מצטערים, רשומה זו זמינה רק ב- English.
7th August 2014, Brazil.
Minas Gerais state government has announced in August 6th that 8.000 families that live in land occupations named Vitória, Rosa Leão and Esperança will be displaced from their houses, located in Belo Horizonte. As these families don’t have any other place to go, they are going to resist against the police forces. This situation had made us to write this international claim, in order to report a huge massacre to come.
The Brazilian Police Force operates in a military logic, and there are few legal constrains for then to shoot against people. Last month, a sword was used against a demonstrator (video). We fear that a new “Pinheirinho” may occur. (http://globalvoicesonline.org/2012/01/25/brazil-pinheirinho-massacre-eviction/).
These occupations are being organized for more than a year by national organizations that fight for urban and rural justice (Brigadas Populares, MLB and CPT); they also have a strong support of the city community, through lawyers and architects. Today they have professional urban planning and democratic political systems for taking decions that made possible new ways of sociability and solidarity. Everything was made in accordance to brazilian federal laws and this puts the Public Prosecutor’s Office in the families’ side, a situation that reveals how big are the crimes that Minas Gerais and Brazilian governments are to commit.
Social conflicts must be solved by public policies, not by the barrel of a gun. An eviction of thousands of families will only create new homeless people and aggravate the problem. There are legal possibilities to find a fair solution, but no political will by Aécio Neves and Pimenta da Veiga, commanders of PSDB, the party that really runs Minas Gerais state government. This huge violation of human rights will have a high degree of complicity of President Dilma Rousseff who had not made a single effort to resolve the problem.
The massacre is announced! We claim the civil society, public authorities, human rights organizations and everyone committed to the defense os social causes to support the Ocupations of Isidoro and to report in every place. Our contacts and legal instances (in Brazil and abroad) should be activated to find and other solution that don’t implies is the loss of human lives and blood.
Belo Horizonte – Minas Gerais, Brazil, Agusth, 7th, 2014.
Brigadas Populares