POLITICS-BRAZIL: Repression Stops 500th Anniversary Protests

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 23 2000 (IPS) - Police used force and blockaded roadways Saturday in Brazils northeastern state of Bahia to contain protests during the official quincentennial ceremonies, which were led by president Fernando Henrique Cardoso and his Portuguese counterpart, Jorge Sampaio.

The ceremony was held in the city of Porto Seguro, where the Portuguese Conquistadors landed on April 22, 1500. Nearly 5,000 police officers surrounded the city, preventing access to the site, even for tourists.

Some 1,000 indigenous peoples, students, peasants and Afro-Brazilian activists who gathered in Santa Cruz de Cabralia, 23 km from Porto Seguro, were attacked in the morning hours by police who fired rubber bullets, sprayed tear gas and beat demonstrators with their batons.

This repression resulted in at least six people injured and the arrests of 141 more, who police then encircled in a town plaza as they stood in the rain. Helicopters with armed personnel aboard served as backup for the operation.

Carlos Frederico Mares, president of the governments National Indigenous Foundation (FUNAI), was also beaten by the police as he tried to prevent the attacks, as was a photographer for Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper.

Later, some 3,000 people, including opposition parliamentarians who met in Cabralia, found the road to Porto Seguro blocked. They had intended to go there to protest the official ceremonies celebrating the 500-year anniversary because all social movements had been excluded.

More than 2,000 of the protesters had participated in the National Conference of Indigenous Peoples and Organisations of Brazil, held last Tuesday through Friday at Coroa Vermelha, a beach community near Cabralia and Porto Seguro.

The police actions prevented a delegation of 23 indigenous leaders from reaching Porto Seguro, where they had hoped to present Cardoso with the declaration approved at last weeks conference.

The resolutions contained in the document include 20 demands for implementing the native peoples rights recognised in Brazils Constitution, such as the demarcation and protection of their lands.

The Landless Movement (Movimento dos Sem Terra – MST), which had at least 2,000 activists on another road leading into Porto Seguro, were not able to reach the historic city either. The MST protesters could not get past the six roadblocks the police had set up, which also prevented tourists from getting to the site.

Cardoso, who the night before had referred to the MST as fascist because it had threatened to disrupt the official celebrations, acknowledged in his speech Saturday that social wounds form part of the heritage of these 500 years.

The president also recognised the legitimacy of the protests and demands of indigenous peoples, blacks and landless peasants, saying that Brazils oligarchic and slave past had made the nations society one of the most unjust in the world.

He promised the indigenous peoples the government would continue with projects to demarcate their land, a a belated compensation for the painful birth of the Brazilian nation, making reference to the massacres that reduced the native population from approximately five million in 1500 to just 350,000 today.

For the peasants, he pointed to the advances already made in agrarian reform, though the MST says it is not enough. Cardoso admitted that the concentration of land ownership continues to exclude millions of Brazilians from the benefits of development.

Democracy, said Cardoso, is the road that will lead to the universality of rights and of the concrete conditions for the full exercise of citizenship.

He said the time has come for Brazil to put an end to social exclusion, given the level of development the nation has achieved. Poverty is no longer a justification for the misery of its people.

Portugals president Sampaio stated he was honoured to take part in the festivities and expressed the willingness of his country to develop closer ties with Brazil and to help build tighter relations between the European Union and the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), of which Brazil is the largest member.

We are responsible for the present, not the past, stated Sampaio, in response to potential criticisms of the Portuguese colonisation, the major factor in the plight of Brazils indigenous peoples, who were nearly exterminated.

The Portuguese president emphasised the enormous possibilities for a future of co-operation between the two countries.

Meanwhile, with the city surrounded by police and the heightened tension as they faced the risk of mass protests, the official celebration of Brazils quincentennial was limited to officials and special guests, without popular participation.

Other commemorative acts, as well as protests, took place in several cities throughout the nation, including concerts and the planting of 200,000 palo-brasil trees at schools in all municipalities. The tree is a national symbol and gave the inspiration for the countrys name.

In Porto Alegre, in the south, protesters destroyed an outdoor clock, a symbol of the controversial celebration because it had indicated the days left before April 22.

For the indigenous peoples from all Brazilian regions who met in Coroa Vermelha, the 500 years constitute a history of infamy and humiliation, of invasions of their lands, slavery and death.

Their principal demands, including the legal demarcation of their territories by the end of this year, the recovery of lands occupied by invading migrants and the halting of mega-projects – such as hydroelectric dams – that affect their regions, are based on articles of the Constitution, say indigenous leaders.

They want the Statute of Indigenous peoples to be approved, a measure that recognises their rights as a distinct society. It has been held up in Brazils Congress since 1991. The leaders also demand that justice be served on those responsible for the ongoing violent crimes against their peoples.

The declaration also calls for an indigenous educational system, one that uses their native languages and transmits their cultures, as well as the creation of an assistance organisation linked to the nations Executive branch that includes the participation of leaders elected by the native peoples themselves.

The document addressed to the president pays homage to the native peoples who resisted white domination throughout the last 500 years and proclaims the commitment to continue fighting so that future indigenous generations are free in a free country.