Development & Aid, Environment, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL: Lula Persuades Bishop to Call Off Hunger Strike

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 7 2005 (IPS) - After reaching an agreement with the government, Brazilian Bishop Luiz Flavio Cappio called off a hunger strike that he had begun 10 days earlier to demand a halt to a project to divert part of the flow of the Sao Francisco River to other areas in Brazil’s semiarid northeast.

The truce was worked out by Minister of Institutional Relations Jacques Wagner, who was sent by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to Cabrobó, the small town on the banks of the Sao Francisco where the Catholic bishop was staging his protest in a chapel.

The agreement defused – or at least postponed – a new crisis in the Lula administration, which is already besieged by a corruption scandal that has brought down a number of leaders of the leftist ruling Workers Party (PT) and has jeopardised the stability of the government itself.

The bishop had threatened to fast “to the death” in order “to save the life of the river of national integration,” known as such because it emerges in central Brazil and cuts across several states before running into the Atlantic Ocean in the northeast.

The reactivation of the debate on the project, an immediate increase in funds for cleaning up the Sao Francisco River, and greater resources to go into a long-term clean-up fund to be approved by Congress were the conditions agreed on by the minister and the bishop Thursday.

Cappio, bishop of the small city of Barra in the northeastern state of Bahia, also agreed to a meeting with Lula in the capital, Brasilia, as soon as he recovers his strength after 10 days of fasting.

The creation of the Sao Francisco River clean-up fund depends on passage of a constitutional amendment. It is to be financed with funds from the government budget and by the country’s power companies, and is to reach a total of nearly 2.2 billion dollars over the next 20 years, said parliamentary Deputy Fernando Ferro, who sponsored the proposal.

The bishop’s protest accelerated the debate on the constitutional amendment, which is facing resistance from the Finance Ministry.

A letter from Pope Benedict XVI, delivered by the papal nuncio in Brasilia, Lorenzo Baldisseri, also contributed to convincing Cappio to call off his hunger strike, according to Folha Online, which is produced by the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo.

The project to divert part of the flow of the Sao Francisco River, which the government describes as a plan for the “integration of river basins,” is aimed at transporting 26 cubic metres per second from the Sao Francisco through two canals to rivers located farther to the north, in order to benefit 12 million people.

Environmental organisations, small farmers associations, rural movements, trade unions and church groups are opposed to the project, which they say will cause further damage to a river that is already degraded by deforestation along the banks, inadequate sewage systems, and the subsequent sedimentation.

They are demanding that the clean up of the river be given top priority, pointing out that 1,500 of the river’s tributaries have already disappeared, and that the basin is home to millions of poor families.

According to the bishop and his supporters, the diversion of the river will not benefit the poor in the semiarid northeast – Brazil’s poorest region û but only the economic elites who are traditionally favoured by such megaprojects.

As an alternative, Cappio proposes using the 4.5 billion reals (two billion dollars) that are to go into the project for social programmes instead, like an initiative that has helped tens of thousands of impoverished rural families in the northeast build rainwater collection tanks, or plans for small dams and wells û social technologies that have proven effective in improving living standards in the semiarid region.

The hunger strike staged by the bishop with the support of church groups and social activists around the country drew greater attention to the controversial issue and took the debate to the streets. In addition, state governors and mayors in areas along the Sao Francisco River backed his protest, reasserting their opposition to the project.

But defenders of the plan also spoke out. Businesses in Cabrobó, the small town where the river flow will be diverted, hung up posters calling for the project to go ahead immediately, and voices in favour of the initiative were heard in several other towns and cities in the northeast as well.

The idea of using part of the flow of the Sao Francisco River to bring water to other areas of the northeast has been kicking around Brazil for over 150 years. Several attempts to put it into practice were frustrated before President Lula, who himself was born into a poor family in the northeast, decided to carry it out, assigning it a budget and taking the necessary steps towards that end.

The beginning of the construction of the canals by army engineering units still depends on an environmental licence, which was expected to be issued next week.

However, Judge Cynthia de Araujo Lopes in the state of Bahia decided Tuesday to suspend the environmental authorisation process, in response to requests from the public prosecutor’s office and local lawyers’ associations.

Opposition to the project runs high in Bahia, due to local fears of losing control over limited water resources.

Lula’s pact with the bishop cut short a dangerous protest, because Cappio’s death would have had unpredictable repercussions for the government and would have caused further damage to its already battered image.

But the controversy will continue, at a whole new level now, with street demonstrations and disputes between the different groups with conflicting interests, and drawing heavier coverage from the local and international press.

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