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<font size=4><b>The Mothers of May: The Difficult Democratization of the
Genocidal State in Brazil<br><br>
</b></font><font size=3>Written by Raúl Zibechi <br>
Wednesday, 28 April 2010 20:45 <br>
<br>
<a href="http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6730" eudora="autourl">
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6730<br><br>
</a>"My son's name was Edison and he was 29 years old. He was killed
on the streets. He just went home for some medicine and to put gas in his
motorcycle. We lived in Baixada Santista, a working-class neighborhood in
Sao Paulo. On May 15, the police followed him and killed him, 500 yards
from the gas station. Even though there are contradictions in their
statements, the District Attorney's Office failed to act and shelved the
case," said Débora Maria da Silva, a 50-year-old woman of mixed-race
and mother of two.<br><br>
Edison had been working at a cleaning company for seven years and had a
son. He was far from the stereotypical delinquent, but his skin was dark
and he lived in a poor area of Baixada Santista on the coast of the state
of Sao Paulo. The same day on which Edison died, the First Capital
Command (PCC), a criminal drug-trafficking organization, attacked police
commissaries and burned buses. "The city was paralyzed. It seemed
like there had been an earthquake," said Débora.<br><br>
The wave of violence in South America's biggest city, with 20 million
inhabitants, began on May 12 after the government of the state of Sao
Paulo moved 765 prisoners to a maximum security prison located 380 miles
from the capital. One of the transferred prisoners was the leader of the
PCC, Marcos Williams Herba Camacho, also known as Marcola, who directed
the criminal organization from prison. In three days they carried out 180
attacks against police forces and prison guards in which, according to
initial official estimates, 39 officers and 38 gang members died. They
also set fire to more than a hundred buses, automobiles, and a dozen bank
branches.<br><br>
At the same time, riots were recorded in 73 of the 144 prisons in the
entire state, which were also declared in a state of rebellion. The
conservative newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo broke the news that the city
morgue had received many more corpses than the number of deaths the
government was reporting: 272 compared to the 172 that were officially
reported. That led to the suspicion that there were dozens of illegal
deaths, which the newspaper attributed to assassins who would surely have
been policemen. On May 24, while the repression still had not subsided,
authorities admitted that of the 300 recognized victims only 79 were
involved with organized
crime.<a href="http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6730#_ftn1">1</a><br><br>
That same day, Amnesty International stated that death squads composed of
policemen were to blame for "close to 9,000 murders … the majority
categorized as 'resistance' killings, without judicial investigation,
registered between 1999 and
2004."<a href="http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6730#_ftn2">2</a>
Many accused the governor, Claudio Lembo. The financial magazine Exame
protested that the violence generates costs equivalent to 10% of the
gross domestic product. President Lula was one of the first to tell the
public a difficult truth: "The problem is Brazilian society. We're
reaping what we've sown in this
country."<a href="http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6730#_ftn3">3</a>
<br><br>
<b>Neither Justice nor Law<br><br>
</b>"Some mothers, who knew that their children were murdered by the
police and had no connection to organized crime, decided to confront the
state because the state is in charge of security. Because it was election
season they did not want to show weakness and decided to face the
public's anger over the burnings of buses by killing poor young
people," says Débora. "When it was clear that the young
people's deaths were carried out in the same manner and they were all
workers, I began to look for other mothers. The state trivialized the
deaths because at the top they only want to see numbers. I was busy as a
bee visiting other mothers' houses because many were afraid and did not
want to talk."<br><br>
In July of the same year three mothers began to meet in order to visit
police stations, investigate motives behind the deaths, and interview
authorities. On the one-year anniversary of the murders, they led a
protest and mass with 1,000 people who were carrying signs that read:
"The ones who kill the innocent are the criminals." The
majority of the victims lived in Baixada Santista. "The state
shelved the cases and did not prosecute any police officers." The
numbers speak for themselves: the state admitted there were 493 deaths
from firearms between May 12 and 20, of which 47 were killed by the PCC.
"Therefore the police killed 446 people," Débora
concludes.<br><br>
She was able to demonstrate that the police had lied in the case of her
son Edison, by providing evidence of contradictions in the police file.
"They said that the police radio was off but I demonstrated that
that wasn't true." What hurt the most, she explains, was that she
ran into a dead end because the state closed all the cases. Her last
resort was to meet with other mothers, to try to comprehend an
incomprehensible situation and to work to make sure it never happened
again.<br><br>
First, they decided to call themselves the Mothers of May and they set up
the Baixada Santista Association of Mothers and Relatives of Victims of
Violence. Eventually they were even approached by people affected by the
military dictatorship who hadn't had the strength to come forward on
behalf of their own family members. When the Mothers of May appeared, it
gave them the courage to denounce the events of decades prior. "Now
we're 17 mothers just in Baixada and 4 more in Sao Paulo. We already have
groups in 13 states made up of family members affected by the military
police," she says with pride. Their organization collaborates with
the Network Against Violence in Rio as well as mothers from Espiritu
Santo, Minas Gerais, Belem, Pará, Acre and Pernambuco, and other
important states.<br><br>
When Débora speaks, even when she gets upset, she does so with a certain
serenity. "Our meetings are very painful. We cry. We suffer anguish
because the impunity is what hurts the most. People raise a child and the
state kills it. Mothers don't symbolize death, but life. During the
meetings people don't accept what happened. They cry when they see a
photo of their child. I'm being treated for depression. I'm a widow
because my husband died in a similar way as my son did … and I have a
brother who was disappeared." From what one hears in the Bahia
Social Forum, Débora's reality seems to be shared by many Brazilian
families.<br>
<br>
<b>Expendable People <br>
</b> <br>
"The state exterminates the poor, black inhabitants of favelas
because it's easier to kill them than give them education and healthcare,
because to them the poor are expendable. Black boys are the most
vulnerable. The security policy of this country is a policy of
extermination; they prefer jails to schools. When young people are
murdered, their deaths are deemed 'resistance' killings, or 'acts of
resistance,' which do not exist in the penal code," Débora explains,
politicized by her life experience.<br><br>
Nonetheless, these are not just the opinions of a mother in distress. The
book Crimes of May published six months after the events by the CONDEPE
(State Council for the Defense of Human Rights, of Sao Paulo), an
independent commission composed of representatives from the Federal
Attorney General's Office, the Medicine Regional Council, the Public
Defender's Office (CREMESP), and various human rights groups, reached the
same conclusions as Débora.<br><br>
Desiré Carlos Callegari, the president of CREMESP, claims that among
those killed in May the majority were male (96.3%) and young (45% between
the ages of 21 and 31 years old; 16.5% between 31 and 41). On May 15,
each victim received an average of 5.8 gunshot wounds. Of the 493 dead,
43 were killed by delinquents (23 military police, 7 civil policemen, 3
municipal policemen, 9 prison guards, and 4 common citizens). Seventeen
were prisoners who had revolted and 109 died in confrontations. However,
87 were murdered by unidentified killers "bearing signs of execution
with police
participation."<a href="http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6730#_ftn4">
4</a><br><br>
Criminal expert Ricardo Molina de Figueiredo, a member of the independent
commission, analyzed the cases labeled "resistance" killings,
which totaled 124 the week of May 12th through the 20th. The study of all
the cases revealed that the majority of the victims were shot in a highly
lethal area, that the shots were fired at close range, and that there was
a great number who were shot "from head to toe."<br><br>
This allowed him to purport that "the combination of these factors
indicate a situation similar to execution and not a shoot-out where the
shooters are moving around. In an incident of confrontation it would be
very improbable that these three components coincide, which allows us to
conclude that 60 to 70% of the analyzed cases were
executions."<a href="http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6730#_ftn5">
5</a><br><br>
The Public Defender's Office in Sao Paulo says more or less the same.
Pedro Gilberti, assistant general public defender, reports that there was
faulty conduct and abuse of authority. The worst thing is that those
elements, "until now did not lead to accusations, having been buried
in the common grave of the archives, where impunity
rests."<a href="http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6730#_ftn6">6</a>
<br><br>
Thanks to this commission and the work of the Mothers of May, the belief
that there were many summary executions stuck in the public's mind. The
second conclusion was put forth by the state: once again, it received
impunity. The situation is dire because in Sao Paulo the murder rate
began to rise again after 10 years of decline. In 2009, although violent
crime continued to decline in the state capital, in the peripheral,
inland, and coastal cities violence is climbing. In a single year in
Baixada Santista the homicides grew by
37%.<a href="http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6730#_ftn7">7</a><br><br>
<b>A Genocidal State<br><br>
</b>To understand how all of this can be occurring in a country which
aspires to be a global player, a country where democracy has reigned for
20 years, one that benefits from a progressive government like that of
Lula's, and which will host the Olympic Games and the World Cup, one must
investigate from a variety of perspectives.<br><br>
Rafael Dias, from the NGO Global Justice, believes that Brazil exists as
a genocidal state because "there was never a rupture between the
slave-state and the modern state, and we have now an elitist state that
operates through violence to marginalize the indigenous, the black, and
the poor, who were all considered threats or dangerous
classes."<a href="http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6730#_ftn8">8</a>
In his opinion, "It's a question of state, not government."
That's why there were no significant changes with the installation of the
left-wing government in 2003. "Now we have the model of
militarization of the favelas because the poor continue to be considered
a permanent enemy, and that is the logic of public
security."<br><br>
The Left continues to treat inhabitants of favelas like lumpen, people
marginalized in society, explains Rafael Dias. "The Left does not
understand the situation of poor people. Because they aren't organized in
unions or parties, they don't form part of the leftist political agenda.
The leftists think they can resolve the problem applying compensation
policies like the Bolsa Familia, or "Family Allowance" Program.
We're repeating the three principles that existed during slavery, the
triple P: pao, pau y pano (bread, wood, and cloth)."<br><br>
Mauricio Campos is an engineer and he works in the Network against
Violence of Rio de Janeiro, which was born in 2003 when favelas mobilized
against police violence. "Our work consists in judicial service to
the people who suffer from violence. The main difficulty of working in
the favela is state violence, the fear, the massacres, because the people
who have permanent jobs are exposed to the same threats that terrorize
the poor
population."<a href="http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6730#_ftn9">
9</a> Campos believes that the Acari massacre, in 1990 in Rio, where 11
youths were killed, provoked a change in society because "it was the
first time there was an immense collective reaction from the families of
victims."<br><br>
Campos maintains that one cannot avoid the issue of "economic links
between organized crime and the police. The delinquents don't want any
charges to be brought against the police because they always solve
problems with bribes. According to social activists, the police are the
main problem because they always attack social organizations." He
adds that, "Violence against those living in the favelas has been on
the rise because the Brazilian elite have been world pioneers in
attacking the poor before they can organize. In other countries elitist
violence is reactionary, but here it is preemptive because we have a very
capable bourgeoisie, the most lucid in Latin America, which possesses an
apparatus of domination like the TV network Red Globo that you don't see
in other countries."<br><br>
The serious problem with drug-trafficking, in his opinion, is that
"it is the backbone of all criminal activity, and a big umbrella for
all illegal activities." On the other hand, the increase in
struggles of the 70s and 80s "was resolved by repression under the
dictatorship, but when democracy returned the direct repression stopped
and the criminalization of the poor began. It is an uncontrollable
process, because the police complex has an incredible autonomy to the
point that no government dares confront it."<br><br>
This is one of the key points: social change is denied to the poor,
black, and young majority. "If there was a strong social movement,
many of the youth would stop empathizing with the criminals and start
relating to the social struggle. Young people are swallowed up by a
process. They don't choose a crime, they're just bystanders, and
sometimes they want to seek revenge against the police because there is
no justice, social organization, nor guerrilla warfare. The only way out
is by joining drug-trafficking," Campos concludes.<br><br>
Social activists aren't the only ones with this type of analysis. It's
worth listening to one of the most important conservative voices of the
political spectrum, speaking from one of the highest offices that had to
confront organized crime in Sao Paulo, Governor Claudio Lembo.<br><br>
The day Lembo stepped down from his position, on December 31, 2006, he
gave an interview to Folha de Sao Paulo in which he spoke about the
tumultuous days of May. "During the crisis of the PCC, figures from
the white minority wanted 'eye for an eye' justice. They wanted to kill
everyone to save themselves and the white minority. That was what
irritated me the most. We were in an extremely difficult situation and we
had to show that the state could win within the law. They called me on
the phone, and a few individuals came to see
me."<a href="http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6730#_ftn10">10</a>
<br><br>
Lembo is a conservative who now belongs to the Democratic Party (DEM) and
who held departmental positions in Sao Paulo during the military
dictatorship. The journalist from Folha inquired about what the white
minority asked for, to which Lembo responded very clearly: "For the
police to go to the streets, at night, and carry out executions." He
never said who these people were who wanted vengeance even though they
were never directly affected by the violence. However it is clear that
they belong to the minority of the rich who utilize the state for their
own benefit.<br><br>
During the conflict, Lembo said that the violence will only end when the
white minority changes their mentality. "We have a very bad
bourgeoisie, a very perverse white minority. The bourgeoisie is going to
have to reach into their pockets to help sustain the social misery of
Brazil in the sense of creating jobs, expanding education, increasing
solidarity, and opening up more dialogue and correspondence about
situations."<br><br>
"In what ways are they responsible?" asks the journalist.
"During the historical formation of Brazil, when slaves were
liberated, the ones who received restitution were the slave owners, not
the free slaves as it happened in the United States. Brazil is a cynical
country."<a href="http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6730#_ftn11">
11</a><br><br>
If this is what a conservative man thinks and feels, a near 80-year-old
lawyer and university professor, a governor in charge of repressing
delinquents and to some extent a member of the elite he critiques,
"What might the poor, black, unemployed, continually persecuted
young people between 15 and 18 years old feel?"<br><br>
Débora explains it in her own way: "The poor don't have the right to
reach positions of power. Those are reserved for children of the
elite."<br>
<b> <br>
Notes:</b> <br><br>
1. "Extermination Groups under Investigation in Sao Paulo," AFP
and DPA, May 24, Sao Paulo.<br>
2. Idem. <br>
3. Reuters, Sao Paulo, May 19, 2006. <br>
4. Carta Mayor Agency, Sao Paulo, Feb. 17, 2007. <br>
5. Idem. <br>
6. Idem. <br>
7. Maes de Maio,
<a href="http://maesdemaio.blogspot.com/">
http://maesdemaio.blogspot.com/</a>. <br>
8. Rafael Dias interview. <br>
9. Mauricio Campos interview. <br>
10. Folha de Sao Paulo, Dec. 31, 2006, Mónica Bergamo interview. <br>
11. Folha de Sao Paulo, May 18, 2006, Mónica Bergamo interview. <br><br>
<i>Raúl Zibechi is an international analyst for Brecha of Montevideo,
Uruguay, lecturer and researcher on social movements at the Multiversidad
Franciscana de América Latina, and adviser to several social groups. He
writes the monthly "Zibechi Report" for the Americas Program
(<a href="http://www.americasprogram.org/">www.americasprogram.org</a>
).Brecha of Montevideo, Uruguay, lecturer and researcher on social
movements at the Multiversidad Franciscana de América Latina, and adviser
to several social groups. He writes the monthly "Zibechi
Report" for the Americas Program
(<a href="http://www.americasprogram.org/">www.americasprogram.org</a>
).<br><br>
Translated for the Americas Program by Brandon Brewer.<br><br>
<br><br>
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