- Brazil, a country in dissolution
Violence caused by elites, their governments, and their public policies
devoid of basic rights, causing economic and social exclusion, has truly
left Brazil in a state of dissolution. Some even say a state of war. Not
a conventional war, formally declared with all sides neatly defined,
organized armies, and politically and publically defined objectives. But a
brutal war, nonetheless, with just as many victims. The number of murders
in the cities and countryside, the crimes committed by the police force,
the deaths related to malnutrition, curable diseases, lack of medical
attention and government neglect are too alarming for this country to be
considered in a state of peace. Two reports recently released, one by the
CPT (The Brazilian Catholic Church's Pastoral Land Commission) and the
other by the University of Sao Paulo's Violence Research Center, [both
regarding violence in the country] alarming in themselves, only touch the
surface of the reality with which we live. Besides these reports, another
released by Representative Nilmario Miranda and the Human Rights Commission
reveals yet another drama being played out in the country: in the last
three years 2,500 people were murdered by so-called death squads.
Brazil is the 10th largest economy in the world, but it has one of the
poorest income distributions and is in 79th place in the UN's ranking of
quality of life. On average a Brazilian is worse off than any of his/her
neighbors in the Mercosul countries, and even worse off than those who live
in Columbia, a country which has had armed conflict for 30 years.
According to studies done by Fluminense Federal University in 1999,
violence was the biggest factor which has reduced life expectancy in
Brazil: on average, each Brazilian loses 2.71 years due exclusively to
violence. This is not counting the violence camouflaged by political and
economic structures that are directly responsible for the hunger and misery
which causes so much death. Such violence and death is rarely attributed
to governmental decisions and choices.
Unemployment
Currently Brazil is third in the world in terms of absolute numbers
unemployed. With nearly 8 million people without jobs, the country is
third only to Russia and India in unemployment. Part of the responsibility
for this kind of violence must be laid at the door of BNDES (the National
Development Bank) which uses public monies for loans given to national and
foreign companies even when such companies do not generate jobs. Various
studies have already proven that in a country like Brazil where there is no
system of social protection and where 40 million live below the poverty
line, unemployment is a major cause for unequal distribution of wealth,
benefits and social services. Such disparities grew rapidly in the 90's
after the elites of the country bought into programs of neoliberalism and
globalization as promulgated by rich nations. Such programs have brought
on dependency and controversy around payment of external debt. In short,
they have caused more and more violence. The distance between the minority
rich and majority poor, in terms of opportunities and possessions, is so
great that when the two meet there is generally conflict if for no other
reason than lack of a language for effective communication.
Further, the privatization of many public services, from education and
health to public transportation, electricity and telephone services, has
squeezed out a great part of the population further augmenting the distance
between the rich and the poor. One can see evidence of this in the
national scholastic exam: the average scores of the rich students are twice
as high as those of students from poor families.
Genocide
In a report release by Unicef in December, Brazil ranked 105th in the
world in infant mortality with 42 per 1,000 live births. The principal
cause is lack of basic sanitation for more than 30% of the Brazilian urban
population. In rural areas, the situation is worse. Further, INESC (the
Institute of Socio-Economic Studies) revealed that only 6.19% of the R$715
million in the government's budget for sanitation was released that year.
The violence contained in fictitious budgets, like those of so many of
the
social programs, is not normally reported in the media, but the effects are
just as noxious as the genocide in Bosnia, Cambodia or the practices of
Nazi Germany. How many adults or children died or had their health
permanently damaged in the dry Northeast during the drought of 1999 after
the federal government stopped distributing food and delayed payment to
workers for more than five months? In an interview with Adunicamp,
journalist Aloyisious Biondi commented "It is the first time that I've seen
a government that has the audacity to swindle drought victims out of
money." This violence, deliberate and calculated, certainly is not counted
on the list of other violations committed by the state. Nonetheless, it
exists and is practiced every day. Just as the police use a revolver to
repress people searching for food or occupying land and abandoned
buildings, so a golden pen somewhere is being used to sign documents which
bring on just as much violence.
Extermination
In the capital of Sao Paulo this month, two million youths had to stop
their studies because of lack of money. These same youths were not able to
find jobs. Without an occupation or hopes of one, they usually become
entrenched in urban violence fed by organized crime, contraband and drug
trafficking. Statistics from the Sao Paulo police department show that
51% of victims of police violence were between 18 and 25 years old. Eleven
percent were younger than 18, the age group that should be in school.
According to official statistics, in November of last year, the
metropolitan area of Sao Paulo had an all time record of homicides, with
505, an average of 16.8 deaths per day. From January to December of last
year another record was broken: the number of people shot and killed by Sao
Paulo police at 593 deaths.
Already in January of this year there have been 10 shootouts with a
total
of 38 deaths. This type of crime has been increasing in the main capitals
of the country and usually happen among gangs and vigilante groups, the
latter of whom are generally made up of off-duty police officers and paid
by businesses.
The police force, which ought to be looking out for the good of society,
has served to protect properties, owners, to defend privileges, and to
control low income populations. In fact the major battles that have
occurred in Sao Paulo and other urban centers have been between the police
and street vendors, tax drivers without permits, the homeless, and other
such groups who are struggling to eke out an existence.
In the countryside conflicts related to the struggle for land continue
to
increase, demonstrating that the current government is not effectively
handling agrarian reform. It seems that agrarian reform only happens when
there are illegal occupations of land.
All of these facts suggest that if the state, institutions and
organized
sectors of society do not immediately create bridges between the rich and
the poor, policies of income distribution, investments in public services,
and plans to promote social solidarity, then it will become more and more
difficult to create a climate of peace for the next generations.
By Hamilton Octavio de Souza
Source: Revista Sem Terra
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