Brazil: Police Evict 5000 Occupiers At Gunpoint

Hours after the military police threw them back on the streets, people occupied a justice building and camped outside the City Hall of Rio de Janeiro.

The building people occupied and were evicted from is public, said Gustavo Gindre, an activist for the right and Democratisation of communications, trying to counter-attack the lies spread by the mainstream media which justified the police’s war on the occupiers by claiming was private property. ”They reduced this whole issue to a matter of repossession”, said Gingre, which does not correspond to facts.

Another lawyer Julio Bianchini explained that police’s eviction of the occupiers was in fact illegal.

The vast majority of the occupiers were forced out on the streets by the rents skyrocketing after their communities have been ”pacified” (read militarized) and turned into real estates bubbles. Only the filthy rich, like David Beckham can afford to live here – he is to pay 1 million dollars for a house in the community of Vidigal, recently ”pacified”.

The working people in Brazil making 350 dollars a month and suddenly having to pay 200 on rent could not afford to live there anymore and had been forced to sleep under the clear sky.

”I had to leave my community, the Jacarezinho, because the rent was very demanding, I could not even eat from money that remained after the rent was paid,” said Adriano Rodrigues de Oliveira, a mechanic.

Rather than offer an alternative housing for thse 5 000 people, the state invaded the Favela Telerj and dumped violently families on the streets, explained social activits. Source

 The latest attack against the residents of Oi comes a week since the community of Mare – one of the most politically active – is under the occupation of the army and the military police so that FIFA and IOC can get their swallowed public money sponsored stadiums and facilities. People in Mare resumed their protests against the military occupation: the military might the state had deployed against them failed to intimidate them, as state police murdering children is left unaccounted.

The attacks on favelas – which have been fortresses of resistance of the black people – fundamentally expose the underlying state racism.

Even statistics prove this: ”70 percent of the people killed in Brazil are black people. 60 percent of the young black people have been arrested or suffered other forms of police violence. With every 3 people killed, 2 are black. In universities in Brazil only 2 percent of the students are black. Every two hours a young black man dies of violent death in Brazil. We must stop this apartheid,” wrote Francisco Keys  for #MídiaInformal

Another terrible confirmation of this came as news of a 17 year old black teenager, suffering from mental issues, beaten to death by a mob of 30 people in Espírito Santo.

This is how the pacification took place in one of the communities of Mare: ”Police invading houses; ”playing ninja”, threatening people with death; smashing and stealing household goods; treating residents with verbal violence, pointing guns at their faces; constraining and assaulting children; collective imprisonment of minors who protested because of the death of a teenager; embarrassment and arrest of the elderly; terrorizing people residents and making them to run away scared to death on the streets, wearing only underwear.”

”This invasion was as quiet as some other raids in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. We know that this is only the beginning of a whole wave of oppression through the extermination policy and militarization in the slums. It is imperative to strengthen the resistance. Slum dwellers, social movements, human rights defenders and all rights and all who fight for a just and egalitarian society, join the resistance struggle and the uprising in all slums! Favela resists. Viva favela!” Source

Working poeople who are forced to live on the streets have started to strike back in São Paulo too: more than 20 empty buildings were occupied by people needing a house, in a coordinated action between the front of a struggle for housing, the Popular Movements Center and the Union of Popular Housing. More than 3,000 families in need were rehomed thanks to this action.

In recent years, real estate speculation has led to an explosion of rents and house prices in São Paulo, too. Land prices trippled and rents doubled. Courts have dumped on the streets thousands of families to favor the rich.

Meanwhile, strikers against the World Cup and IOC are spreading. Workers of major projects for the Olympic Games Rio 2016, as the line 4 Metro South, Transolimpica, Transcarioca, Transoeste and recovery of the João Havelange Stadium, the Engenhão, among others, decided to continue their strike until Monday when new negotiations for better pay are to take place. 30,000 workers demand that the employers increase their wages by 9% and payment of overtime.

500 state employees of the Rio City Hall marched again through the city,as they have been on strike for a week now for better pay.

In addition to anti-World Cup laws which will consider anyone who protests FIFA’s event a ”terrorist”, senators want to force protesters to inform them of the time and the route of the protests, which is yet another way the State attempts to intimidate and repress social movements.

All these happen as people in Brazil try to break the state protection granted to former fascist military junta, whose policies are creeping their way back through the doors of FIFA and IOC.

Against the violence of the state and the criminality of the capitalist class, people in the favelas have only their words and sometimes stones. Favelas are vibrant and creative communities, and their poetry and music has always been their most powerful resistance. This, of course is not reported by the mainstream media, which continue to lie and criminalize the poor working people in these communities as ”drug dealers”, while covering up for the real drug dealers protected by the military police in the favelas they ”pacified” (read militarized and turned into real estate bubbles).

Since this is too mainstream for the mainstream media, here’s a poem called ”The Tribes Of Time”, by M.A.S.U ( Movimento Artístico Solidário Universal)”Tribos do Tempo:

Somos gente sem terra, flautas sem sopro
Somos ódio sem guerra, o silêncio no estrondo
Nativos da pedra, histórias sem rumo
Somos tribos do tempo acorrentados por sonhos
Somos tribos do tempo dos sonhos…
As Armas e os Ladrões defendendo as orações
Desarmando o caminho e mostrando ao destino
Que assim somos reis que imperam a solidão
Num vaso sem raiz, esmorecendo os jardins…”The “civilized” world is still silent about Brazil. Probably football and capitalism are more important to the “civilized” ones, than the lives of poor kids in the favelas.

Sources of photos: Coletivo Carranca and social activists from MidiAtivismo_rjO, Jornal A Nova Democracia, Mídia Informal, Anonymous Rio, Black Bloc RJ, Black Bloc SP Fase II, Organização Anarquista Terra e Liberdade OATL, Ação Antifascista Brasil

The report below was posted earlier from RioOnWatch.org, with the mention that the media source they quote represents the capitalists’ points of view, particularly when they criminalize the occupiers as “drug dealers” and intend to incriminate social media activists for people occupying the building, ignorant of the fact that these people are working and their paycheck does not cover the rent which exploded due to real estate speculation when their communities were “pacified” (read militarized):

“Many families came from “pacified” (militarized) favelas of Mandela, Rato Molhado, Jacarezinho, Cosmos, Manguinhos, Duque de Caxias and Morro do Sampaio. Others who lived homeless on nearby streets also participated in the occupation. The space was collectively distributed as families arrived and began to erect their single-space rudimentary barracos (make-shift shelters) made from plywood and reclaimed materials, without any roof, furniture, or floor. Many barracos (typically 4‘ x 4’ in size) were built on the insides and rooftops of the buildings, whilst others continue to emerge in the remaining unoccupied outdoor spaces. Speculative housing prices, inadequate health and education services, expensive travel, threat of removal, risk of flooding, landslides, and other issues they felt were ignored by the state were among the reasons articulated by the newly formed community as to what drove them to occupy the space.”  Source

RioOnWatch.org: “Until recently, Joseli, 61 (pictured left), lived in a rented single-room house in Manguinhos with her daughter and four grandchildren where they paid R$600 a month. She continues to earn the minimum wage of R$724 per month in her job as a cook where she has diligently worked for over 30 years. Despite her hard work, she stresses that wages do not meet the basic costs of living. She went on to explain that, “When the children get sick, either there are no doctors, or no medication in the hospital,” echoing a common sentiment across the occupation. Joseli looks forward to her 65th birthday when she can claim her bus pass paid for by the state.