The debate in Brazil is no longer about projects or ideas, this is a deep crisis.
Can there be democracy without the rule of law?
Produced by PAD and the Articulation for Monitoring of Human Rights, the video A Country in Agony approaches the situation in Brazil since President Jair Bolsonaro took office.
Click here to watch:
Brazil is witnessing the collapse of its institutions and public policies. It clearly won’t be able to meet the 2030 goals for the UN Sustainable Development Goals, such as the eradication of poverty, of hunger,
access to education, gender equality, access to water and energy and reduced inequalities.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
In September 2015, representatives of the 193 state members of the UN gathered in New York and acknowledged that the eradication of poverty in all its expressions and dimensions, including extreme poverty, is the greatest global challenge and a paramount requisite for sustainable development.
By adopting the document “Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, those countries committed to take bold measures to promote sustainable development in the next 15 years, leaving no one behind.
Learn More:
The young Brazilian democracy shows its fragility and it has been at stake since the rise of Jair Bolsonaro to the power. The country’s destiny remains an open question. The dismantlement of the rule of law is led by a president that despises the rites of his role, promotes hatred and attacks minorities.
Indigenas peoples
Indigenous peoples are one of his main targets. Since his campaign, he has promised access to indigenous lands for mining and agribusiness companies.
In allegiance to the Trump government policies, he is willing to make his son, deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro the Brazilian Ambassador in the US. His intention is to find investors to exploit our resources in indigenous lands.
Read article:
Since his inauguration, illegal mining has soared.
BBC News Brasil published an article on the destruction caused by illegal mining in the Amazon region since Bolsonaro became president. The activity was monitored in three of the Brazilian indigenous lands that suffer the most with illegal gold mining: Kayapó and Munduruku in Pará and Yanomami in Roraima and Amazonas. Together, the three territories occupy an area equivalent to the state of São Paulo and they also have some of the most well-preserved Amazon regions.
Indigenous people and environmentalists blame this escalation — observable in part of Pará and Roraima — to statements by president Jair Bolsonaro in favor of mining in indigenous lands, and what they see as a relaxation in governmental actions against environmental crimes.
There is a warlike atmosphere in the Amazon, the Wajãpi people in the state of Amapá were attacked in their own land by armed miners in the end of July.
Check out the articles below:
UN condemned the death of an indigenous leader and pressured Bolsonaro to abandon the project to authorize the exploitation of those areas.
The press worldwide reported the attack to the wajãpi. The death of the indigenous leader made the headlines of the most important newspapers in the world
El País
Le Monde
The Guardian
NY Times
Reporters of the Brazilian show Fantástico traveled to Roraima to check on denunciations of illegal mining in the region.
They went to a Yanomami indigenous reserve and as they flew above the area, they registered miles and miles of river banks ravaged by illegal mining.
Indigenous leaders believe that about 20,000 illegal miners are working on protected areas.
Learn More:
Mining
Amid the economic crisis, mining has become even more important strategically for the president, once it represents 4 % of the Brazilian GDP.As Bolsonaro seeks ways of expanding mining activities, the death toll of the Brazilian mineral model rises.Over the last years, two crimes committed by Vale, the country’s largest mining company, killed 20 people in Mariana and over 300 in Brumadinho. They also destroyed the river basins of the Doce and Paraopeba rivers.
As Bolsonaro seeks ways of expanding mining activities, the death toll of the Brazilian mineral model rises.
Over the last years, two crimes committed by Vale, the country’s largest mining company, killed 20 people in Mariana and over 300 in Brumadinho. They also destroyed the river basins of the Doce and Paraopeba rivers.
Both tragedies involved the burst of iron ore reject dams in the state of Minas Gerais.
Presently, there are more than 30 other dams at risk of burst. And there is practically no inspection, as the government made cuts on the budget of the Brazilian Mining Agency.
Learn More:
Pesticides
2019 can be considered the record year for the poisoning of food. Since Bolsonaro took office, 290 new pesticides were approved for use in the country.
Learn More:
According to the UN, pesticides respond for 200,000 deaths by severe intoxication ever year, and more than 90% of deaths occur in developing countries.
The contact with pesticides and their consumption can cause chronic illnesses and cancer.
Deforestation
Deforestation is also on the rise. The deforestation of the Amazon forest rose 60% compared to the same period last year.
Only in 2019, fires and tree logging have already caused the destruction of 912 sq km of vegetation in the Amazon Forest.
The National Institute for Space Research reported that the Amazon forest lost 762.3 sq km of native vegetation in June 2019.
The deforestation in the Amazon forest might be the double as the amount reported, says a study by an American university accessed by BBC News Brazil.
According to the study, the Brazilian Amazon lost an area equivalent to Germany between 2000 and 2017.
Low Popularity
President Bolsonaro positive ratings and popularity have plummeted over his first seven months in the office. Still, he has support from southern states in the country, particularly from the upper class.
The approach of this new policy was expressed over 7 months of confrontations, lower expectations for the economy and defeats in votes in the Congress.
In an effort to pass the pension fund reform on its first vote in the Congress, the government adopted vote-buying as a strategy. That was very criticized during the campaign, and labeled as ‘old politics’ actions.
About R$ 2.5 billion were approved for amendments, in order to approve the pension fund reform. Added to other amendments released since March, that amount reaches R$ 4 billion.
The president’s stance on social participation through advisory councils and committees is clear: the less people expressing opinions or interfering in government actions, the better.
In the last months, Bolsonaro has continuously extinguished those institutions under allegations that it will allow the government to “work”.
The existing 700 deliberation organizations are to be reduced to 32.
With no social participation, no education and no science.
President Jair Bolsonaro showed once again that education is not one of the priorities for the federal government. In the end of April, the Minister of Education Abraham Weintraub announced a 30% cut in investments on federal universities, with the excuse of prioritizing primary education.
But those cuts affect more than higher education: According to the data from the Budget and Planning Integrated System, the total spending freeze for investments in education surpasses R$ 7 billion. In primary education, the amount reaches R$ 914 million. Cuts include money to build and renovate schools and day cares, professional training, food and transportation.
Half of the federal universities will suffer with cuts above 30% in their budgets. For some, cuts will reach 50% of the funds responsible for maintenance, acquisition of supplies, outsourced services and scholarships for students and for academic research.
When the cuts were announced, there were acts in more than 200 cities in all states and the federal district.
Discrimination based on sexual orientation is a crime
In June, the Supreme Court ruled that the discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity is to be considered a crime in Brazil.
Despite that advance, Brazil has followed the stance of countries majorly Muslim, many of which under authoritarian governments, different from most European and Western nations, in many votes about sexual rights and women’s rights in the most important organ for Human Rights in the UN.
Violence
Brazil registered the death of 141 LGBT individuals between January and May this year, according to a report by the Bahia Gay Group,
Which means one death every 23 hours.
According to the Atlas of Violence 2019, Brazil holds the world’s record for lethal violence.
14 % of the homicides in the world happen in Brazil.
75% of homicide victims in Brazil were black
The number of women killed by firearms in households rose 28.7%
4,936 women were murdered in 2017, the highest rate in 10 years. 13 women killed per day.
Access all the data of the 2019 Atlas of Violence:
Agrarian Reform
Bolsonaro has also taken steps towards the extinction of the Agrarian Reform.
Memos sent to the administration of the agrarian reform department determine the ceasing of the purchase and demarcation of lands indefinitely.
Bolsonaro also reinforced his position against the laicity of the Brazilian State by saying that one of the Supreme Court ministers he is entitled to nominate will be “terribly protestant”.
In the “March of the Daisies”, which gathered more than 100,000 women in Brasília, protestant women associated to Feact-Brasil replied that statement, declaring themselves “terribly protestant and feminist”. And they joined the march to criticize the Bolsonaro government.
The president also shocked the country by affirming that hunger in Brazil is a lie. However, the UN data say otherwise.
According to a 2018 report on Food and Nutrition Safety in Latin America and the Caribbean, released last year by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, 5.2 million people suffered with hunger in Brazil between 2015 and 2017.
Brazil is experiencing the collapse of the rule of law and a threat to its frail democracy. A long cycle of inequalities has begun.
As we edit this video, our home, the Amazon, burns as the planet watches in shock. So far, the Bolsonaro government has taken no measures to fight the fire.
Closing our eyes to the crumbling of institutions in Brazil would be crime-like complicity.
Kátia Visentainer — Comunicação PAD
