amazon-bridge-project-bolsonaro