Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura Convicted (Again) in Dorothy Stang's Murder

Excellent news:

A jury in the Brazilian city of Belém has sentenced a rancher to 30 years in prison for the murder of an American-born nun, news agencies reported.

The rancher, Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura, was convicted of ordering the murder in 2005 of Sister Dorothy Stang, from Dayton, Ohio, a longtime organizer of rural settlers and the poor in their efforts to protect their land from seizures by cattle ranchers and timber merchants.

Globo News, in Sao Paulo, reported Tuesday that the jury reached its verdict late Monday night after 15 hours of deliberations. The trial was the second appeal in the case, and the decision on Monday upheld the original conviction from 2007.

After being found guilty in 2007, Bastos de Moura, or "Bita," was acquitted in a second trial in 2008 (and for those wondering about double jeopardy, in Brazil, first-time convicts sentenced to more than 20 years are automatically given a re-trial). The third Trial took place after the state of Para's top court ruled that video evidence that Bita's defense used in the second trial was inadmissable, effectively rendering this third trial his "second" after Brazil's Supreme Court upheld the Para court's ruling. Now, it appears that Moura will actually serve time for contracting the murder of Dorothy Stang.

The conviction itself is huge, as it is one of the first times that a powerful rancher has been found guilty for his role in the murder of a land rights activist. Of course, Para sees many such murders, including just last week, and it is often commonly accepted that the wealthy landowners are often behind those murders but never see trial due to their power in the region. Certainly, Stang's case is particularly high-profile, but it is still extremely encouraging to see at least one landowner has been punished for his deeds, offering tentative hope that perhaps ranchers involved in future contracted murders will also be punished within the Brazilian courts (or at least deterred from hiring killers in the wake of Bita's sentencing). As Rebecca Spires put it, the only real chance at ending the murders in the Amazon is to go after the contractors; otherwise, the killings will most likely never cease. This is a good step in that direction, and if nothing else, Stang's case alone is an encouraging case of elites in Para not being protected by their money or status.

Movie Review: They Killed Sister Dorothy

Taking Lyrad's suggestion, I sat down and watched They Killed Sister Dorothy last night. The documentary traces the murder of American nun Dorothy Stang in the Brazilian Amazon, and is subtly divided into three parts: the first deals with her efforts to create a new type of sustainable land-holding for the poor in the Amazon in the face of local opposition, culminating in her murder; the second part focuses on the trial of the poor gunmen accused in the murder; and the third (and longest) part focuses on the trial of a ranch-owner accused of hiring the gunmen to kill Stang. However, the documentary is far from blocky; the directors and editors do a spectacular job threading the three stories together so that it flows seamlessly, even while the three acts play out.

The background is fairly straightforward: Stang had begun mission work in Brazil in the 1960s, and had developed a plan of sustainable development in which the landless were given land to own. They could farm and clear 20% of this land as they deemed appropriate, but the other 80% (composed of rainforest) was to remain untouched. The program, or "PDS" (Sustainable Development Plan) would thus simultaneously allow landless to gain access to their own plots and prevent the destruction of the Amazonian rainforest. Stang's program received nominal support from the federal government, but also met with widespread opposition in the state of Para, as both ranchers and poor farmers were openly antagonistic to Stang and to her plan, ultimately leading to her murder.

The two gunmen involved in the murder are quickly arrested, as is a middle-man who allegedly set up the murder, and they are quickly found guilty. This is unsurprising, as anybody who studies any part of Brazil knows that the legal system is really two systems in one; a legal system for the poor, who are unable to afford wealthy lawyers, lack political connections, and are quickly condemned; and the wealthy, who are often connected to political elites (especially in states like Para), can afford elite lawyers, and who usually walk. What is curious in the Stang case is that the lawyers for Vitalmiro Bastos Moura ("Bita"), the ranch owner accused of contracting the murder, also offered his services to the poor gunmen who could not begin to pay for his services. Both gunmen refuse the lawyer's services in the 11th hour, though, suspecting they're being set up as fall guys by the lawyer so that Bita can walk free. Both gunmen admit to the killing and are sentenced, but not before implicating Bita in the murder of Stang.

This situation sets up the last half of the documentary, which focuses on Bita's trial. After admitting in their own trials that Bita had contracted the gunmen, they then say in Bita's trial that he never contracted them, and that they had acted on their own, thereby contradicting their own admissions in the earlier trial (apparently, perjury charges either do not exist in Brazil's legal system, or operate differently, I'm not sure). As the trial proceeds, Bita's conviction looks increasingly unlikely, as his lawyers raise numerous issues, including allegations (which seem patently absurd by this point in the narrative) that Dorothy had contracted murders of people in the region herself, the arrival of the FBI in questioning the gunmen, and perhaps most importantly, the defense lawyer appealing to Brazilian nationalism by portraying Stang as part of an American imperialist project that wanted to colonize its own state in the Amazon and deny Brazilians the right to their own land and to use it as they want. This aspect of the argument was particularly brilliant (if offensive), because it very well could have worked; Brazilians of all political stripes are extremely suspicious of foreign groups trying to save the Amazon, be they NGOs, government organizations, or individuals. Even the most politically astute and aware will often fly into blind suspicions and accuse NGOs of just working for the government so that the "First World" can further exploit Brazil. These arguments sometimes are nearly sensible ("why does the rest of the world get to tell us how to use our land when we can't tell the United States, or Russia, or China, how to use theirs?"), but they are often illogical or inconsistent. Nonetheless, it is one of the ways in which national identity affects Brazilians throughout the political spectrum, and by appealing to that nationalism and suspicion of the U.S., the defense lawyers were making a very astute move. I don't want to give too much away, but I'll say this: as the trial continues, I couldn't help but be wrapped up by the suspense the film-makers create, actually feeling my blood rush a bit faster as it reached the climax, even though I knew the outcome. To me, that speaks of the highest ability to weave a story and get viewers invested, and in that regard, the film was a magnificent success.

One of the more interesting aspects to me was seeing just how Brazil's criminal legal system functions in trials. I had my own extensive experience with the Brazilian legal system, but it was much different than the one the movie documents. It was noticably different, ranging from the ways in which witnesses were addressed to the set-up of the court itself (the charged sits isolated in the middle of the floor in front of the tribunal, separated from his defense, though apparently they can still consult him during the trial). It offered a fascinating insight into how different legal systems function, raising as many questions in my mind about how the U.S. system functions as how Brazil's does.

I had a hard time finding any flaws with the film. Certainly, as a specialist (of the dictatorship, no less), I was very curious about what Para was like in the 1960s, and how the military dictatorship might have responded to Stang's (or others like her) arrival (if they were even aware of it). I also would have liked more individual interviews with the poor in the area, both in favor of and against Stang, to get a more diverse understanding of why they viewed her the way they did, but admittedly, that's not the film's focus, and we do get a decent sampling of those voices in the first part of the film; I was just interested in getting to even more of those voices (though perhaps it will just have to wait for my own or somebody else's research).

But these are hardly serious "complaints" that undermine the quality of the film. It speaks highly of the depth and lucidity of the documentary that there are many aspects of the film I haven't even begun to go into: the legal roadblocks that Stang's friends and family encounter in their search for justice; the living conditions, hopes, and fears of those poor families who are a part of the PDS; the sheer sliminess of Bita's lawyers, who clearly overwhelm the poorly-paid prosecutors as representative of how the wealthy benefit in Brazil's justice system; and many other aspects. The movie manages to cram a lot of detail and information into the narrative while never overloading the senses or overwhelming the viewer with information, making it an excellent documentary for specialists on Brazil even while being completely accessible to everyday viewers. I cannot recommend this film strongly enough, whether you're interested in the environment, social justice, Latin America, legal suspense (the story outdoes anything most authors of crime/legal suspense novels could ever offer, even when you know the outcome), or just the documentary format.

Bad News for Environment and Environmentalists in the Amazonian Basin

There have been some pretty terrible news stories regarding the Amazonian basin over the last few days that are worth pointing out.

First, a leading Amazon activist was shot and killed yesterday in the state of Para, just hours after a court delayed the retrial for the murder of Dorothy Stang. Pedro Alcantara de Souza was the leader of landless farmers in the rural state of Para, and two men on motorcycles apparently shot Souza 5 times in the head while Souza was riding his bicycle. While authorities are sending a team from Belem (the capital of Para) to investigate, the murderers have not been taken into custody. I usually hate to jump to conclusions, but given the strength of elite landowners in the region, combined with Souza's opposition to what are often illegal land-grabs on the part of those same elites, this was almost certainly a contract murder. Such is the way it often works when individuals fight for greater land reform and more equal distribution in the Amazon; it happened with Stang, it happened with Chico Mendes, and it most likely has happened again with Souza.

Additionally, foreign industry is also taking a toll on the environment, with the government's help. I've commented before that environmental policy may be one of, if not the single, deficiencies historians may find in Lula's government. These problems are not always limited to the Amazon, either; a hydroelectric dam that the Brazilian government contracted out to a Canadian company is wreaking havoc on both the environment and citizens in rural Minas Gerais. The dams are one of Lula's pet projects, and he's pushed heavily for hydroelectric power to supply Brazil's growing population with energy. In doing so, he's been nearly blinded by the highly-problematic use of dams, even while ignoring less destructive options like sun- and wind-power (and with well over 4500 miles of coastline, Brazil could easily take advantage of both). Instead, people in the interior are forced to witness dislocation and destruction in the name of hydroelectric power. Certainly, as he gets ready to leave office, Lula is enjoying some of the highest approval ratings he's ever had. However, it's worth repeating: his administration has been far from perfect, and as we begin to assess it historically, environmental policy will mostly likely be a dark stain on what has probably been one of the greatest administrations Brazilian history has seen.

Of course, Brazil isn't the only one facing these issues from foreign investment. This week, a court ruled in favor of Chevron in an arbitration case between the oil giant and Ecuador. Chad has commented before on the role of petroleum companies in the Spanish Amazon. Certainly, oil companies didn't need any more encouragement to degrade the environment and the residents of the Amazonian basin, but the court's ruling in this case certainly strengthens Chevron's arguments that it has done nothing wrong in spite of overwhelming evidence otherwise.

Around Latin America

-The Honduran Supreme Court has appointed a judge to investigate a prosecutor's filed case against the military for its role in forcing Manuel Zelaya from the country on June 28. No warrants can be issued until the judge rules on the filing. That may sound nice, but given that this is the same Supreme Court that upheld the illegal removal of Zelaya, I don't think much will come from this. Still, if something is to happen, it has to start somewhere.

-Additionally, the Micheletti regime is apparently broke: "The Finance Minister for the de facto government, Gabriela Nuñez announced today that she does not currently have access to sufficient funds to pay government employees for January. It all boils down to cash flow. She said she has access to about 400 million lempiras, and needs a total of about 1,500 million lempiras. In addition, she noted that the government has run up large debts with suppliers, including 450 million lempiras for medical supplies, and a further 700 million lempiras owed to road construction and paving contractors." I don't know to what extent international reaction to the coup and reduction of financial support has played a role in this, but I suspect it must be at least somewhat significant, and nothing less than what the Micheletti has brought upon itself.

-Is Peru's economic star rising in Latin America? A road between Peru and Brazil and a growth in GDP of 9.8% last year indicate Peru may be in for a brighter future.

-Not as bright for Peru's future: illegal gold mining in Peru's Amazonian basin is causing long-term environmental damage : "it takes about five grams of mercury to extract a gram of gold. That mercury is usually tossed overboard, poisoning one of the world’s most biodiverse rain forests. And Borian’s form of mining is among the most benign. Illegal cartels with heavy equipment clear-cut and mine huge areas of virgin forest, alarming environmental activists."

-In response to Mexico City legalizing abortion, surrounding states are making it increasingly difficult to obtain an abortion in the rest of the country:

In response to a Mexican Supreme Court ruling in August 2008 upholding a Mexico City law permitting abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, 17 of 32 Mexican states have approved amendments to their constitutions declaring that life begins at conception and granting legal rights to fetuses, the Chicago Tribune reports. Veracruz, which in November 2009 became the most recent state to enact an antiabortion-rights amendment, has called on the federal government to consider adding a similar amendment to the national constitution.

It's hard to be surprised by this. Anti-choice sentiment stemming from conservative social values and Catholicism made any kind of response in Mexico likely. Still, this particular response from other state governments, and the pressure for a national law banning abortion, is very unfortunate. While each state can do what it wants (in the same way the D.F. can and did), it would be very bad of there were a national law enacted in Mexico.

-According to Venezuela's state-run National Electric Corporation, the country could be facing a major power outage nationwide in the next 3-4 months if water levels in the reservoirs continue to drop. Weather is funny, so there's no way of predicting accurately what will happen in that time period; still, power loss for an entire country would be tough to deal with politically, socially, or economically.

-While the recent massive rainfall in Brazil has led to the deaths of dozens, it may have the opposite effect in terms of agricultural production, as "Brazil’s coffee crop may beat the 48.48 million bag record this year, the country’s crop supply agency said in a report which also raised forecasts for the newly-begun soybean harvest."

-Finally, Lula is expected to decide soon which company he will contract for the a $4.4 billion U.S. dollar fighter jet order. In addition to Boeing (a U.S. company), France's Dassault and Sweden's Saab are in consideration. If Boeing is selected, it would create thousands of jobs for the struggling U.S. economy, a fact that didn't deter Republican Senator George LeMieux from doing all he could to damage U.S.-Brazil relations prior to the approval last week of Thomas Shannon as ambassador to Brazil.

Around Latin America

-Copper miners in Chile went on strike earlier this week at the second-biggest copper-complex in the world, demanding better pay. Chile's copper miners have historically been one of the stronger labor forces in the world due to the importance of their work in terms of Chile's GNP (indeed, some have argued that Chile's copper miners are their own style of "privilged" union in comparison to other unions in Chile because of the importance of their work), and this strike was no exception, as copper prices immediately rising globally. Yesterday, Codelco, the mining company, offered a new compensation package for the workers, and they accepted it and ended the strike.

-In Paraguay, allegations of a planned military coup against Fernando Lugo continue to surface, in spite of (or perhaps because of) Lugo's efforts to clean out the military leadership when he took office.

-Prosecutions against military officers who participated in the military dictatorship of 1976-1983 in Argentina continue, as 15 men are now being tried before a tribunal. Another officer, known as the "Angel of Death," is also facing prison for his role in torture and "disappearances," including the murder of two French nuns, during the "Dirty War." And a judge who was involved with torture sessions was just sentenced to prison for 21 years for "misconduct," including a hit-and-run involving a swimmer and the judge's motorboat.

-Clashes erupted in Suriname between locals and Brazilian gold miners after a local was stabbed by a Brazilian. At least 25 were injured, while the Brazilian alleged to have committed the stabbing is in police custody. The case issues both the diaspora of (usually poor) Brazilians from the north seeking wealth in neighboring countries, and the tensions that can and do arise from this dispersion.

-The Brazilian government is finally trying to legally establish who owns what lands in the Amazonian basin. The decision arises out of the ongoing violence against poor landowners and landless individuals, who are often in conflict with major landowners and who are often murdered by the wealthy and their underlings, murders that function in a similar manner as in the murder of Dorothy Strang). Environmentalists hope the new efforts will also provide a state presence in the region and reduce deforestation. I don't have much hope about the environmental effects of this new policy, but certainly, a stronger state presence is needed in the region, and if the policy reduces the number of murders over land claims in the North, then that alone will be a noteworthy accomplishment.

-A new map has mapped the Guarani territory in the tri-border area between Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. In addition to defining the exact geographic region the Guarani claim as their homeland, the map also reveals the sources of threat to Guarani land and culture, including expanding soy farming, dams, and deforestation.

-In spite of the ever-classy efforts of Republican Senators Jim DeMint and George LeMieux to block (with damaging economic consequences) Barack Obama's nominee for U.S. ambassador to Brazil, the U.S. Senate finally was able to approve both Thomas Shannon as ambassador to Brazil and David Nelson as ambassador to Uruguay. It's really inexcusable that it has taken this long to get an ambassador to one of the largest countries politically, economically, and geographically, but the stupidity of Republican tantrum-throwing in the name of "opposition" knows no bounds.

Speaking of the Culture Wars

Amazon.com apparently hasn't gotten the memo that the culture wars are dead.

They've stripped the sales rankings--and therefore, the search ratings--of books that deal with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues, as well as feminist books like Full Frontal Feminism.

It affects the search rankings for books. For small authors who depend on Amazon reviews and sales rankings, this is disastrous. Of course, it's also terrible for freedom of expression. When I searched BY TITLE for Full Frontal Feminism it didn't even come up on the first page of the search, which means that many people may erroneously assume that Amazon doesn't have the book. (Interestingly, Jessica Valenti's other book, "He's a Stud, She's a Slut" DOES come up first on a search for Full Frontal Feminism.) Julia Serano's Whipping Girl does appear, but only the Kindle edition, pointing out the randomness of this move.

Author Nicola Griffeth, whose books lost their rankings, said:

I am tired of being the low-hanging fruit that cretins pluck when they need to pander to Moral America. This time, I hope some people choke on their soft fruit.

Amazon probably didn't count on the intense blowback, though. Twitter has been buzzing with #amazonfail, noting books that have been affected, and offering other options for bookbuying for those interested in boycotting, as well as contact information for various executives to contact and harass. The technogeek in me loves watching Twitter do what it's best at--spread information fast and far. #amazonfail is a top trending topic on Twitter right now.

Neil Gaiman, with his 200,000+ Twitter followers, has commented on the subject, and Jezebel is tracking the books with sales rank removed--as well as noting the hypocrisy of the ones that remain. There's also a Facebook group.

I suggest IndieBound as a good alternative to buying from Amazon, and apparently Powells is contemplating a sale on GLBT-themed books in response.

Also, Smart Bitches Trashy Books has a page to link to to Google-bomb the term "Amazon Rank."

This is exactly the problem with large corporations. They force smaller companies out of business, and then when there's no competition left, they are free to enforce their ideologies on you.

An Eventful Week in Brazil: Argentine Agreements, Challenging China, and a Major Court Ruling in Indigenous Rights

Brazil and Argentina met this week to re-affirm their economic and political relations. The meeting itself sounded innocuous enough - standard diplomatic promises to "iron out" some minor trade issues over things like import licenses on shoes and textiles (exciting!), as well as Brazil signing a deal with Argentina to help with the recent nationalization of Aerolineas Argentinas.

While that all seems minor enough, the language on China coming out of a business leaders' meeting between reps from both countries during Presidents Kirchner's visit was far more interesting. It's no secret to anybody that China has become a growing power in trade with Latin America. However, not all that trade is good, even for Latin America, as it has also been flooded with inexpensive products that undercut national economies in South and Central America, and reps from that meeting between the two countries didn't pull punches in mentioning China's role in the hemisphere, either commenting:

“The objective now is to fight against the common evil, Chinese products which are sold at dumping prices[...] With bilateral differences back on the right track, we must address the outside enemy."

That's some pretty tough talk there for an issue that hasn't really come up yet. Of course the Argentine and Brazilian business leaders who met have their own interests to defend, and Chinese products no doubt cut into their market somewhat. Nonetheless, even if criticisms of Chinese products undercutting local companies in South America seems fair enough, referring to China as "the outside enemy" raises eyebrows a bit. If this had come from Kirchner's or Lula's mouth, it would be even more shocking and newsworthy, but even as it stands right now, it does hint at future issues facing Latin American economies as they try to increase relations with China without having their own national companies and economies being undermined by cheaper Chinese products.

Also in Brazil, the Supreme Court refused to split up an indigenous reserve half the size of Belgium in the Amazon. White farmers had insisted it was too much land for the twenty-thousand indigenous inhabitants, while logging, mining, and agricultural companies had said the reservation's existence (required in the 1988 constitution) was "an obstacle to growth."

This is a major victory for indigenous rights and the environment in Brazil, and I have absolutely no sympathy for either the farmers nor the corporations. The damage farmers, miners, loggers, and agribusiness have caused in the Amazon is already irreparable, and the cycle probably won't end without measures like the court's ruling. While indigenous people will still obviously need to cultivate the land in ways they seem fit, and while I hate essentialist notions of indigenous peoples as being "in harmony" with the earth, I think it's a fair bet that they will manage the forest in the reserve better than logging and mining companies do - hell, by simply not clearing hundreds of acres a month, they'd be managing the environment better than the corporations. It's also a huge victory for re-affirming indigenous rights in Brazil, which often go unheeded in a society that considers itself a wide spectrum of racial mixture, but which often leaves indigenous peoples out of the equation in the present even while acknowledging their past.

The ruling won't just make all of the entanglements and problems go away. Violence will persist, and even some indigenous peoples don't like the ruling and feel it perpetuates racist stereotypes by trying to keep the indigenous communities "cut off from modernity." Nonetheless, the importance of this legal precedent cannot and should not be ignored, either. The Constitution of 1988 said that indigenous peoples were to get their traditional lands back, and when the businesses and farmers, miners and loggers, pushed and pushed, trying to effectively undo the constitution, the Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution stands, and the reserves cannot be split up. And that alone is a major step for indigenous rights in Brazil. We can only hope it leads to real gains for the communities, the environment, and Brazil overall.

Lula's New Plan to Stop Deforestation and Climate Change - Reason for Hope?

It's no secret that I think that Lula has been genuinely concerned about deforestation in the Amazon, but that his continuous approach of taking one step forward (such as reducing deforestation from 10,500 square miles in 2004 to 4,261 this year) and another step backwards (and his environmental record more generally) is one of the biggest disappointments of his administration.

That said, Lula's announcement last week to reduce deforestation by 70% and cut back on Brazil's own greenhouse gas emissions (many of which come from deforestation) is nothing short of outstanding. And as Randy comments, the fact this plan is gaining support both from environmental NGOs and from farmers is hugely important.

It's still too early for unguarded optimism - Lula's administration has had great plans before, and they haven't necessarily panned out, both because he has occasionally launched contradicting policies when it comes to the question of environment vs. development, and because it is difficult for any country to patrol that much forest, much less a country that historically has not had a very strong presence in that area. That said, the plan is more encouraging than anything else Lula has launched for a couple of reasons. First, it's focused not just on the present, but on the long-term; this isn't a simple measure to reduce deforestation for next year, but for the next 10 years, and the accompanying efforts to reduce greenhouse gases and efforts to get farmers involved with re-foresting some of their lands shows that Lula is finally thinking in the long term here.

Secondly, it the government's openness to listen to NGOs demands is important. Culturally, Brazil is very proectionist towards the Amazon, and does not like foreign groups or governments telling it what to do. These attitudes are understandable - in a broad history of exploitation of its resources by Europe and the U.S., Brazilians are more than a little cautious that foriegn efforts to tell Brazil how to deal with the forest are little more than imperialist ploys to get at the resources in the Amazon themselves (and to be clear, I don't think that's what many groups are trying to do, but to presume all NGOs or governments have nothing but the best intentions in terms of the forest is naive, too - if nothing else, there are doubtless some major pharmaceutical companies that would love to get in there without restrictions and start trying to exploit natural remedies with little to no reward for Brazil). It's a very complicated dynamic, and Americans are often confused when Brazilians get a little "snappy" towards advice on how to save the rainforest (particularly given the U.S.'s awesome environmental record). Still, the fact that both NGOs are being a little less paternalistic in this case, and the Brazilian government a bit more open, is highly encouraging.

Again, it's still too soon to be fully optimistic. There's no telling if the government will be able to actually enforce its plans here, or if farmers will really adhere to the program. Still, given how comperehensive this plan is, it is definitely a major step (vs. previous minor steps) in the right direction.

Deforestation in Brazil Rises Over 12 Months

This is bad:

Concerns over the destruction of the Brazilian rainforest resurfaced at the weekend after it emerged that deforestation jumped by 64% over the last 12 months, according to official government data.
Brazil's National Institute for Space Research this week said that around 3,145 square miles - an area half the size of Wales - were razed between August 2007 and August 2008.

The Lula government has been trying to deal with this in a number of ways, such as sending more military groups in to patrol the forests and trying to crack down on ranchers who cut down forest or sponsor crimes against environmentalists in the region). These efforts may be making some progress in slowing deforestation down; the article does mention (in what I certainly hope is a new trend and not a brief shift) that deforestation has dropped over the last couple of months, including a 25% drop from May to June of this year (meaning the growth of deforestation could have been even higher that it actually has been for the last 12 months). That it could have been worse, though, does not take away from how terrible the deforestation already is.

Clearly, despite any governmental efforts, it apparently hasn't been enough, probably both because the government hasn't done enough and because, unfortunately, in the Amazon there is only so much the Brazilian government can do. But a 64% growth of deforestation after 3 years of decline is nothing but bad, and indicates that current policies just aren't working.

The Amazon, Indigenous Rights, and A Brazilian General's Complete Failure to Understand the Constitution

Randy points us to this story about Brazil's Amazon policy and brewing tensions. To summarize: a little-known (to the rest of the world) part of the Brazilian Constitution of 1988 states that ancestral indigenous lands, including in the Amazon, were to be returned to the indigenous groups within 5 years. While that hasn't happened, Brazil has been making efforts, slowly but surely, to see this happen. However, in the Amazonian region in particular, there has been escalating violence as the government tries to evict people living on lands that are owed, as the constitution declared, to indigenous groups. In order to complete these efforts, the military has been brought in, but apparently, at least one member of the Army in the region is less than pleased with the government's efforts:

"At a raucous seminar on national sovereignty at Rio de Janeiro's Military Club, the head of Army's Amazon command, Gen. Augusto Heleno Pereira, attacked the federal government's indigenous policy as ''regretful and chaotic.'' He even suggested that the army would refuse to remove the settlers."

''The Brazilian army does not serve the government but rather the Brazilian state,'' Pereira said.

Um, no.

Randy is exactly right in explaining how flawed this logic is:

Brazil's constitution calls for all ancestral indigenous lands to be demarcated and turned over to their respective tribes. Pereira serves the Brazilian state and the state is defined by the constitution. A military man who doesn't understand that has no business being in the military.

And it doesn't stop there: when democratically-elected Brazilian jurists wrote a new constitution in 1988 (3 years after the end of the dictatorship), they were especially careful to be explicit and detailed in outlining the military's role within the state, and how the military's role is to defend the functioning of all branches of the state, especially the presidency, regardless of political party. In short: constitutionally speaking, in Brazil, the military can never again (as long as this Constitution survives) overthrow a "government" to save the "state"; any time the office of the presidency, regardless of what party represents it, is threatened, the military's job is to protect the functioning of the executive branch and the state, and not to overthrow it the president and assume control itself.

It's disturbing enough that a high-ranking officer doesn't seem to get the constitutional role of the Brazilian military. But really, this is only one reason Pereira's statements are so disturbing. Back in 1964, when the military overthrew Joao Goulart, they used a similar logic. At the time, as Brazil's economy was struggle and the cold-war ideologies led right-wing forces to believe that anything from the left was "communist," the military decided to overthrow the leftist Goulart and take control of the country. Their logic at the time was that Goulart was leading the country to a civil war (the same phrase that the author uses at the beginning of this Amazonian article, I'd poinit out), and that the only way to "save" Brazil was for the military to "overthrow the government to save the state." Of course, the military then went on to entrench itself in power through 5 presidencies, authorizing torture and the murder of "subversives" and rewriting the constitution not once but twice, all in the name of "defending the state."

Of course, it's unclear if Pereira's opinions and comments reflect any broader military brass beliefs he could be a lone voice within the higher ranks of the armed forces. And I'm certainly not saying that Brazil is on the cusp of another military overthrow of the elected leader and/or a dictatorship simply because the military used similar reasoning to justify its 1964 coup of Joao Goulart and its 21-year-long dictatorship. Any time a military official anywhere in the world says the things Pereira said is disturbing, but given the history of this line of thinking and Brazil's recent history (the dictatorship only ended 23 years ago), Pereira's "logic" is really, really disturbing. I'm fully with Randy on this - Pereira should be kicked out. This won't happen, and he very well may have been privately censured already within the armed forces, simply because many do not want to ever see the military involved in politics again.

Images from Brazil

Frequent Commenter Murderface tipped me off to this powerful image. 200 landless poor from Brazil's grassroots Landless Movement (MST) had apparently seized some private-but-unused land near the Amazonian city of Manaus, and the police were called in to kick the 200 or so people off of it, including this woman and her baby. And while it's a picture of police dealing with the rural poor in the Amazon, the only thing that really differentiates it from the use of force in the favelas is the fact that, in this image at least, the police aren't recklessly firing automatic rifles into crowds of civilians like they do in the favelas. Still, the fact that they are using such force, and will not only get away with it but probably be praised if the evictions are successful, just shows how severe and problematic the impunity for policemen are. For all the words I've conveyed on Brazilian police using unnecessary force, this image alone says as much, if not more.

More on Lula and the Amazon

Randy has another good post up on how terrible Lula is on environmental issues. He is going to a standby of the irresponsible--scoffing at first world nations for telling him what to do.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva hit out at foreign critics of his stewardship of the environment on Monday, saying the world needed to understand that the Amazon belonged to Brazilians.

He told a forum in Rio de Janeiro it was "amusing" that countries who were among the world's worst polluters wanted to talk about preserving the rain forest.

"The world needs to understand that the Amazon has an owner, and that is the Brazilian people," Lula said.

"They are rubber tappers, fishermen and us who are Brazilian."

It's not that Lula doesn't have a point here in the sense that we have screwed the world up. But that doesn't mean the rest of the world now has free right to screw it up more. Plus as Randy says:

Do I need to remind him that the martyred Chico Mendes and the former Environment Minister he just pushed out, Marina Silva were rubber tappers?

Indeed. For those out there not familiar with Brazilian or environmental history, Chico Mendes was a labor and environmental activist in the Amazon killed by a large landowner in 1988. People have fought over Mendes' legacy ever since, with environmentalists claiming he was primarily an environmental activist and the left saying he died for labor rights. The answer of course is that he was both. Mendes pushed a working-class environmentalism that neither traditional labor or environmental organizations are comfortable with or even fully understand. But Lula is co-opting Mendes' legacy to push his particular brand of government.

I think the biggest problem with Lula is that he is an old-style activist of the developing world who believes that high modernist and developmentalist ideas are the way to make his country a power. He reminds me of Castro in this way, though to Castro's credit at least he has restored a lot of forest. While I think Lula is good in many respects, his environmental policies have a dinosaur aspect to him. That's sad. Moreover, it is dangerous to the Earth's future.

Another Potential and Frustrating Step Backwards in Protecting the Amazon

Marina Silva has stepped down. Silva (not related to Lula) had some great ideas on how to integrate environmentalism into the national policy without sacrificing development needs, but according to this article, resigned in part because "She tried to work with other agencies for an integrated approach to protecting the environment — but lost almost every time she was opposed by another department" (such as Lula's reduction of IBAMA, the governmental environmental organization, last year).

Make no mistake - this is really a huge step backwards, and I'm really disappointed (though I'm not quite as angry with Lula as Randy is.) To be sure, Lula's plans for hydroelectric power (and failure to even consider wind power) is frustrating (to put it mildly), and his efforts to undo the institutions (like IBAMA) that resist hydroelectric power and work to save the environment is infuriating. But I also don't think you can totally ignore some of the small, but important, changes Lula has made. While the recent decision in the Dorothy Stang case is also frustrating, there have been small but significant steps taken against those who commit murder against environmentalists. Likewise, Lula's efforts to have the government patrol the Amazonian basin with military troops in an effort to reduce deforestation (particularly ranchers' deforestation) is another important step, albeit one that is far from failsafe and perfect; still, this is a bigger step in actively trying to reduce deforestation than his predecessors ever took.

Still, I really only differ with Randy in degree of disappointment. I know nothing about Carlos Minc, the replacement for Silva. Still, it's just really really disappointing. Marina Silva definitely could have been a major force for change and environmental protection in Brazil; that she was stymied in pretty much every effort she made is really almost too much. It's too soon to tell, but I have little doubt that, years from now, when scholars look back and evaluate Lula's eight years of administration, his environmental policies will be one of the low-points.

Saving the Amazon Rainforest

Alana Herro writes of NGOs attempting to halt all Amazon deforestation by 2015. I wonder if this is possible. She claims that with a large cash infusion from foreign donors that this is possible. I'm intrigued but highly skeptical. Lula has not proven to be a leader on environmental issues. Logging, mining, and cattle interests still are expanding in the region. Will the enforcement ever be there to stop these people? Saving these forests is something of a world emergency, and not for aesthetic reasons. The oxygen these trees provide is going to be key in doing anything to fight climate change. In fact, we need a pretty heavy reversal in forest use to try and convert some of that carbon dioxide into oxygen.

Still, plans like these can only be positive and I hope they succeed.