RIGHTS-BRAZIL: Hunger Strikers Set New Nat’l Record

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 22 1998 (IPS) - Five Chileans, two Argentineans and a Brazilian serving time in Brazil for the kidnapping of a prominent local businessman reached the 37th day of a hunger strike Tuesday, making their fast the longest in Brazilian history.

The eight fasters are now in serious risk of dying, according to the doctors attending them. They have already been admitted to the Clinicas Hospital in Sao Paulo, and the three weakest are receiving mineral salts to prevent cardiovascular damages.

The group’s leader, Argentinean national Humberto Paz, has already lost more than 20 kgs, while the rest have shed upwards of 14 kgs. Nevertheless, they are threatening to suspend the consumption of water, and say they will continue fasting until the government addresses their demands.

“Without freedom the fast will not end,” said Breno Altman, spokesman for the group and the head of a committee fighting for the prisoners’ release in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest city.

Only a decision by President Fernando Henrique Cardoso will prevent death by starvation, because a legal solution would take too long, according to Altman and Paz.

The hunger strikers, who have the support of not only the committee but also a number of human rights groups, are demanding deportation – as a form of release – for the foreign nationals and a pardon for Brazilian citizen Raimundo Roselio Costa Freire.

The hunger strike has already broken the national record of 36 days set in 1972 by a group of political prisoners who were fasting to avoid being transferred to other prisons and dispersed. At that time, the country was in the grips of a military dictatorship.

The eight kidnappers have been in prison in Sao Paulo since late 1989, when they gave themselves up to police, after the house where they were holding hostage Abilio Diniz, the owner of Pan de Azucar – Brazil’s top chain of supermarkets – was discovered.

The kidnapping was staged to obtain funds for the guerrillas of El Salvador. The kidnappers, who had links with Chile’s Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), demanded a 30-million dollar ransom.

Two other members of the gruop, a Canadian couple, were transferred to their country last month. But the Chilean and Argentinean prisoners cannot be transferred as bilateral accords on that procedure are still pending parliamentary approval.

The courts consider the eight fasters common criminals, despite the political motives underlying the kidnapping. Sentenced to 26 and 28-year terms, and with nine already completed, the kidnappers should be eligible for day release – under which they would only return to the prison to sleep at night – or probation.

But the courts have denied them that right, arguing that it does not apply to foreigners without work permits.

At the Southern Cone Common Market (Mercosur) summit held two weeks ago in Rio de Janeiro, Chilean Foreign Minister Jose Miguel Insulza charged that the denial of that right entailed discrimination against foreigners. During the gathering, Insulza met with local authorities to come up with alternatives to the release of the Chilean prisoners.

No one convicted in Brazil of a kidnapping which did not lead to death has ever been treated with such inflexibility, argue both Insulza and the prisoners’ lawyers. The Brazilian, Costa Freire, was also denied legal benefits due to his links with the others.

The courts are now deciding whether to reduce the sentences to between 15 and 18 years, which would make the refusal of probation even less justifiable. But the legal proceedings are long and involved, and will be delayed by the legal recess that lasts until February.

President Cardoso drew fire from the Sao Paulo courts when he blamed them two weeks ago for delaying the decisions that would allow the kidnappers to be released on probation.

The fasters, however, pin the responsibility on Cardoso, arguing that only a “political decision” could prevent a fatal outcome to the hunger strike – a possibility that is beginning to worry the government.

The group of prisoners is comprised of militants of radical leftist groups, some of which had already been defeated when the kidnapping was carried out in solidarity with the Salvadoran left.

In December 1989, on the eve of presidential elections in Brazil, Humberto Paz recognised the kidnapping as an error.

The operation hurt the chances of leftist presidential candidate Luiz Inacio da Silva, a former metal-worker defeated by Fernando Collor de Mello – who was impeached in 1992 on corruption charges.

The current hunger strike is Paz’ third. He first fasted while a political prisoner in Argentina. Last April the eight kidnappers called off a 16-day hunger strike upon receiving promises for a legal solution to their demands for day release. But authorities’ failure to comply with that pledge triggered the new hunger strike – and the decision to continue fasting until death or release through deportation and pardon.