Number 91. August 12, 1993

HUMAN RIGHTS

- Human rights activist threatened with death in the Amazon

A national and international campaign is being organized by human right groups to denounce death threats made against Raimundo Nonato Souza Santos, of the Center for the Defense of Human Rights (CDDH) in Manaus, Amazonia.

The threats started after the CDDH denounced the activities of a paramilitary group, called the "Guarda Mirim", comprising of around 300 children and teenagers from the Zumbi dos Palmares neighborhood, on the edge of Manaus. The National Conference of Bishops of Brazil has asked the authorities for police protection for Raimundo and his wife and child.

The paramilitary group was formed and trained by a retired army officer, Genervino Valerio de Souza, to combat street gangs in the periphery of Manaus and is being accused of "arresting" and torturing a 15-year old student who was on his way home from school and keeping him prisoner for three days.

In an interview he gave to newspapers, the 'commander' of the Guarda Mirim, Genervino, denied arresting the school boy and said his group simply go around disarming members of street gangs. Genervino also dismissed accusations made by the CDDH that he was recruiting children to "join the ranks of violence". According to him, the children are being prepared "to embrace the military profession". "They'll leave here prepared to defend the population, the family and the fatherland", the commander concluded.

Messages of support for Raimundo and his family and showing concern about the activity of this children's para-military group, should be sent to:

Governador do Amazonas, Gilberto Mestrinho,

Palacio Rio Negro,

Av. Sete de Setembro, s/n,

Cep. 69000, Manaus,

AM,

fax: 092.321.5691;

Secretario de Seguranca Publica do Amazonas, Mauro Campbell Marques,

Rua Simao Bolivar, 245,

Cep 69.010, Manaus,

AM,

fax 092.622.3725,

with copies to:

Centro de Defesa dos Direitos Humanos,

Avenida Epaminondas, 722,

Caixa Postal 950,

Cep 69.010, Manaus,

AM, fax 092.233.8635.

- Governor of Sao Paulo refuses to implement State Council for the Defense of Human Rights

The governor of Sao Paulo, Luiz Antonio Fleury Filho, has been refusing, for almost two years now, to take the necessary steps to ensure that Sao Paulo's State Council for the Defense of Human Rights, created on November 27, 1991, starts operating.

The accusation was made during a press conference given in Sao Paulo, on August 3, by various organizations, including the National Movement for Human Rights, the Justice and Peace Commission of the Archdiocese of Sao Paulo, the Teotonio Vilela Commission, the Santo Dias Center, the Torture Never Again group, INESC and AGEN.

"This saga of implanting the Council is just one more of the uncontestable proofs of the line Governor Fleury has been adopting in relation to public security and human rights and as born out by his handling of the Carandiru massacre and the military police, whose members, responsible for the atrocities, haven't yet been punished. He has remained impassive even to the pressure of federal authorities".

- Casaldaliga and Balduino criticize threats against those working with children

The bishops of Sao Felix do Araguaia, d. Pedro Casaldaliga and of Goias, d. Tomas Balduino, classified the threats being made against people working with the Church's Pastoral for Street Children, as an "outright scandal". The threats have become commonplace after the recent massacre of 8 children outside Rio de Janeiro's Candelaria Church. Two such people receiving death threats are Fr. Julio Lancelotti and Stella Graciani, a teacher at the Pontifical University of Sao Paulo (PUC/SP).

In an interview with AGEN, d. Pedro said, "it's a permanent scandal, that according to official figures and press reports, four Brazilian children are murdered every day". In his opinion, "this shows a breakdown in the collective moral system" and that "the threats against not only the street children themselves, but also against those who try to protect them, reveals complete degradation". Casaldaliga states that this situation "demands a firm and efficient attitude on the part of the Federal Government and human right organizations", stressing that "the means of communication must also do more to give more value to life, ethical values and human dignity".

"All those who are church or have religious sentiment, must take on the challenge to defend human life, the life of God's children, above all, that of the little ones, who are the most defenseless", concludes Casaldaliga.

D. Balduino said that the activities of the extermination groups that kill children "are a kind of continuation of the leftovers of authoritarianism that has always fed on a system of impunity". He points out "the paradox of our having overcome so many obstacles in the area of human rights and the continual the killing of street children".

In his evaluation, "what happened in Candelaria is not an isolated fact, but part of a 'social cleansing' to which these killers are dedicated". He adds that "as the system shows no political willingness to tackle the roots of the problem, it uses extermination, as it did during the military dictatorship with those they considered subversive or communist".

- NGOs appeal to Senate to approve original Bicudo/Bueno project concerning Military Courts

Thirty non-governmental organizations working in the area of human rights sent a letter to Brazil's senators, urging them to approve a bill which proposes changes in the Code of Military Penal Process and the Military Penal Code.

The bill, which would transfer the trials of Military Police accused of committing crimes against civilians over to civilian courts, is the result of a fusion of several proposals suggested by the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry that investigated the extermination of children in Brazil, and proposals prepared by federal deputies Helio Bicudo and Cunha Bueno.

According to the message sent by the NGOs to the senators, "the bill, originally sent to the National Congress, addresses a long standing demand made by civil right groups in Brazil, to put an end to the impunity enjoyed by military policemen who commit crimes against civilians. Since 1977, these policemen have been favored and left unpunished, because of the fact that they are judged by their own Military Courts, their own institution".

The NGOs add, "since the right to an adequate defense is amply guaranteed for all, as the law demands, there can be no justification whatsoever, in a democratic regime, to continue this type of privilege. What's more, this procedure legitimizes society's understandable suspicions, with regard to ensuring impartial justice".

Unfortunately when Congress approved the bill, an amendment was added that substantially changed the spirit of the original project. The amended text states that the Common Courts will only be responsible for crimes committed by military policemen that involve "loss of life". The human rights NGOs argue that the new text fails to address the question of impunity, by excluding innumerous other crimes commonly committed by the military police. The NGOs state that they frequently receive information accusing the Military Police of crimes such as torture, extortion, kidnapings and other abuses, that will still remain under the jurisdiction of the Military Courts.

The principal party responsible for this amendment was the PMDB, who decided to oppose Bicudo and Bueno's project, and support the lobby of the general commanders of the Military Police of Brazil, in particular the "Brigada Militar" as the military police in Rio Grande do Sul is called.

In their message to the Senators the NGOs conclude: "We are convinced that Your Excellencies have an historic opportunity to put an end to this authoritarian anachronism, and break the vicious circle of impunity in Brazil".

LAND ISSUES

- CPT assembly reaffirms struggle for agrarian reform.

The 9th annual assembly of the Catholic Church's Land Pastoral Commission (CPT) was held in Goiania, Goias, from August 3-7. 121 delegates - Catholic and Protestant farmworkers, priests, religious, pastors and bishops - representing 20 regional offices of the CPT, participated.

The assembly, in an open letter released August 7, denounced the "projects of death" which "are the consequences of the neoliberal economic model which excludes the vast majority of people.' The letter states that "agrarian reform is no longer part of the vocabulary of government policy." Agriculture policy only benefits "the economic and political monopolies, big business, exploitative and unproductive large land owners, and the 'drought industry'".

The letter denounces the continuing violence against farmworkers, which counts on the "cover-up of authorities and even the direct participatoin of the police", and the impunity of hired killers and of those who order the killings.

Northeast Brazil, suffering "the worst drought this century in terms of numbers affected", receives special mention. The CPT says this area "continues to be marginalized...Brazil refuses to assume, once and for all, the economic and social viability of the Northeast, and the cultural contributioin it makes" to the country.

Regarding the upcoming revision of Brazil's Constitution, the letter says that "a new and very serious threat hovers over farmworkers: the unconstitutional and perverse proposal of the majority of Congress to make a broad revison of the Constitution. The Constitution is already precarious for us, and it has yet to be implemented and regulated."

The CPT assembly was also a time to reflect on the "road to life". The passage from St.Matthew's Gospel, "Go out into the byroads and invite all those you meet to the feast", animated assembly participants. "The faith in this invitiaton has sustained in the midst of the people the most inspired initiatives of the struggle for land and the struggle on the land: resistance to large landowners and to violence; occupations; settlements; communitarian associations; basic food production and commercialization which preserves the environment and sustains people."

The assembly pronounced its "commitments of new hope" by naming the following directives and lines of action for the CPT: to struggle in favor of the people's right to land and to a dignified life on the land; to support and advise rural worker organizations; to invest in the formation of rural workers and pastoral agents; to deepen faith lived in the day-to-day; to deepen ecumenism; to create spaces of concrete solidarity with indigenous peoples and with all farmworkers in Latin America.

The letter closes with a reference to the centennial of the resistance movement of Canudos, in Bahia, and recalls the words of resistance leader Antonio Conselheiro, "The land has no owner; the land belongs to all."

A new president and vice-president of the CPT were elected at the assembly. Dom Orlando Dotti, 63, bishop of Vacaria, Rio Grande do Sul, is the new CPT president. The new vice-president is Dom Jorge Marskell, 57, of Itacoatiara, Amazonas.

- Human rights NGOs protest against manipulation in Expedito Ribeiro case

International human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, are sending letters to the state court in Para and to the Attorney General's Department, to protest against a recent court decision to transfer the trial of the killers of union leader, Expedito Ribeiro de Souza, from Rio Maria to Xinguara, in the south of Para.

The letter states that Xinguara "offers even less tranquil conditions for an impartial trial than Rio Maria, which is only 35 kms away", and points out that "Xinguara is noted to be one of the most violent towns in Brazil and that it has the highest murder rate for crimes linked to land conflicts in recent years".

The present mayor of Xinguara, Elviro Arantes, is one of the accused in the case of the murder of Expedito, having been named by a gunman called Barreirito, during the police inquiry. The town also boasts of a strong and organized group of wealthy landowners, that according to Amnesty and other NGOs, "promote meetings to intimidate rural workers, like the one held in the town hall, on March 14, 1991, one day after the public protest in Rio Maria to repudiate the murder of Expedito Ribeiro."

Xinguara is also known as a place used to contract gunmen for commissioned crimes.

The proposal of the NGOs is that the trial, postponed in Rio Maria some weeks ago and for which no date has been fixed yet, be held in Belem, the state capital of Para.

- Landless families evicted in Rio de Janeiro.

(The following appeal comes from the Church's Land Pastoral Commission (CPT) in Rio de Janeiro)

Early on August 1, 1993, about 150 landless families occupied the Severina Ranch, located on land which has been unproductive for more than 20 years, in the municipality of Macae, on the BR 101 highway east of Rio de Janeiro.

On August 4 at 5 p.m., the Military Police, carrying out the order of the judge of the Second Civil Court of Mace, violently removed the families from the area, while the courts were still arguing the motion of the Public Defender to stop the eviction.

The landless families decided to camp on the side of the highway while a commission of landless people, accompanied by several support organizations and by the CUT (the Central Union of Worker, went to Rio to meet the regional superintendent of INCRA (National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform).

During the night of August 5, armed men circled the area and threatened the families. On August 6, the families learned that federal highway police were going to remove them from the encampment.

We ask all organizations to send faxes or telegrams, calling for the security of the landless to be guaranteed, and for the immediate expropriation of the Severina Ranch.

Please send messages to:

Dr. ALtamir Petersen

INCRA

Largo Sao Francisco, 34

Centro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ

CEP 20051-070

Fax 021-232-5775

Dr. Nilo Batista

Secretaria de Justica

Rua Barao de Itambi, 60

Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro, RJ

CEP 23815-310

Fax 021-788-2593

Dr. Antonio C. Biscaia

Procuradoria Geral de Justica

Av.Nilo Pecanha, 12,, sala 207

Centro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ

CEP 20020-100

Fax 021-221-6037

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES

- Indians fromEspirito Santo fight to have their land extended

The Tupinikim and Guarani Indians, living in the Aracruz region of the State of Espirito Santo, have decided to fight for the expansion of their lands. Their proposal is to get 13,270 more hectares annexed to their present area of 4,491 hectares, which they consider insufficient for their physical and cultural survival.

According to information from the Missionary Council for Indigenous Peoples (CIMI) and the Catholic diocese of Colatina (ES), the Indians have the legal right to 129,600 hectares, "donated" in 1610, by the governor at the time, Francisco Aguiar Coutinho. The area was demarcated in 1760 and later confirmed in 1860 by D. Pedro the Second. The 1,170 Tupinikim and Guarani Indians, divided into 5 villages, live, at the moment, under precarious conditions in three separated areas, surrounded by eucalyptus plantations,and are struggling to preserve their culture and their local environment.

According to the CIMI, the wildlife, flora, rivers and streams on their land are in an advanced state of extinction, due mainly to the activities of the multinational, Aracruz Cellulose, considered to be an invader of indigenous territories.

By expanding their land, the Tupinikim and Guarani hope to reunite their villages geographically. They have already secured the support of 32 Brazilian and international entities and in July, they went to Brasilia to formalize their request with the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) and with the Attorney General.

Letters of support for the Tupinikim and Guarani can be sent to:

Presidente da Republica, Dr. Itamar Franco,

Palacio dos Tres Poderes,

Cep 70150, Brasilia,

DF, Brazil, fax 061.226.7655:

FUNAI, fax 061.226.8627;

Procuradoria Geral da Republica, fax 061.313.5444

and Ministerio da Justica,

gabinete do ministro, Mauricio Correa,

fax 061.321.5145.

MIGRANTS

- TV report provokes gold rush into Rondonia, and NGOs protest

A report shown on TV Globo's "Fantastico" program, on July 25th, about cassiterite mines in Bom Futuro, in the Ariquemes region of Rondonia, is provoking a virtual "gold-rush" of miners into this northwestern state.

The alert was made by the National Movement for Human Rights/ Northern Region 1 (MNDH), the Lawyers Association of Brazil (OAB), the Commercial and Industrial Association of Ariquemes and other Church and social groups. The report stated that a miner in Bom Futuro earns about CR$ 30 thousand (US$ 400) per day.

"The situation is absolutely chaotic and already we're feeling the effects even in Porto Velho, the state capital, which is 200 kms from Ariquemes", said the secretary for the MNDH, Soraya Rachid Bruxel. Attracted by the illusion of getting rich quick, "more than 1000 people are wandering the streets of Ariquemes and having talked to the Church's Servicefor Migrants Office, We know that the majority of them are very poor and honest men, who sold almost everything they had to get the fare to come up here, and when they arrived they found a very different situation from the one they saw on television".

The OAB and the Commercial Association and other groups in Ariquemes, sent a note to Globo Television Network (the largest and most influential in Brazil), demanding that they rectify the information they transmitted on "Fantastico". "Because of the report", says the note, "there has been a huge migration into the area, where they men arrive and find no work. They are going hungry, have health problems and nowhere to sleep, causing social chaos, and there's imminent danger of looting, as they don't have the money to get back home".

According to these associations, 4 thousand people arrived in Ariquemes in less that 10 days, looking for the mines in Bom Futuro, most without any experience in the area of mining. "We can't understand the economic, social or even journalistic reasons that motivated Globo's report", say the bewildered groups. "It's like telling people in Sao Paulo that by throwing a line into the river Tiete, they'd catch a golden fish".

Another letter from the parish priest of Sao Franciso de Assis, in Ariquemes, Fr. Nelson Taffarel, claims that the TV network "broadcast lies and fooled the people", and that it was known that "the report was 'commissioned', for a very high price, by some large mining company, interested in getting a monopoly on the mine, in order to create conflict in the area so that the mine would be closed".

The mine, in operation for over a year under control of the miners, up to now hadn't presented any serious problems.

STREET CHILDREN

- NGOs and Street Children.

(The following text, written by sociologist Almir Pereira Junior, comes from the weekly newsletter of IBASE (Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analysis), and was written in response to recent criticisms of NGOs and their work with street children)

The shots fired at Candelaria Cathedral have refueled the debate over children in the streets of urban centers. REcent statements have attacked a so-called "Street children industry" and called for the compulsory institutionalization of these children as the only way to resolve the problem. Such a proposal, apparently well-intended, carries serious built-in errors, and may have the drastic consequence of making child services policies both ineffective and authoritarian.

If we look at the past we will see what the "institutionalization" of "minors" has really been like - the scenes of violence we saw last year at FEBEM in Sao Paulo and the amount of public resources used without any positive result in the lives of these children are examples. This alternative has been tried for decades and is patently ineffective.

We know that the majority of poor children who use the streets as a survival alternative during the day are not abandoned. They have homes and families, even if they do not return to them every day. The number who sleep in the streets is much less than the number which uses the streets daily. The problem is misery - not orphans. However, the situation is much more complex, and it will not be resolved by depositing these children in institutions. There are other alternatives to evaluate.

Initiatives such as Projecto Axe, in Salvador, Bahia, which as attained excellent results at a low cost, or the open shelters of the Cruzada do Menor, and the trade school courses of the Sao Martinho Foundation in Rio de Janeiro, are examples of serious projects, developed by NGOS, in order to reduce the void caused by the lack of social policies, which has already caused so many children to go to the streets.

But instead of being invited to discuss proposals, the NGOs which do not agree with compulsory institutionalization are being accused of trying to kill children on the streets and creating an "industry". Suddenly, the media is presenting NGOs as the "villains". The accusation does not name names: "until they can prove the contrary they are guilty". It's been forgotten that these very NGOs are the one fighting to identify in every city all organizations working with children and adolescents, in order to identify "ghost" institutions and having their names removed form the register of the National Council of Social Service, making them ineligible for funds. NGOs were among those responsible for the Children and Adolescent Statute, a new law which establishes greater rigor in the monitoring and accompaniment of programs for children and adolescents.

The NGOs, as well as the children themselves, believe that leaving the streets is a goal that can be attained. We don't want to repeat the mistakes of the past. We want an open and democratic dialogue, where all options can be evaluated. We want a more present and active State, disposed to work together with those who have been on the streets with these children for decades. We want to have it clear what is the working space for NGOs and the State, as well as the ways to coordinate these actions. This can be done with seriousness, competence, and in an ethical way.

The reproduction of this material is permitted as long as the source is cited.