UNITED NATIONS'
AGENDA 21 COMES TO BRAZIL: WHOLE TOWNS BEING EVICTED AT
GUNPOINT
01-08-2013 11:42 am - Alex Newman - The New American
Federal Brazilian police and military personnel, some wearing
United Nations insignia, are forcibly relocating whole communities in Brazil at
gunpoint under the guise of returning huge tracts of land to a small group of
Indians whose ancestors were allegedly there at some point. Thousands of local
residents who have lived in the area for decades or were even born there,
however, are fighting back, with critics saying the government’s actions smack
of Stalinism and may constitute crimes against humanity.
Since the latest
controversial operation began in November in the state of Mato Grosso, according
to authorities and news reports, citizens opposed to being stripped of their
property and homes have been doing everything in their power to stop the assault
— setting up road blocks, battling heavily armed federal forces with stones,
sticks, and Molotov cocktails, torching government trucks, protesting, and
refusing to leave. Others cried as they tore down their own simple houses under
armed guard.
Reporters on the scene and even federal lawmakers suspect
bloodshed may be near. The government, however, has vowed to expel the
communities at any cost, threatening those who refuse to comply with criminal
charges and even confiscation of what little remains of their personal property.
Rubber bullets, tear gas, and threats of real bullets and prosecution have all
been employed to forcibly remove the locals, whom the government continues to
dehumanize as “invaders” and “intruders.”
Critics and local residents
have accused the government of Brazil of mass corruption, saying the end goal is
to smash private property ownership and all potential resistance — starting with
the rural population. They argue, among other points, that federal authorities
are doing the bidding of foreign interests and are in cahoots with the UN,
massive international corporations, Western-based non-governmental organizations
like Greenpeace, and other interests.
“This is just one more case among
many. The policy of Brazil’s leftist government is to dismantle the country to
deliver it all to ‘native reserves,’ which are nothing more than instruments of
billionaire foreign Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs),” explained renowned
Brazilian writer and philosopher Professor Olavo de Carvalho, who has played a
key role in exposing the well-orchestrated socialist takeover of Latin
America.
The so-called “pink tide” sweeping over the region is being led
in part by top Brazilian Labor Party (PT) officials, who currently hold power,
collaborating with totalitarian regimes in the region. As The New American has
documented extensively, a shadowy network of socialist and communist political
parties as well as Marxist terror groups known as Foro de São Paulo — founded by
former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva, communist tyrant Fidel
Castro, the Sandinistas, and others — now dominates Latin American
politics.
The justification used in the most recent land grab case in
Mato Grosso’s Suiá-Missu, however, is unparalleled in terms of cynicism,
Carvalho, the conservative Brazilian leader, told The New American. “Ages ago,
Brazilian Indians used to avoid settling in a particular place; they traveled
long distances and created temporary residences along the way,” he explained.
“The Brazilian government accepted the thesis of some anthropologists that
wherever Indians left one of their dead buried in the ground, suddenly the land
belongs to them. The population of Suiá-Missu is poor and working people who
have no way to respond to the brute force of the communist
government.”
Some 400,000 acres of land in the state of Mato Grosso with
numerous towns — at least one of the communities in Estrela do Araguaia was home
to an estimated 7,500 residents complete with churches, schools, hospitals, a
graveyard and more, though the government claims the figures are smaller — was
reportedly handed to a group of nearby Indians in the 1990s by official decree.
Property owners’ deeds were nullified and no compensation was offered.
Authorities began the forced relocation of all non-Indians late last year after
giving existing residents just 30 days to vacate their land “voluntarily.” Most
refused to go.
“In the final days of December, the federal government’s
task force working on expelling local residents from the Marãiwatsédé indigenous
land in Mato Grosso prioritized the expulsion of the community of Posto da Mata,
a center of fierce resistance against returning the land to the Xavante
Indians,” the federal National Indian Foundation (Funai), part of the Justice
Ministry, said in a statement in early January. “Justice officials set a January
4 deadline for residents to evacuate the area. Whoever does not leave by that
date will have their belongings confiscated by Justice and will have to answer
for the crime of disobedience.” Tensions are still brewing, though, and the
evictions are far from completed.
About 3,000 people lived in Posto da
Mata, including 700 school children who will now be homeless if the government
gets its way. "Where are we going to stay? Where are we going to live? What are
we going to live off of? What are we going to eat going forward?" wondered a
tearful girl outside one of the town's two schools in a TV interview. "I've
lived here all my 17 years and I'm not leaving."
An 8-year-old boy, also
crying, read a letter to Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, a “former”
self-styled communist terrorist during the military regime, begging her not to
let the police knock down his family’s house. Rousseff and her administration,
however, appear unmoved, with the powerful Brazilian regime marching onward
regardless of the human tragedy left in its wake.
“The federal government
is sticking to the judicial decision with firmness and serenity,” Chief Minister
Gilberto Carvalho with the General Secretariat of the President said in a press
release. “Violent and illegal actions will not be tolerated and adequate
measures are already being taken.”
Locals, however, are still petitioning
the government to stop the barbaric relocation, which they say will shatter
thousands of lives. Protesters have been tearing down and burning Brazilian
flags while local, state, and even federal political leaders have expressed
outrage about the brutal relocation. Congressman Valtenir Pereira, for instance,
warned a top executive branch official about the increasing risk of bloodshed as
the battle rages on. He also said that the forced relocation of families risked
damaging Brazil's image and reputation in front of the international
community.
"I told him that the international community is aware of the
problem. We are running the risk of allowing bloodshed to occur. The conflict
has already started, we've had incidents between police and locals who did not
want to leave the area," he said. "I also said that this conflict can become a
blood stain on the presidency. President Dilma and her vice president cannot let
this happen, otherwise they will stain Brazil's image internationally. The
solution depends only on the president."
The history of the land is in
dispute, but it appears that in the 1960s, Brazilian authorities may have
expelled local Indians from the region and moved them hundreds of miles away
before selling off the land. The goal was supposedly to encourage Brazilians and
agricultural producers in particular to settle the area, which saw a steady
influx of new residents over the following decades.
Many locals and even
outside analysts question whether the land was really inhabited by Indians at
all. Even some Xavante Indians have spoken out, explaining that their people
always lived in another region with another climate and type of
vegetation.
The UN and Greenpeace, though, were heavily involved in
promoting the idea during the recent Rio+20 “sustainable development” conference
in Rio de Janeiro, parading a group of Indians around the premises in between
bizarre ceremonies worshiping “Mother Earth” and calls for a planetary regime.
Greenpeace, of course, has an atrocious record when it comes to indigenous
people and has destroyed more than a few Native American communities over the
years under the guise of pseudo-environmentalism.
Nevertheless, the
courts ruled in 2010 that the executive decree kicking all non-Indian residents
out of the area without compensation for the loss of their property and homes
could move forward. Shortly after that, the decision to force residents off
their land was put on hold. In May of 2012, however, another court said the
relocation could proceed.
That decision was also halted, but the
Brazilian Supreme Court eventually decided that the evictions could proceed as
planned. Residents were notified on November 7 that they should pack what they
could and go within 30 days, or face the full fury of the federal government. A
few reportedly left, enticed by government promises of welfare and new land
somewhere else for certain eligible small farmers, but many more stayed.
Ranchers and farmers with larger properties were offered
nothing.
“According to Brazilian law, as the invaders remained illegally
on Indian land, knowing that it is federal property, they are not entitled to
any compensation,” a spokesperson for Funai, the Justice Ministry’s Indian
department, told The New American in a statement without addressing the
now-voided property deeds held by residents. “Nevertheless, the Brazilian
government acts to resettle those who meet the criteria of the Brazilian
Agrarian Reform Policy.”
Of course, land expropriation in Brazil is
nothing new — for decades, the government has been demonizing “big” farmers and
“wealthy” ranchers, seizing and redistributing their property in the push for
so-called “agrarian reform.” Even recently, longtime residents in other regions
have also been expelled under the guise of “Indian lands,” too. In neighboring
Venezuela, meanwhile, socialist strongman Hugo Chavez has been stealing massive
amounts of land from its owners as well, citing the alleged need to
“redistribute wealth.”
But like Mao’s “agrarian reform” in Communist
China, which was portrayed as an innocent movement until it ultimately
contributed to the murder of tens of millions, farmers and opponents of the
assault in Latin America fear the worst. “The goal of destroying the rural
sector in Brazil, one of the strongest in the world, is far from complete,”
conservative Brazilian activist and farmer Walber Guerreiro told The New
American, noting that, like all communists, the current government leaders of
Brazil hope to smash independent-minded farmers and ranchers. “But it is an
absolute priority for the Marxist agenda.”
Guerreiro, who knows some of
the victims in Mato Grosso, also cited international treaties declaring forced
relocation to be a crime against humanity, saying it was time for the world
community to speak out about the rampant and increasingly serious abuses being
perpetrated by the Brazilian regime. He worries that if authorities are allowed
to continue running wild with impunity, bigger towns will be next, and more
victims will soon be forcibly stripped of their homes and property at the barrel
of a gun.
Also alarming, he said, was that some of the military vehicles
being used to terrorize and evict local residents bore the same UN insignia used
by international so-called “peace keeping” forces. Video documentation showed,
and Brazilian federal authorities confirmed to The New American, that troops and
equipment sporting the UN logo are indeed involved in the operation. However,
officials claimed that the controversial global organization was not actually
involved and that the soldiers and equipment had recently returned from “peace
keeping” operations abroad, hence the insignia.
“My family has been on
the lands we work since the '50s, but it is clear that nothing, not even our
work time, our obedience to laws, the deed for the land, our huge production
volume — nothing can protect us,” he said. “We can suddenly be informed that
there is ‘Indian land’ under our farms, and from that point onwards we cannot do
anything in our defense.”
After the regime is done with farmers and
ranchers, though, new classes of victims will find themselves in the crosshairs.
“Nothing guarantees civil security in the Labor Party’s (PT) Brazil, and this
process will not end with just the persecution of farmers,” Guerreiro concluded.
“In the end, everyone will have their property expropriated, exactly like what
happened in Cuba, the paradise of the PT’s dreams.”
As The New American
reported years ago, socialist and communist forces are making significant
progress throughout Latin America, with major support from abroad and just a
handful of national governments resisting the trend. However, considering the
recent birth of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUL or UNASUR) — a
European Union-like transnational regime dominated by self-identified socialists
— the people of the entire continent are facing the very real prospect of brutal
tyranny in the not-too-distant future. And without a massive outcry, the farmers
and poor workers of Suiá Missú will definitely not be the last
victims.
-----------------------------------------
SOURCE:
http://thenewamerican.com/world-news/south-america/item/
14131-amid-federal-land-grab-in-brazil-whole-towns-evicted-at-gunpoint
Alex
Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American, is currently based in
Europe after growing up in Latin America, including four years in Brazil. He can
be reached at anewman@thenewamerican.com. |
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