URGENT ACTIONS
December 12, 2007
Throughout this year, we have
been tracking the story of the government's plan to redirect the
São
Francisco river. As we have mentioned, many NGOs and social
movements
here in Brazil are against the project, which, according to the
arguments, will spend billions out of the public coffers, drastically
change ecosystems, cause migration of peoples, and bring few benefits
for those who most need the water. The beneficiaries will be
the big
agricultural companies.
Two years ago, the Catholic bishop of
the diocese of Barra, Bahia, Luiz Flavio Cappio, known as Frei Luiz,
took a bold initiative and began a hunger strike as means to divert
national attention to the project, and to ask the government to halt
the project. His strike ended when President Lula promised to
put the
project on hold and to sponsor nation-wide debates on it. In
July of
2006, the government began to organize itself for these debates;
however, as 2006 was an election year, the plans were
dropped. In
December of that year, a federal judge ruled against measures to
prevent the work from proceeding. The only thing preventing
the
project from going forward was licensing from the government's
environmental agency (Ibama). That was conceded in March of
2007. In
June, the army began the initial work on the project, and were met with
resistance from 1,200 people who occupied the area. The
General
Procurator of the Republic, Antonio Fernando Souza, presented a
petition for the immediate suspension of the work. To date,
no
judgments have been rendered on the cessation of the project as it
continues to move forward.
"It has been two years that we have
been waiting for this debate. So I am returning to my fast
and
prayer. It will only end once the army is withdrawn from the
North and
East Branch [of the river] and the project of the redirecting of the
São Francisco River has been filed away," wrote Frei Luiz to
President
Lula, laying down the conditions for the end to his hunger strike.
If
you would like to send a letter in support of Bishop Luiz Flavio Cappio
to President Lula, you can go to this site:
http://www.presidencia.gov.br/presidente/falecom/. Click on
the link
that says, "Escreva sua mensagem." Fill out the information
and click
on "Enviar". You then will receive an email from the site,
and then
you must click on "confirmar" to send the message.
Thank you for your interest and support!
