Afro-Brazilians: Statute on Racial Equality, the Bahia Declaration and the continuing battle against police persecution

12/11/2009 – 10:24 – Police persecution of the Quilombolas in Espirito Santo

One more sad episode to indicate and confirm the rubber-stamp approval of violence being exercised against the historical struggle of the Quilombolas (Afro Brazilian descendants of slaves who have lived in the region for hundreds of years) in the state of Espirito Santo.

On November 11 a commando team of approximately 100 soldiers arrived in the morning in the community of São Domingos (Conceição da Barra/ES) literally calling the Quilobolas from their homes, saying they were carrying out search and seizure orders, in which no court order was presented to the Quilombola families.

The illegal, abusive and authoritarian military operation resulted in the detention of 30 Quilombola workers who, handcuffed and thrown into trucks, were taken to the local police station where they spent the entire day, thirsty and hungry, being interrogated about supposed theft of logs (eucalyptus tree remainders) consonant with in investigation initiated at the request of FIBRIA (ex- Aracruz Celulose).

Protesting, being indignant over the truculent operation, an adolescent daughter of one of the Quilombolas was physically attacked by a soldier, being struck in the mouth, under threat of being taken to the police station for not giving due respect to authority.

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11/09/2009 – 10:50 – With approval of Racial Statute, the black movement celebrates partial victory

After nearly ten years in legislative process, the Brazilian House of Representatives approved, on Wednesday, Nov. 9, the Statute of Racial Equality. However, it was necessary to make an agreement with the ruralist bloc in the House. In order to move the proposal, representative Antônio Roberto (PV-MG), reporter on the bill, accepted exclusion of the article on regulation of the Quilombola lands. In spite of this, the black movement assessed as important the passage of the bill by the House.

Coordinator of the National Center of Africanness and Afro-Brazilian Resistance (Cenarab), Macota Gonçalves, commented on the significance of the approval.

“It is the Brazilian state recognizing the consequences of slavery, of exploitation of the black people, of the denial of access of the black people to education, to health. It is important to assent to these negotiations conducted with the conservative sector so that we are [later] able to seek to change this more moving forward.”

Candidacies, health and employment

Through the rules of the Racial Statute the parties will be obliged to designate to blacks 10% of their seats to candidacies in proportional elections. Also being made obligatory is inclusion of the general history Africa and blacks in Brazil in elementary education history curricula.

In the area of health, the statute introduces the demand that the public health system specialize in treatment of disease characteristically occurring among blacks, such as sickle-cell anemia.

Another point is the fiscal incentive by the government, which can be granted to companies with more than 20 people hiring at least 20% blacks among employees.

Desirée Luíse

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Adital 13/11/2009

Bahia Declaration:

Racial equality is won with autonomy, and struggle of the black people

Struggle and resistance have always been characteristics of the black population in Brazil. The black movement is the oldest Brazilian social movement, in more than four hundred years of struggle, from the Quilombolas to the contemporary black movement, becoming the diverse organizations, entities and articulations of anti-racist groups today.

This long experience of accumulated struggle since colonial times for Africans and their descendants is our most valuable cultural heritage, inexhaustible source of resistance that opposes continued dehumanizing oppression of racism. To renounce the struggle to eliminate racism is to renounce our humanity.

The goal in combating racism and overcoming racial inequality is at the base of the tireless effort over many generations to construct reunited and articulated public policies in the Statute of Racial Equality. The approved bill, however, given the costs in collective work and results of a negotiated arrangement between the government base and conservative forces.

What it seeks to achieve is a political-electoral effect with a document merely authoritative, emptied of any initiative that effectively might bring change to the current picture of inequalities. What could have been an historic victory in favor of a society effectively democratic and pluralistic was transformed into a rhetorical piece, from which results in no concrete obligations of the State to the benefit of the black population.

The conditions imposed by elite racists effected with the removal of the text of the fundamental proposals in the following areas:

Health: The identification of race/color in documents of the SUS, which would serve as a basis for tracking specific public policies; Education: Creation of quotas in all Brazilian public universities and in the Fies contracts; Quilombolas: Quilombola descendents have definitive property of occupied lands; Labor market: the State will be able to realize preferential contracting of Afro-Brazilians in the public sector and to incentivize similar measures in private companies. In contract bidding, the criteria for breaking deadlocks could be the fact of companies having affirmative action or not; Communications media: Films, publicity pieces and TV programs are to have a minimum Afro-Brazilian presence of 20%.

The declarations of some black leaders is a cause for indignation, greeting together with government parliamentarians and the conservative opposition, the approval of the statute, when the victory in this process of the reactionary and racists forces is evident. Representative of black entities used (pseudo) powers to “negotiate”, without mandate and without respecting forums or ample collective spaces for deliberation by the movement proper. They dragged representative entities to a process of subordination to conciliatory policies, of contention from social pressures for concrete victories for the affirmation of black citizenship.

We, Organizations and activists of the Black Movement, repudiate the exacerbated conciliation that resulted in creation of this innocuous instrument that does not assure the rights of black people.

We reaffirm the defense of the autonomy of the black movement in relation to the State, to the governments and to the political parties. The strategic struggle of the black people for racial equality does not subordinate our political project.

We move toward social and political emancipation of black people and the construction of a multi-ethnic and egalitarian society in Brazil. The self-organization of the black people is the base of sustaining of our political project.

We repudiate the racial pact that preserves elite privilege of whites and racists.

We reaffirm our struggle for affirmative actions and against discrimination of race, gender and sexual orientation.

We repudiate the systematic extermination of black youth in the urban peripheries, perpetrated by a racist police [force] and in service of dominant elites in the State and its segregation in the urban and rural spaces, configuring a systematic ethnic divide.

For the approval of the system of quotas, promoting the access of black men and women to the Universities, to post-graduate courses and to the Federal Technical Schools.

For the definitive and titled possession of the lands for traditional and quilombola communities.

Salvador, 20 November of 2009

Signed:

Edson Cardoso – Presidente do Ìrohìn
Hamilton Assis – Coordenação Nacional do Circulo Palmarino
Hamilton Borges – Coordenação da Campanha Reaja ou Será Morta, Reaja ou Será Morto e ASFAP-BA – Associação de Familiares e Amigos de Presas e Presos da Bahia)
Luciene Lacerda – Fórum Estadual de Mulheres Negras / RJ
Reginaldo Bispo – Coordenação Nacional do MNU – Movimento Negro Unificado
Valdisio Fernandes – Coordenação do Instituto Búzios
Walter Altino – Coordenação do Atitude Quilombola
Marisa Feffermann – Comitê Contra a Criminalização de Crianças e adolescetentes / SP
Heloisa Greco – Instituto Helena Greco de Direitos Humanos e Cidadania / MG
Tiago paixão – Coordenação do Campo Étnico e Popular
Fabiano Santos – JUNA / Alagoinhas – Ba
Simone Magalhães – Ylê Axé Oyá Deji
Demerson Cardoso – Coordenação do GAEEC
Valdo Lumumba – Fórum de Entidades do Subúrbio de Salvador
Ana Maria Felippe – Memorial Lélia Gonzalez – Rio de Janeiro-RJTexto

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NEWSLETTER 890: FARMERS EVICT INDIGENOUS TERENA WITHOUT COURT ORDER IN MS

Thursday, 19 November, a group of farmers accompanied by armed private security forces evicted, without court order, a community of 300 Terena who had retaken part of the land Buriti, in the municipality of Sidrolândia, in Mato Grosso do Sul. A battalion of approximately 50 Military Police participated in the action.

According to Terena leaders, the eviction was made by the Military Police in a joint action with the farmers and their security forces. “We asked to speak with the commander of the MP, but he said: ‘there is no conversation; leave from here”, stated the indigenous teacher Hanaiti. The indigenous people left the area because they have several children and elders in the group. Even so, two elders were attacked in the eviction. The community will remain camped at approximately 500 meters from the Querência São José farm – where they have been.

Coronel Bueno, the Commander General of the Military Police in Mato Grosso do Sul stated that there is constant ostensive policing of the area retaken “to prevent conflicts between the indians and the owners”. According to him, there was no order for the military police to disperse the indigenous people.

This morning, the Military Police 4^th Company of Mato Grosso do Sul (PM-MS), received information that a group of 80 -100 armed farmers were headed into the region of the Querência São José farm to expulse the indigenous people from the land. “In fact, we see several pick up trucks going down there”, stated Major Rios – responsible for the 4^th Company. He communicated the fact to Commander General of the PM-MS.

The Federal Police of Mato Grosso do Sul (PF-MS) confirm that there was no court order for reintegration of possession in the region of the Querência São José farm. By late afternoon, the FP-MS had not been to the area, what had occurred had not been officially communicated. According to the Terena leaders, the Military Police and the security forces of the farmers remain in the area. “We are not going to be intimidated. We are going to remain close by. But, for security, we are removing the elders and the children”, affirmed Hanaiti.

The farm Querência São José is located in the Buriti indigenous land, identified in 2001 as traditional indigenous land.

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NATIONAL CONFERENCE DISCUSSES INDIGENOUS EDUCATION

Circa 600 indigenous representatives of 210 peoples from throughout Brazil have been meeting since November 16 until the 20^th in the 1^st National Conference on Indigenous Education (CONEEI- Conferência Nacional de Educação Escolar Indígena), in Luziânia, Goias. The creation of a special education system and improvements in the formation of indigenous teachers are some of the proposals of the participants.

In addition to the indigenous representatives, there participated a number of non-indigenous organizations active in supporting indigenous education, Universities and state and municipal secretaries of education from throughout the nation. Before the national conference there were 17 state level conferences in several regions. These guided various proposals regarding administration and financing of indigenous education, indigenous pedagogical practices, participation and social control and other themes. The final document with the approved proposals will be delivered on the 20^th to the various authorities responsible for indigenist policy and education.

The 1^st CONEII is a victory of decades of struggle for specific, differentiated and quality education for indigenous peoples. “It is an opportunity for each people to evaluate the situation, because they no longer want the education as it is.”, assesses professor Joaquim Maná, of the Hunikui people of Acre. For him, the creation of a special system for indigenous education needs to be the primary demand of the CONEII. This opinion is shared by Agnaldo Xukuru, of the Commission of Indigenous Professors of Pernambuco (Copipe). The mode of implantation of the system however is still not a matter of consensus among the indigenous peoples. Some defend what occurs with the ethno-educational territories instituted by Decree 6.681 of May 27, 2009. Others note that, in the form as proposed, the ethno-educational territories do not correspond to the specificities of several regions and need to be better discussed. Because of this, indigenous professors of the northwest of Mato Grosso and of the Northeast published motions of repudiation on the publication of the decree 6.681 before the National Conference.

Formation of teachers and control

For Joaquim Maná and Agnaldo Xukuru, some of the principal problems in indigenous education are the inadequate formation of the teachers, the precarious infrastructure and the necessity for better pedagogical projects for the schools.

Maná believes that the courses do not fully form the teachers for working with the specific knowledge of each people and the universal knowledge that many peoples intend to incorporate in education. “It is not just reading and writing. The instruction, the writing is going to have an influence on coexistence in the village”, he notes. Agnaldo points to the lack of stability of the teacher in charge as a serious problem.

The two critique the installations of the school for the indigenous peoples. Besides being precarious and often times not assumed by the state, the installations of several schools have inadequate structures for indigenous specificities.

Social control over the construction of pedagogical projects also is difficult in some regions. According to Agnaldo, some municipal governments that are opposed to the indigenous peoples do not want to see indigenous education strengthen the sentiment of belonging to a people and the struggle for indigenous rights.

Brasília, 19 November of 2009

Indigenist Missionary Council

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