Brazil: Save the Amazon!

 

Bring down the criminal Bolsonaro government! No to any imperialist intervention in the region!

 

Statement of the Corrente Comunista Revolucionária-CCR (Brazilian section of the RCIT), 24 August 2019, http://www.elmundosocialista.blogspot.com

 

 

 

Since taking office in January, President Bolsonaro has been criticizing the government's public officials who are responsible for protecting the environment, mainly in the Amazon. One of its first steps was to weaken state-owned companies responsible for protecting the environment and to forgive the debts of landowners and soy farmers while encouraging these sectors to commit environmental crimes. The minister responsible for environmental care, Ricardo Salles, against all scientific evidence, follows the lines of his chief president Bolsonaro and US president Donald Trump, that is, for him there is no process of global warming. Only a naive person could believe that any true environmental protection policy would take place with such people governing the country.

 

Let's get to the facts. On August 19, the population of the city of São Paulo and neighboring cities, the most populous urban region of South America with more than 20 million habitants, witnessed at 3 pm the day turn into night without any immediate explanation, causing fright and apprehension. A thick black cloud has broken over the region, and it is reported that in some places a dark rain has fallen.

 

Hours later, the National Institute of Meteorology (INMET) confirmed that the smoke has been originated from burning at various points in north of the country, specifically the Amazon rainforest, in Brazil's triple border with Bolivia, Paraguay. Experts say the darkness in Sao Paulo was caused by northern fires in conjunction with a cold front from the south.

 

There is no denying whose responsibility it is. Since the 2018 presidential election campaign, Bolsonaro has promised to put an end at any kind of environmental protection, to put an end in reservations for indigenous and quilombola’s protection, and to encourage illegal gold mining and deforestation in favor of its agribusiness electorate, so it should not be a surprise to anyone.

 

Bolsonaro's cretin and cynical speech since the 2018 election campaign by proclaiming himself nationalistic, patriotic, and against corruption cannot be sustained by reality. The economic reforms are destroying the working class rights and the great privatizations already done and those still being prepared, put our richeness directly in the hands of foreign companies, mainly of imperialist countries like USA, Europe and China. At the same time he and his family are totally involved with suspicions of strong links with Rio de Janeiro militias composed by ex-policemen. These militias has been in dispute against organized crime to control drug trafficking in the favelas, and are regarded as the prime suspects of the murder of Council woman Marielle Franco-PSOL, a case of international repercussion.

 

The Bolsonaro style of governing is crude, pathetic, rude. He defends the torture practiced by the old military regime with tranquillity as if it were the most normal thing in the world. His speech against minorities (Indians, black people, LGBTs) is known worldwide. His hatred of the environment and the defense of deforestation was part of the electoral campaign speech. All this under the complacency of a bourgeois monopolistic press, the judiciary, the Supreme Court, all committed to the main objective of preventing the electoral victory of the Workers Party at any cost. All this with the complicity and support of the economic elites, the middle class, mostly white, racist, historically slave-minded, and unfortunately of a sector of the working-class dominated by deeply conservative fundamentalist Christian bishops. Today there is a phenomenon in the country in some urban peripheries: the right-wing poor people, that is, a certain section of the working class that defends an economic agenda against themselves.

 

In short, this government's policy is linked to its project of surrendering national assets to foreign capital. In the case of Amazonia Bolsonaro had already tried unsuccessfully to deliver the strategic Alcântara Launch Center. (1) The Alcântara Launch Center has the same untapped importance as French Guyana's Kourou Space Center.

 

Faced with the tragedy of the Amazon forest fires, French President Emmanuel Macron is practically calling on the European Union and the G-7 to “ appropriate measures” to contain the devastation. Macron went so far as to say that "our house is burning." At the same time the German press is calling for a strong boycott of Brazilian products. By the close of this article, Angela Merkel of Germany, Justin Trudeau of Canada, and even ultra-conservative Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom have voiced their condemnation of the astonishing increase fires in Amazon forest. The Finnish government, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, wants the bloc to evaluate the possibility of banning beef from Brazil due to the devastation caused by burning in the Amazon. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was deeply concerned about it. He stressed that "we can no longer afford damage to one of the largest sources of oxygen and biodiversity."

 

We, from the Corrente Comunista Revolucionária-CCR firmly reject any imperialist intervention supposedly to save the Amazon or any economic boycott sponsored by imperialist countries. However, we are in favour of actions of the international worker movement in support of the struggle of the Brazilian workers and poor masses to stop the criminal Bolsonaro government.

 

Our task is to denounce this government by calling the population, social movements, progressive parties to take to the streets and defend the forest against this far-right, traitorous, surrender government. It is necessary to call for an indefinite general strike, cancel the fraudulent elections that elected Bolsonaro, cancel all neoliberal economic mediations, such as welfare reform, release all political prisoners, including former President Lula da Silva, and call for a revolutionary constituent national assembly. We have to bring down the Bolsonaro’s government and its vice-president general Mourão and at the same time have no confidence in any alliances with the traditional right that have done the 2016 coup that paved the way to the far right in the person of Jair Bolsonaro.

 

* National Revolutionary Constituent Assembly

 

* Freedom for all Political Prisoners

 

* Freedom for Lula

 

* Build the general political strike to overthrow the Bolsonaro-Mourão government!

 

* Convene popular assemblies in unions, workplaces and neighborhoods!

 

 

 

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alc%C3%A2ntara_Launch_Center