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After almost nine years in the country, MINUSTAH prolongs conditions of poverty and repression, securing the political and economic interests of the United States

[Translation of an interview from Brasil de Fato of São Paulo for May 9, 2013.  See original here and related articles here, here, here and here.]

By Márcio Zonta

The United Nations Mission for the Stabilization of Haiti (MINUSTAH) will be nine years old in June.  Created in 2004 by the UN Security Council, it brought the activities of foreign troops into the country after the coup against then President Bertrand Aristide.  He was kidnapped and deposed by United States forces, being forced into exile in Africa. (more…)

Only 207 of the 2,197 recognized communities hold land titles, making access to family agricultural incentives difficult

[Translation of an article from Brasil de Fato of São Paulo for May 8, 2013. See original here. Quilombolas are the residents of Quilombos, settlements established in the Brazilian jungle during the early colonial era by escaped slaves, who also gave refuge to indigenous peoples, Arabs, Jews and others suffering colonial oppression. In the early days, some Quilombos were strong enough to pose a serious threat to Portuguese rule, leading to harsher repression by colonial forces, who drove them deeper into the jungles. The Quilombos were widely thought to have disappeared until the 1970s when a number were found still in existence. For more on the history of Quilombos go here. ]   

By Sarah Fernandes

A report released by the federal government confirms the view that there is still much to be done in assuring the basic rights of the Quilombola communities. Of the 80,000 Quilombola families in the Cadastro Único [Single Registry], the data base for social programs, as of January of this year 74.73 percent still lived in conditions of extreme poverty, according to a study, “Brasil Qilombola,” released on Monday, May 6, by the Secretaria de Políticas de Promoção da Igualdade Racial (SEPPIR – Secretariat for the Promotion of Policies for Racial Equality). Those registered and not registered make up a total 1.17 million persons in 214,000 families. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Carta Maior of Brazil for May 3, 2013.  See original here.]

By Marcel Gomes

Rio de Janeiro – The strengthening of relations between Brazil and Venezuela during the administrations of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Hugo Chávez will allow Brasilia and Caracas to maintain close political and economic ties, even after the death of the Venezuelan.

Those who hold this view are supported by the high degree of institutionalization of the bilateral relations. The new president, Nicolás Maduro, has at his disposal UNASUR (Unión de Naciones Suramericanas – Union of South American Nations) and MERCOSUR (Mercado Común del Sur – Southern Common Market), energy projects, local branches of IPEA (Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada – Institute of Applied Economic Research), EMBRAPA (Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária – Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation) and Caixa (Caixa Econômica Federal – Brazilian publicly owned bank), as well as a commercial exchange that has jumped from 800 million US dollars to six billion reais [about three billion dollars] in a decade – 80 percent of it, keep in mind, to Brazil’s benefit. (more…)

[Translation of an article from AlterPresse of Port-au-Prince for April 12, 2013. See original here. The writer is communications coordinator for the Jesuit Refugee Service for Latin America and the Caribbean.]

By Wooldy Edson Louidor

Bogota, Colombia, April 12 – Several South American governments are showing a clear tendency toward a hardening of their migration policies in regard to Haitian migrants who reach their border or are already in their territory.

From Ecuador to French Guiana (an overseas territory of France), Haitian migrants face an ever more complex series of difficult situations like the closing of borders, threats of deportation, increases in requirements for entering their territories and humanitarian crises. (more…)

((Celebration in the Senate chamber as amendment is approved))

[Translations of two articles from O Estado de São Paulo for April 2 and January 9, 2013. See originals here and here.]

Congress approves amendment

By Ricardo Brito

Brasilia – In a ceremony on Tuesday night, April 2, that lasted close to 50 minutes, in the presence of representatives of the three branches of government, the full National Congress officially proclaimed passage of a constitutional amendment that guarantees 17 new rights for domestic workers, giving them an equal standing with other urban and rural workers.

The measure, which had been approved by the plenary Senate in a final vote last week, establishes new rules, including an eight-hour work day and a 44-hour week, in addition to payment of overtime of at least 50 percent above normal rates. The rights are in addition to those already in effect, like the 13º salário [“the 13th paycheck,” an annual bonus equivalent to one month’s salary], weekly breaks, annual vacations and pregnancy leave. (more…)

The visit is in response to an increase in intimidation and violence against activists

[Translation of an article from Brasil de Fato for March 28, 2013. See original here.]

An international delegation from the “Alternative Nobel Prize” (Right Livelihood Award) will visit Brazil between April 1 and 4 to seek justice and clarification of crimes committed against members of the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais sem Terra (MST – Landless Workers’ Movement) and the Comissão Pastoral da Terra (CPT – Pastoral Land Commission).

The visit is in response to the increase in cases of intimidation and violence against social activists in Brazil. In a single year the number of activists in the country receiving threats increased by 117.6 percent. The delegation will visit the city of Marabá, in Pará, in the northern region of the country.

Among the members of the international group are two recipients of the Alternative Nobel Prize, Angie Zelter, a representative of the British organization Trident Ploughshares (awarded in 2001) and the Argentine biologist Raúl Montenegro (in 2004). Also participating will be Marianne Andersson, a member of the Directing Board of the Right Livelihood Award Foundation and former member of the Swedish parliament. She says, “The delegation will come to express solidarity with Brazilian activists, to denounce the crimes and attacks that social activist in this country are being subjected to and to demand the immediate implementation of agrarian reform.”

Violence in the fields

The choice of Pará to receive the delegation’s visit is due to the fact that the state has the highest rate of what is called slave labor and of threats against defenders of human rights, according to the report of a 2005 investigation by the International Federation for Human Rights. The CPT reports that of 29 assassinations of Brazilian rural activists in 2011, twelve were in Pará. Furthermore, according the the MST, there is a strong climate of impunity in the region.

The CPT confirms that the number of activists in the country being threatened increased from 125 to 347 between 2010 and 2011, according to the report “Conflictos no Campo: Brasil.” The most recent case of an attack against a Brazilian activist involved in the struggle for agrarian reform was the assassination of Cicero Guedes, an MST leader, shot to death in Rio de Janeiro by gunmen who are as yet unidentified.

Participation

The delegation will take part in a public debate on the impunity that human rights violators enjoy. The event will be held in the Universidade do Estado do Pará in Marabá on April 2…

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Fast food chain signs agreement with Ministry of Labor to regularize work hours

[Translation of an article from Brasil de Fato for March 22. See original here and related article here.]

By Michelle Amaral

Arcos Dourados, the largest McDonald’s franchise in Brazil, and the Ministério Público do Trabalho (MPT — Public Ministry of Labor) of Pernambuco [a state in northeastern Brazil] signed an agreement on Thursday, March 21, that puts an end to variable and changeable work days, as practiced throughout the country by the fast-food chain. In addition, the company will have to regularize a number of other labor questions in its 640 locations.

The agreement also requires the payment of 7.5 million reais [about US$3.75 million] in collective personal injury. Of this amount, 1.5 million reais will be divided into three parts, to be distributed to worker assistance programs in the states of Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro and Paraná. The choice of the states results from judicial actions involving the fast food chain. The remaining six million reais will be used for a national “Respect for Workers’ Rights” project. Initially, the MPT had sought compensation of 50 million reais. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Página/12 of Buenos Aires, Argentina, for January 7. See original here.]

By Eric Nepomuceno

Last Tuesday, the first day of 2013, besides marking the first two anniversaries of the Dilma Rousseff administration, marked as well ten years in power for the Workers’ Party (PT — Partido dos Trabalhadores). The first party declaring itself leftist to elect a president of Brazil, the PT elected, then re-elected, the first unionist, Lula da Silva, and the first woman, Dilma Rousseff, in the most populous country in Latin America and the country with the strongest economy.

It is certainly a very different party from what it was ten years ago. And much more different from twenty-some years ago, when radical discourse kept a wilfull Lula from attaining the right to occupy the presidency. It has been its more moderate phase and, principally, the strategy put in place by the then president of the party, José Dirceu, that allowed the PT to win the 2002 elections and to begin a stage that may in the end add up to a total of 16 years in power. According to the most recent polls, the party is the clear favorite for the 2014 elections, whether Dilma runs for re-election or Lula chooses to return. (more…)

Establishment of military bases in Chile and Peru reveals United States’ intention to increase influence in the region

[Translation of an article from Brasil de Fato of São Paulo for July 5. See original here and related articles here and here.]

by Patrícia Benvenuti

The hope for new relations between the United States and Latin America continues to be ever more distant. Recent activity, in particular the establishment of new military bases, reveals an attempt by the United States to increase its influence in the region.

On April 5, work on the Personnel Training Center for Peace Operations in Urban Zones was completed in Chile. Located at Fort Aguayo, in Concón, in the Valparaíso Region, the base was constructed in 60 days, considered a record time for this kind of project.

The structure consists of eight buildings, which simulate a small city. The cost of the base, financed by the Southern Command of the United States armed forces, was almost 500,000 dollars. The Center will be used for training the so-called Peace Forces of Latin American nations that are part of United Nations missions. (more…)

((Fernando Lugo))

[Translation of an article from the Brazilian website Carta Maior for June 20. See original here and related article here.]

by Dario Pignotti

“This killing of campesinos occurred as a result of a process of police violence instigated by landowners who are unhappy with President Lugo; he is not wanted by the Right or by the Brazilian farmers. Brazilian landowners like Tranquilo Favero, the richest soy producer in Paraguay, are interested in destabilizing the government, they want Lugo to fall,” declared Martín Almada, the most important representative of the Paraguayan human rights movement.

Eleven landless campesinos were killed last Friday on a farm near the border with Brazil, where tension is mounting along with demands and direct actions for agrarian reform. The confrontation between the police and the workers left seven officers dead, among them the chiefs of the Special Operations Group, a kind of Paraguayan BOPE [Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais], except that its job is not to repress favela dwellers, as in Rio de Janeiro, but the rural peasants who, since Lugo came to office in 2008, have increased their level of organization and determination to struggle, after decades of submission to the yoke of the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner. (more…)

((Carta Maior photo))

[Translation of an article from Carta Maior for May 13. See original here.]

By Najla Passos

Brasilia – On the 124th anniversary of the Lei Áurea [the "Golden Law" of May 13, 1888, that abolished slavery in Brazil], the commemoration has lost its splendor. Once again, the Chamber of Deputies has postponed a vote on the Proposta de Emenda Constitucional (PEC – Proposal to Amend the Constitution) No. 438, the so-called Slave Labor PEC, which has been in the works in the house for 11 years. The intense mobilization of civil society, the efforts of the administration and the commitment of the more progressive parliamentarians were not enough. It was the ruralista caucus [legislators representing the interests of large landowners], which holds the majority of votes in the house, which had the last word, following the example of what happened with the new Código Florestal [Forest Code]. (more…)

((Carta Maior photo)

[Translation of a column from Carta Maior of São Paulo for March 8. See original here.]

by Emir Sader

The Brazilian right carries within its DNA the 1964 coup and the military dictatorship. At the most decisive moment in Brazilian history to date, when the future of the country was at stake, in the clash between democracy and dictatorship, the right, in all its incarnations – intellectual, journalistic, entrepreneurial, religious – stuck with the dictatorship.

The question of the moment for every public figure, for every institution, every political force, every journalist, every intellectual, every Brazilian, every citizen, is where were they at that crucial moment: defending democracy or supporting the coup and the military dictatorship? (more…)