| |
|
Brazilians demand arrest of London
officers |
The Associated Press
WEDNESDAY, JULY 27, 2005
| GONZAGA, Brazil Hundreds of relatives
and friends of a Brazilian killed in London after being mistaken for
a terrorist marched along the cobblestone streets of his hometown,
demanding the arrest of the British police officers who fired the
fatal shots.
Some of the protesters
held banners Monday denouncing the British police as the real
terrorists; other placards were adorned with snapshots of the
victim, Jean Charles de Menezes, urging Prime Minister Tony Blair to
send his body home so it could be buried.
All said that Blair's
apology did not go far enough.
"Apologies don't help,
we want justice," they chanted, stopping briefly to offer a prayer
for the 27-year-old electrician who left Brazil to work in Britain
so he could return home with enough savings to start a cattle ranch.
Menezes' killing has
been the top story on radio and television broadcasts since Sunday.
In London, Foreign
Minister Celso Amorim said he had instructions from President Luiz
Inácio Lula da Silva "to take firm measures to defend the interests
of the family of a Brazilian who died in an absurd manner."
The militant Landless
Rural Workers' Movement scheduled protests Tuesday in front of the
British Embassy in Brasília and the consulate in Rio de Janeiro. The
movement said in a statement that Menezes "was assassinated in cold
blood, a victim of intolerance" and called for the British
withdrawal from Iraq.
Gonzaga's mayor,
outraged over news of the shooting, called it an "assassination."
"It's easy for Blair to apologize, but it doesn't mean very much,"
said Mayor Júlio de Souza. "What happened to English justice and
England, a place where police patrol unarmed?"
Many were angry that
there was still no word on when the body might be shipped back to
Gonzaga, a central Brazilian town of 6,000 where young men often
head to the United States and Europe to finance a better life back
home. Menezes was killed last Friday, and Brazilians traditionally
bury their dead no later than 24 hours after death.
"We don't want
apologies, he's ours and he should be here," said María José
Carvalho, who has two sons working in the United States.
Governor Aécio Neves of
Minas Gerais, the rural state where the electrician was born, said
the government would pay to fly his body back to Brazil for burial.
Some of Menezes' cousins
were upset that Blair's apology included a defense of the British
police, who Blair said were working under intense pressure to
prevent more terrorist attacks.
"His apologies aren't
easing our pain," said Arialva Pereira, one of the cousins. "He's
not saying anything about punishing the police who did this, it's
more like he's supporting them."
The march on Monday
ended in front of the town hall, where the Brazilian flag hung at
half staff and a large black sheet was hung from the second floor as
a sign of mourning.
Menezes was killed in a
London Underground station as the police investigated a wave of
botched bombings the day before and the deadly transit bombings of
July 7. Witnesses said he was wearing a heavy, padded coat when
plainclothes police chased him into an Underground car, pinned him
to the floor and shot him.
While Menezes' relatives
said he was working legally in Britain and had no reason to fear the
police, the BBC said Menezes' visa had expired, suggesting a reason
why he might have run.
At a joint news
conference in London with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Amorim said
the Brazilian Embassy had told him Menezes was living legally in
England. Brazilian correspondents also quoted Straw as saying that
he understood that Menezes' situation was legal.
|
| |
