NEWS FROM BRAZIL supplied by SEJUP (Servico Brasileiro de Justica e Paz).
Number 301, February 05, 1998.
Visit our home page: http://www.oneworld.org/sejup/
VIOLENCE
- Torture in Sao Paulo prisons.
The Catholic Church's National Office of Pastoral Care of Prisoners in a statement of January 19 last called for protests against frequent beatings and tortures of prisoners in Pavilion 4 of the Casa de Detencao prison in Sao Paulo. The document claims that in Pavilion 4, numerous prisoners held in the building known as the 'Masmorra' - a former prison infirmary, are subject to frequent beatings and torture. Many of the prisoners held there have been involved in break-out attempts or have led disturbances in the prison.
The statement is accompanied by a long list of dates in 1997 when prisoners suffered such mistreatment and a summary of the treatment meted out to the prisoners. One interesting comment on the list is that prison authorities removed between 15 and 20 prisoners from the Masmorra last November a few days before the visit of an Americas' Watch team to investigate prison conditions. Light bulbs were installed in all the cells which had been in darkness before the announcement of the visit and the remaining prisoners there were given foam mattresses. The document goes on to say that in other pavilions of the Casa de Detencao prison there are also numerous cases of beatings and torture and comments that prison functionaries responsible for such prisoner mistreatment enjoy impunity.
The document claims that it is relatively easy to register complaints regarding such crimes. However three conditions ensure that those responsible will never be punished. When the prisoner calls for an independent medical examination after suffering such treatment, there frequently is a delay of days, sometimes weeks, until such an examination is carried out, In such cases prison authorities allege lack of vehicles to take the prisoner for the examination or lack of functionaries to accompany prisoners. Secondly, prisoners who denounce beatings and tortures are usually put under severe pressure to withdraw their complaint. On many occasions they have been subjected to renewed sessions of beatings and torture until they withdraw such complaints. Thirdly, prison functionaries responsible for mistreatment of prisoners enjoy impunity and are not punished for their barbarous acts.
The Catholic Church Office of Pastoral Care of Prisoners requests that you send a protest message to the Governor of the State of Sao Paulo, Dr. Mario Covas. It is suggested that in your message you call attention of Governor Covas to the fact that prison functionaries subjected dozens of prisoners to beatings and torture on at least 20 occasions during 1997 in the Masmorra building of the Casa de Detencao Prison, Carandiru, Sao Paulo. Demand that he take immediate action to put an end to the mistreatment of prisoners and that functionaries responsible be punished in an exemplary manner. The address of Governor Covas is:
Ilmo. Governador do Estado de Sao Paulo,
Dr. Mario Covas,
Palacio do Morumbi,
Av. Morumbi, 4500,
056-900 Sao Paulo,
SP., Brazil.
Fax: +55 11 845 3700
- Severe brutality practiced during prison riot.
In our January 15 edition of NEWS FROM BRAZIL we carried a report of various prison riots during the previous days including a riot in the Sorocaba prison, State of Sao Paulo. During this latter riot, 17 prison functionaries and 300 visitors were held hostage from December 29 to December 30. Two deaths took place - of a prisoner and a visitor. Later evidence indicated that 20 riot leaders who had arms and grenades forced most of the 850 inmates of the prison to participate in the riot. Film footage released to TV stations and newspaper reporters by the police showed the military police involved in a very 'clean' operation of subduing the riot. A recent statement from the Catholic Church's Office of Pastoral Care of Prisoners claims that the operation was anything but 'clean'.
According to the statement the prisoners were required to remain naked and to stay kneeling for hours on end with their hands behind their heads. Police savagely beat the naked prisoners with long batons even though the 20 riot leaders by this stage had surrendered. A number of prisoners had their arms and legs broken as a result of the police brutality; others suffered injuries to various parts of their bodies. The police took dogs into the prison who extensively savaged the prisoners according to the Church report on the feet, legs and in some cases on the genitals. The prisoners injured by the police or bitten by the dogs were not given medical aid until next day.
The document from the Prisoners Pastoral Care Office comments '' The Prisoners' Care Office does not support riots nor the increasing practice of some prisoners taking functionaries or visitors as hostages. However, we can in no way support the unnecessary and wide-scale violence of the Shock Troops against 850 unarmed and pacific prisoners. We could never accept broken arms, opened heads or all the personal possessions of the prisoners being destroyed by the military police just to destroy them. Never. But such facts never, never, are known by the general public''. The statement goes on to call on the authorities to carry out a serious investigation to discover how the prisoners managed to acquire arms and suggests that the press will always in future be allowed to accompany the military police as they storm prisons to quell riots.
- Jail riots and escape attempts.
Riots and escape attempts continued in many jails all over Brazil during recent days. On January 20, 30 prisoners escaped from the Ponta da Praia police station in Santos, State of Sao Paulo. 16 were recaptured. The police station has space for 48 prisoners. 258 were being held there. Prisoners had rioted on the day before the escape.
On January 22, armed men released 9 prisoners held in Guarulhos police station in the Greater Sao Paulo Area. On January 23, 10 armed men invaded the police station in the Vila Clementino region of the city of Sao Paulo during the early hours of the morning and released 24 prisoners. 10 prisoners were later recaptured. On January 25, 76 prisoners fled from the Jacarepagua police station in the city of Rio de Janeiro. 29 were later recaptured. On January 28, 10 prisoners managed to escape from the police station in Guaruja, situated on the coast of Sao Paulo. Three were recaptured. 18 prisoners escaped through a tunnel they had dug at the Depatri prison in the city of Sao Paulo on January 29; 5 were later recaptured. A 24 hour prison riot came to an end in the Americano prison, State of Para on January 29; one prisoner was killed and another was injured during the riot.
The failure of an escape attempt in the Cidade Dutra police station in the city of Sao Paulo also on January 28, led to a riot of the prisoners who lynched one of their colleagues suspected of having denounced the escape plans to the police. Overcrowding was again the motive for the riot. On January 28, 9450 prisoners were being held in 93 police stations in the city of Sao Paulo. Apart from this number being an all time high, police stations are meant to hold prisoners for days while a vacancy is awaited in one of the state prisons. Many prisoners however serve most or all of their sentences in police stations where conditions are totally inadequate and overcrowding is chronic.
The Pastoral Office for Prisoners’ recent document commenting on the prison riots observed '' Normally a rebellion is an extreme act; a cry of pain and anger on the part of the prisoners who can no longer remain silent as they suffer under inhuman conditions, violence, neglect of the state and of society. Prisoners do not like to be involved in riots. Furthermore riots are not 'planned' ... they 'happen'. What is planned is the escape, the attempt of escape or the taking of a guard as hostage in order to force a transferal to another prison. One has only to examine recent riots to see this: few prisoners were really involved, a maximum of 12 amongst 800 (prisoners), or 6 amongst 150 or 5 amongst 300, who organized everything. The other prisoners did not participate''.
- Police corruption - Alagoas, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.
The federal authorities sent 110 federal police to the State of Alagoas last week in order to identify police, politicians, business people and judges involved in organized crime. 19 police - many high-ranking, had earlier been arrested accused of involvement in bank and car robberies. A former chief of police, Carlos Antonio Camilo Carvalho, for example, is under suspicion of having participated in 22 bank robberies. Three other chiefs of police are being accused of arms smuggling from Paraguay. 4 of the 27 state deputies are also being investigated. 13 of the imprisoned police attempted to escape on January 30.
In Sao Paulo, 45 members of the civil police attached to the Pinheiros police station were removed from their functions because of accusations of involvement in the robbing of goods from trucks as well as lack of professionalism in their work. Another group of police, this time in the city of Sao Bernardo do Campo (Greater Sao Paulo area), is being accused of extortion of bribes from a gang which had been attacking women drivers during late 1997 in Sao Paulo. The gang which had been discovered by the police continued their attacks and paid the police with jewelry and money which they had taken from the women they assaulted.
In Rio de Janeiro, 15 military police were also arrested last week accused of extorting a drug trafficker. According to press reports they had demanded US $8 thousand and eight guns to free drug trafficker Ocimar Nunes Robert who had been arrested on January 18.
- 902 denouncements of child abuse during 1997.
During the first year of the functioning of a special phone line where denouncements of the use of children and youth in sex tourism could be made, 902 calls were received according to the Brazilian Tourist Board (Embratur). The largest number came from Sao Paulo - 189. According to Embratur, only 9% of all calls denounced the use of children and youth in sex tourism. The majority of the other calls denounced abuses committed by children by members of their own families. In 84,04% of all cases the children abused were girls; 80.71% were in the 12 to 18 age group. Of those accused of abusing children, 60.13% were males.
- 130 homosexuals killed in Brazil during 1997.
According to the Gay Group of Bahia, 130 homosexuals were assassinated in Brazil during 1997. Sao Paulo was the state where the highest number was killed - 31. Next came Rio de Janeiro with 20 and Bahia with 12. The number of homosexuals killed during 1997 increased 3% on the previous year when 126 assassinations were registered.
ECOLOGY
- Alarming increase in deforestation figures.
According to figures released by the National Institute of Space Surveys (INPE) on January 26, deforestation in the Amazonian region has increased alarmingly in recent years. 2905900 hectares of forest were cut down during the 1994 - 95 period. This area is larger in size than the combined area of the States of Sergipe and the Federal District and is double the annual average recorded during the previous period - 1992 - 94.
The 1994-95 figures are approximately 37% higher than the annual average during the 1978 - 88 period which frequently is referred to as the decade of destruction in the Amazon. Estimates show that already an area of 51 million hectares has been deforested in the Amazon - this area is more than two times the size of the State of Sao Paulo. 12.9% (4 million square kilometers) of the total area of the Amazon has now been deforested. During the 1995 - 96 period a fall has been registered in deforestation - a total area of 1816100 hectares in the region and estimated area of 1303700 hectares was deforested.
The 'Folha de Sao Paulo' reported that 50% of the recent deforestation in the Amazonian region has taken place in the States of Mato Grosso and Para. The municipalities of Claudia and Sinop in Mato Grosso are examples of areas where wide-scale deforestation has taken place. According to the report, the principal reason for the widespread deforestation in these states is the clearing of forest areas to settle landless in federal government agrarian reform projects. Other activities such as the extraction of timber and large agricultural projects - many financed by government grants and loans from the government bank (Banco do Brasil), have also helped to significantly increase deforestation in the region.
A 'Folha de Sao Paulo' report on January 27 pointed out that 10% of the total deforestation of the Amazon since the arrival of the Portuguese colonizers in 1500 has taken place during the first three years of the presidency of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1994 - 97). The Brazilian government is also being accused by many organizations interested in ecology issues of postponing the announcement of the recent figures due to the state visit of President Cardoso to Great Britain last December and to the Kyoto conference in Japan in order to avoid unfavorable press attention.
- New environmental law passed.
After almost seven years discussion in Congress a new environmental law was passed on January 27 and now awaits the signature of President Cardoso. According to the new law, environmental crimes will be punished by fines ranging from US $40 to US $40 million and prison sentences of up to five years. Also included in the new law are monuments which are regarded as part of the cultural patrimony of the country.
Members of the evangelical group in Congress received a promise that the punishment for noise pollution will be vetoed by President Cardoso before he signs the new law. Members of this group feared that this would restrict the use of loudspeakers at night in evangelical churches. Likewise, parliamentarians representing large ranchers were assured that the punishment for those responsible for putting fire to the forest and for deforestation in protected areas would not be subject to punishments previously foreseen by the new law. At the moment there are approximately 80 thousand cases of crimes against the environment in the courts. In the Amazonian region, only 6% of fines imposed by the courts are paid. Concessions made to the ranchers will considerably weaken the new law.
In a lead article in the 'Folha de Sao Paulo' on February 02, Senator Marina Silva - well known for her work in favor of more stringent ecology laws in the country, commenting on the new law remarked ''the final text .... was strongly affected by the agreement towards the end between the government, agricultural and industrial confederations and the evangelical parliamentary group. Here important items were lost. Such items included exactly those which defined the social responsibilities of the principal users for economic reasons of natural resources. Almost all the items which would punish companies and public functionaries involved in or supporting degradation were eliminated. Besides, the agreement included a promise by the president to veto other items which because of regimental reasons could not be eliminated (from the new law) in Congress''.
Many doubt as well if IBAMA (the federal government environmental agency) has the necessary infrastructure to enforce the new law. The assistant superintendent of IBAMA in the State of Para, Jose Maria Galhardo, commented on January 30 that the agency would need an infrastructure ten times larger to adequately enforce the new law. IBAMA is responsible for an area of 1.25 million square kilometers in the state and does not have the use of a plane.
We reproduce here an Action Alert prepared by the Environmental Defense Fund and the Instituto Socioambiental calling for messages to President Cardoso requesting him not to weaken the law by vetoing some of its important articles. Reports in Brazil indicate that the president plans to veto articles listed in the following Action Alert.
Subject: Action Alert - International
ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND
Telephone: (202) 387-3500
Facsimile: (202) 234-6049
To: Environmental Activists
From: Joao Paulo Capobianco, Instituto Socioambiental, socioamb@ax.apc.org
Steve Schwartzman, Environmental Defense Fund, steves@edf.org
URGENT ACTION - BRAZIL PRESIDENT THREATENS VETO OF ENVIRONMENTAL LAW
On January 28th, the Brazilian Congress passed the Environmental Crimes Act (PL 1.164), giving Brazil's environmental agencies authority to enforce environmental law for the first time since 1989. President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, under pressure from ranchers and industry has agreed to veto critical parts of the legislation, substantially weakening it. Please fax or email President Cardoso urging him not to veto any of the articles of this critical law.
The law, first introduced by the government in 1991, had passed the House of Representatives in 1995, was strengthened in the Senate and passed unanimously in 1997 under the leadership of Senator Marina Silva. Powerful agricultural and industrial interests held up the legislation, until the release last week of official data showing that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon in 1995 reached the highest level ever recorded - 29,000 square kilometers, an area equivalent to New Jersey and Connecticut in a single burning season. The increase in clearing and burning (nearly double the 1994 rate) was extensively covered in the national and international press, and the government brought the legislation up for a vote. Bowing to industry and agriculture lobbies, the government agreed to weaken the law in the house, and then to the veto of key provisions, including:
- article 5 - allowing lawbreakers to be held responsible for environmental damage, without having to prove intent to pollute. Currently to assess penalties for environmental damage, the violator must be shown to have intended the damage ;
- article 43 - making it a felony to use fire in forests without taking measures to prevent its spread. Weakening this provision at the very moment in which the threat of large scale uncontrolled fires in the Amazon is greater than ever before is astoundingly shortsighted. With other changes made in House, removing article 43 practically invites deforestation of the so-called "legal reserves", the part of private properties in forested regions that are to be maintained under forest cover.
- article 47 - which makes it a crime to export flora, germplasm or plant products without official license.
Removing these and at least four other key items of the bill will seriously undermine legislation that is critical to the future of the greatest remaining tropical forest in the world. Please urge President Cardoso to abstain from further weakening PL 1.164.
Fax or email the President now. He is expected to act in the coming days.
Exmo. Sr.
Fernando Henrique Cardoso
President of the Federal Republic of Brazil
Palacio do Planalto
Fax - 55-61-321-7022 email: pr@planalto.gov.br
- Model letter -
Dear Mr. President:
I share the concerns of Brazilian environmentalists with the consequences of weakening the Environmental Crimes Act (PL 1.164) for Brazil's natural patrimony, and the quality of life of Brazil's population. As was widely reported in the press, this law was already considerably weakened before the vote in the House of Representatives last week.
Several important items approved by the Senate were removed or diluted. Environmental law enforcement in Brazil will be more difficult as a result. It is now up to you, Mr. President, to maintain the positive points that remain in the Environmental Crimes Act and ensure a better future for generations of Brazilians and the world.
I respectfully urge you to approve the environmental crimes act without vetoes, and show that your government is committed to the larger interests of Brazil and the planet.
Sincerely,
For Portuguese speakers more information is available at:
www.socioambiental.org ("Ultimas Noticias")
Steve Schwartzman Joao Paulo Capobianco
EDF Instituto Socioambiental
- Work on Waterway (hidrovia) is suspended.
Recently we have carried various reports on the fears of environmentalists of the wide-scale damages which could potentially be caused by the construction of the 3440 km. Paraguay - Parana waterway which would link Caceres with the Atlantic and would provide the possibility for large vessels to carry goods from the interior of Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil.
Brazilian federal judge Jeferson Schneider of Mato Grosso recently issued a court order prohibiting the federal government to start work on the waterway. The judge was acting on requests made by public prosecutors of the State of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul claiming that the Guato Indians who inhabit the Insua island (municipality of Corumba) alongside which passes the river Paraguay were not consulted about the waterway construction.
In the court order the judge decided that work on the project could only proceed after the Guato are consulted and Congress has authorized the project. If the court order is not obeyed, the judge imposed a daily fine of US $80 thousand. The court order also forbade the federal government to give grants to state governments to carry out works which would be complimentary to the overall project such as the construction of ports.
HEALTH ISSUES
- Rio de Janeiro: 71 babies die; hospital overcrowding blamed.
Since early January 71 babies have died in municipal maternity hospitals - all specialized in neo-natal care. According to the municipal Health Secretary, Dr. Ronaldo Gazolla, in an interview to the 'Folha de Sao Paulo' on February 02, the deaths occurred because of overcrowding. He commented that the state and federal governments have not invested in this area and because of this the municipal hospitals are over strained.
Dr. Gazolla said that prenatal and neonatal care are totally inadequately catered for in the 13 neighboring densely populated municipalities of the Baixada Fluminense and consequently the services provided by the municipality of Rio de Janeiro is sought by ever increasing numbers. He claims that 50% of the beds in federal maternity hospitals are not being used because of lack of the necessary investments and that inadequate funding has also been given to the four state hospital in the Baixada Fluminense region where public prenatal care is not available at the moment.
On the other hand, the State Secretary for Health in the State of Rio de Janeiro, Roseangela Bello, said that overcrowding does not explain the death of babies in the municipal maternity hospitals. She commented that a technical examination carried out by her secretariat in two such hospitals in late January where a total of 52 babies died during the month, showed that they could not attend well even if they had the ideal number of babies being treated there. In one such hospital - the Alexander Fleming hospital, she claimed that the hygienic conditions were totally inadequate. Trash cans were not covered and disposable gloves were being re-used. The number of specialized doctors working in the hospitals was also inadequate according to the State Health Secretary.
- Number of pre-natal examinations low.
The Ministry of Health is making a recommendation to the states that the number and the quality of pre-natal examinations be improved throughout the country according to a report in the 'Folha de Sao Paulo' on January 29. According to a Health Ministry report, a total of 3.5 pre-natal examinations were made in the public health system during 1996 - an average of 127.4 examinations per 100 births. During 1996 the government invested just over US $8 million in this area.
'' Taking into consideration that it is recommended that six examinations be carried out during pregnancy, this number of examinations per birth is lower than ideal '' commented the Health Ministry report. The States with the highest number of examinations were frequently those with fewer resources - Roraima (295.7 examinations per 100 births); Parana (261.1); Santa Caterina (226.6); Amapa (213.2); Federal District (212.6) and Mato Grosso (211.9). On the other end of the scale numbers show that in some states there are fewer than 50 examinations carried out per 100 births - Alagoas (48.6); Bahia (36.6); Piaui (22.3) and Goias (9.4).
The Health Ministry report showed that a high number of Cesarean births also took place during 1996 - 884.7 thousand births or 32% of all births were Cesarean. In some states the number of Cesarean births are even well above this national average - Mato Grosso do Sul (51.2%); Mato Grosso (48.9%); Goias (465.6%); Parana (41.6%); Sao Paulo (41.2%); Minas Gerais (38.8%); Paraiba (37.1%); Rio de Janeiro (37%) and Espirito Santo (36%). During 1996 approximately US $350 million was spent on public hospital expenses with births - 42% of this total on Cesarean births. 6.2 deaths of mothers were registered per 10 thousand Cesarean births and 1.9 per 10 thousand natural births.
- Larger increase in AIDS in the south.
The Ministry of Health published a report on January 30 which shows that the number of cases of AIDS is increasing faster in the south of Brazil and that the number is on the increase amongst heterosexuals. A total of 4283 new cases of AIDS were registered between September and November of last year bringing the total of notified cases in the country to 120399 since 1980.
The report shows that statistics would indicate that the rate of growth of AIDS cases seems to have slowed down significantly in the south-east. On the other hand the rate of increase has been on the rise since 1991 in the south and center-west - 1.33 and 0.82 respectively new cases per year per 100 thousand inhabitants. In the south-east the increase was 0.55/100 thousand inhabitants. The national director of the government's AIDS and sexually transmissible diseases program, Pedro Chequer, commented that the increase was chiefly due to contamination in heterosexual relationships and because of the use of injectable drugs.
URBAN QUESTIONS
- Action Appeal: 300 destitute families threatened with expulsion.
The Gaspar Garcia Center for Human Rights works with the homeless and
miserably housed tenement dwellers in the center of São Paulo. In the
last year it has been struggling along side some 300 residents of
tenements and a small favela (shanty town) who are living in an area
being expropriated by the state Tribunal of Justice. The state has paid
(or is paying) the owners for the land; the residents, some of whom have
lived there as tenents for up to 17 years, are threatened with imminent
expulsion.
The threatened families have formed the Residents Association
for Justice and Liberty. The Tribunal and the state housing authorities
promised no expulsions (though some took place before the Center and the
residents got together in the struggle) and they even promised a
"mutirão," that is, funds and technical support for the people to build
their own homes. But in January of this year a new administration of the
Tribunal was elected. All promises are in abeyance, possibly officially
forgotten, since nothing was put in writing--except, of course, the
contracts for the demolition of the existing housing.
During the past year the authorities, judicial and state administrative, have made
promises, renegged on them, attempted to divide the residents and kept up
the pressure of imminent expulsion. Now there are rumors that instead of
the promised replacement housing, families will receive some money with
their expulsion. If past offers of financial help are any indication,
the results will be nothing short of criminal. The equivalent of 3
months rent or so simply is not substitute housing.
Brazil was a signatory to the Istanbul convention on housing as a
human right. While no one believes that the government can immediately
supply housing to all who need it, the authorities in this case do have a
responsibility to replace the housing that they are destroying.
ACTION APPEAL:
Please write a letter (and ask a friend to write one too) to:
Excelentíssimo Senhor
Dr. Dirceu de Mello
Digníssimo Presidente do Tribunal de Justiça de São Paulo
Praça Clóvis Bevilácqua
01018-000 São Paulo - SP
BRAZIL
"Dear Dr. de Mello:" etc.
Please refer to the families of Rua Conde de Sarzedas and Rua
Tabatinguera, (mention of the 2 streets is important) who are threatened
with expulsion as a result of the expropriation by the Tribunal. The
treatened people include the elderly, one seriously handicapped man, and
families with about 100 children--all of them too poor to find other
housing. Incidentally, we in the struggle think that letters of support
to the former president of the Tribunal were decisive in the
negotiations. Please help again, or join the struggle for the first time
with us.
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