Tag: Brazil

Marielle Franco and the Brazilian Necropolis: Assassination and After Lives

By Xavier Durham

On March 14, 2018, news of the murder of Rio de Janeiro Councilor Marielle Franco rocked Brazil. A queer black woman, mother, feminist, and champion of Rio’s favela residents, Franco was an outspoken critic of police brutality. Her ascension as a human rights activist and elected representative gave hope for favela residents, especially Afro-Brazilian women vying for a voice in politics [1]. However, less than two years after her election, Marielle Franco was the victim of a coordinated assassination, along with her driver Anderson Pedro Gomes [2].

On March 12, 2019, the eve of the first anniversary of Franco’s murder, federal investigators in Brazil arrested two former police officers—Ronnie Lessa and Elcio Vieira de Queiróz—for their involvement in the killings. Both suspects were members of the Escritório do Crime (Crime Office), a criminal organization run by former and current law enforcement officials in the Rio das Pedras neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro [3]. Franco’s allies have long suspected that such groups, known in Brazil as militias, ordered her assassination. Their concerns held weight for four reasons: 1) Franco openly denounced former President Michel Temer’s order to militarize the city of Rio de Janeiro in February 2018 [4]; 2) the recovered bullet casings belong to ammunition purchased by the Federal Police in 2006 (the bullets used to kill Franco were reportedly stolen from a post office) [5]; 3) five cameras (that belong to Rio’s Security Department) along the route where Franco was assassinated were shut off anywhere between 24 and 48 hours prior to the killing [6]; and 4) extrajudicial killings and cover-ups involving police officers in Brazil rarely undergo investigation and point to a macabre, cyclical impunity [7]. Despite the arrests of Lessa and Vieira, Afro-Brazilians and the poor harbor serious doubts about obtaining justice, either for Marielle Franco and Anderson Gomes or the countless other black Brazilians killed by police every day.

Barbara Harlow’s work on assassinations provides a useful frame for addressing the structural underpinnings of these killings. Instead of relying on the state to play “detective” and investigate crimes, we must understand how the state determines the nature of crime and those it criminalizes [8]. Afro-Brazilians take little solace in the Brazilian government’s promise to prosecute those who pulled the trigger in Franco’s case, given how the state continues to perpetuate an unwavering politics of death. As Harlow might ask, what hope for justice is there for any and all black victims given that the circumstances of Franco’s death have been replicated time and time again [9]? Indeed, the very state that they uphold as an arbiter for justice is actually the conduit through which the most structural, anti-black sentiments proliferate and remain entrenched.

Franco’s assassination reflects the violent, banal reality of police anti-blackness in Brazil. But it is also part of the quotidian nature of white supremacy and the attendant everyday experiences of anti-blackness that the spectacle of police violence obscures [10]. The spectacle of violence does not stop with the state as death squads [11]; indeed, private security also takes center stage [12]. After violent death has occurred, mourning friends and family remain vulnerable to threats and harassment from police to encourage absolute silence and deter investigation [13]. Thus, the emotional and psychological impact of anti-black state violence transcends the victims’ families and bleeds out into their communities, corrupting the health and vitality of those stuck in a shadow of death (i.e., Afro-Brazilian mothers). Black execution is nothing short of genocide.

The violent cycle feeds into what anthropologist Jaime Alves calls the “Black Necropolis,” whereby the interpellation of blackness excludes Afro-Brazilians from the rights of citizenship and, ultimately, their own lives [14]. Fatal interpellation and the direct connection to the Brazilian state is best summarized by the popular truism, “if you want to know who is black and who is not in Brazil, just ask the police” [15]. This axiom affirms that blackness is defined by its proximity to state violence and coercion. Alongside this sobering reality, Marielle Franco’s assassination illuminates how the Brazilian state maintains control through a violent politics of death, and how state-centered justice is virtually unattainable, especially in the face of dissent.

By examining the assassinations of political dissidents and writers speaking out against state oppression, Harlow illuminated those who lived by the pen and died by the sword, all of whom were in the pursuit of radical justice. Her critical analysis of the complexity of assassinations, exposing the violent innerworkings of the state, translates to the circumstances surrounding Marielle Franco and anti-black violence in Brazil. Like dissidents before her, Franco was a threat to an established order that upheld the status quo and praised a neoliberal bent of progress. Her opposition is exemplified in her denouncement of former President Michel Temer’s order to deploy federal troops to favelas under the guise of crime reduction and security [16]. For that, her silence was paramount within the particularities of a macabre, death-driven logic all too common to the Brazilian state’s repertoire [17]. Indeed, to rely on the state to confront the pervasiveness of one of its foundational components through criminal investigation is to reinforce this component and uphold the state’s legitimacy as it stands. Harlow understood the fraught nature of political dissent and how justice cannot come from the propagator of injustice lest we remain satisfied with cosmetic solutions to deeply-entrenched structural issues.

The Brazilian state cannot and will not provide the avenues necessary for justice, and until the Necropolis crumbles, convictions for the murders of Marielle Franco and Anderson Gomes are mere parodies. Therefore, activists carrying on the struggle today must reimagine the future of Brazilian governance through a radical and intersectional political agenda that honors Franco’s legacy. Among the necessary components to this radical reimagining of Brazil, black life must be affirmed and elevated beyond mere survival; Afro-Brazilians must thrive. For now, the struggle continues as activists across Brazil rally against police brutality in a state where they were otherwise never meant to survive. Through these campaigns, Marielle Franco lives on.

#MariellePresente

#AndersonPresente

Bibliography

  1. Theresa Williamson, “Marielle Franco’s Legacy the the fight for Rio’s, and Brazil’s, Future,” RIOONWATCH, March 21st, 2018, http://www.rioonwatch.org/?p=42394.
  2. Dom Phillips, “Marielle Franco: Brazil’s favelas mourn the death of a champion,” The Guardian, March 17, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/18/marielle-franco-brazil-favelas-mourn-death-champion.
  3. Redação RBA, “’Escritório do Crime’ está por trás do assassinato de Marielle,” Rede Brasil Atual, March 12, 2019, https://www.redebrasilatual.com.br/politica/2019/03/escritorio-do-crime-esta-por-tras-do-assassinato-de-marielle.
  4. Dom Phillips, “Brazilian army to take control of security in Rio as violence rises,” The Guardian, February 16, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/16/brazilian-army-rio-de-janeiro-michel-temer.
  5. Leonardo Demori, Carolina Moura, Juliana Gonçalves, Yuri Eiras, and Bruna de Lara, “Who Killed Eduardo, Matheus, and Reginaldo?,” The Intercept, March 21, 2018, https://theintercept.com/2018/03/21/marielle-franco-death-brazil-violence-police/.
  6. teleSUR, “Brazil: Public Security Cameras En Route to Marielle Franco’s Home Were Turned Off Before Assassination,” May 4, 2018, https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Brazil-Public-Security-Cameras-En-Route-to-Marielle-Francos-Home-Were-Turned-Off-Before-Assassination-20180504-0002.html.
  7. Human Rights Watch, Good Cops Are Afraid: The Toll of Unchecked Police Violence in Rio de Janeiro. São Paulo: Human Rights Watch, 2016: 5.
  8. Barbara Harlow, After Lives: Legacies of Revolutionary Writing. New York: Verso, 1996: 22.
  9. This question is a paraphrased re-wording of the next dilemma Harlow sees in the aftermath of assassination (See: After Lives, pg. 21).
  10. Christen Smith, “Strange Fruit: Brazil, “Necropolitics, and the Transnational Resonance of Torture and Death.” Souls 15, no. 3 (2013): 177–198.
  11. Death squads are usually groups of vigilantes, current officers, and ex-military personnel that abduct and/or kill primarily Afro-Brazilians under the cover of night. The state’s lack of investigation into cases involving alleged death squad participation highlights their complicity in the practice and reinforces its anti-black logic.
  12. Martha K. Huggins, “Urban Violence and Police Privatization in Brazil: Blended Invisibility.” Social Justice 27, no. 2 (2000): 113–134.
  13. Christen Smith, “The Dangerous Game of Mourning the Dead: Police Violence and the Black Community in Brazil,” Truthout, March 3, 2016, http://www.truth-out.org/speakout/item/35078-the-dangerous-game-of-mourning-the-dead-police-violence-and-the-black-community-in-brazil.
  14. Jaime Alves, The Anti-Black City: Police Terror and Black Urban Life in Brazil. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
  15. Jaime Alves, “From Necropolis to Blackpolis: Necropolitical Governance and Black Spatial Praxis in São Paulo, Brazil.” Antipode46, no. 2 (2014): 328 – 329.
  16. Dom Phillips, “Brazilian army to take control of security in Rio as violence rises,” The Guardian, February 16, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/16/brazilian-army-rio-de-janeiro-michel-temer.
  17. Ernesto Londoño and Lis Moriconi, “Ex-Officers Arrested in Killing of Marielle Franco, Brazilian Politician and Activist, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/12/world/americas/marielle-arrest-rio.html.

Xavier Durham was the inaugural Barbara Harlow Intern in Human Rights and Social Justice at the Rapoport Center, in Spring 2018. He will soon begin the second year of his PhD program in Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. After studying Black Feminist activism in Rio de Janeiro in the Summer of 2016, Xavier hopes to return in the Summer of 2020 to resume his work on private policing, surveillance, and anti-black violence.

Volatile Times for Brazil’s Human Rights

by Eyal Weinberg

15 FEB 2018

The decision of Porto Alegre’s appeals court to uphold the corruption conviction of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva three weeks ago (1/24/2018) threw Brazil into turmoil. The former Brazilian president (2003-2010) is the last to be targeted in the grandiose “Car Wash” investigation, a major probe into the rampant corruption in Brazil’s political and economic systems. The ruling was not the first to remove a powerful figure from Brazil’s political landscape; since 2014, special prosecution task forces have secured the imprisonment of various influential politicians and business moguls. But Lula’s conviction overshadows all previous spectacular moments of the Car Wash investigation.  A study by the Getulio Vargas Foundation has already concluded that the ruling was the leading political event on social media in Brazil in the past two years, counting 1.2 million online references in less than 24 hours.

The implications of the ruling exceed the realms of social media, of course. Last July, the court found Lula guilty of receiving a beachside apartment from a construction company in exchange for lucrative contracts in state projects. Now, the appellate court not only unanimously declined Lula’s appeal, but also voted to increase his sentence from nine to twelve years in prison. More than sending one of the most popular presidents in Brazilian history to jail, the sentence makes Lula ineligible to run for the coming October presidential elections (under Brazil’s Clean Slate law). The former union leader-turned president still has a few more routes of appeal left—he has denied any wrongdoing and already reaffirmed his presidential nomination—but the prospects are far from rosy.

Public opinion is very much divided over the recent court’s decision. Opponents of Lula celebrated the ruling and the ousting of whom they consider the “head of a crime organization.” The Brazilian stock exchange closed on a record high (up 3.72 percent) on the day of the verdict, indicating how badly investors wanted Lula out. Demonstrating the judiciary’s mistrust in the former president, a federal judge ordered the seizure of Lula’s passport the following day. Lula’s supporters, however, are confident in his innocence and maintain that the Car Wash investigation has deteriorated into a political witch-hunt against him and the Workers’ Party. They point to irregularities in the tribunal’s proceedings and see its ruling as a direct continuation of the 2016 impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff (Lula’s successor in the Workers’ Party). Even some conservative commentators criticized the judicial process. Indeed, the hastiness of the appellate court in considering Lula’s appeal—typical cases wait in line for over a year before getting a hearing—and the fact that his charges were far less severe than those of other politicians who stole millions but were never indicted cast the court’s decision in a suspicious light, at best.

For now, however, Lula leads the polls, earning over 36 percent of the potential votes in the coming October election. What is the reason for his enduring strong appeal? Lula’s magnetic charisma, and the Workers Party’s sophisticated political mechanism that cultivates support across Brazil’s poor northeast are key factors. It is also true that none of the other presidential hopefuls have yet been able to offer a compelling platform, and voters tend to stick with what they remember to have worked. But this is only half the story. Perhaps it is worthwhile to revisit some of the advancements Lula and his successor Rousseff have implemented during their terms, particularly in regards to human rights.

The biggest success of Lula’s government was the transformative and internationally-celebrated bolsa família program, which lifted 20 million Brazilians above poverty level. The plan, part of Lula’s Fome Zero (Zero Hunger) policy, was accompanied by various other programs that expanded access to postsecondary education (ProUni), increased rural credit to poor farmers (PRONAF), and reduced food insecurity (PAA). The administration also raised the minimum wage and advanced policy change in regards to housing, health, and land rights for various populations (among them quilombo communities). Many of these programs were further expanded under Dilma Rousseff’s Brasil Sem Miseria (Brazil Without Extreme Poverty) policy. Lula’s government also promoted racial equality and encouraged affirmative action mechanisms in the education system (through REUNI and SINAPIR). Rousseff later enacted the latter, passing the pioneering Quotas Law that requires federal universities to reserve up to 50% of their admission spots to students of low-income families and African or indigenous descent. Of course, Rousseff’s centerpiece of human rights policy was the formation of Brazil’s National Truth Commission (2012-2014), which examined human right violations taking place under the country’s military dictatorship (1964-1985).

This concise list indicates the level of commitment to social and human rights policy under the Workers’ Party rule. This is in addition to a momentous reform in environmental policy, which among other things drove deforestation of the Amazon down by over 80% (through the PPCDAm plan). Notwithstanding various criticisms levelled against some of the above programs, Lula and Rousseff’s agenda had a dramatic, typically positive effect on the lives of Brazilians, particularly low-income citizens. It is perhaps no surprise that Lula still captures the hearts of millions of voters. President Michel Temer, who took office after Rousseff’s impeachment in 2016, had already scaled down many of Lula’s initiated programs. The long-time supporter of the soy and cattle rancher oligarchy had also promoted concessions to mining in national protected areas, launched a massive privatization plan, curbed public spending, and is set to pass more austerity measures—among them a substantial cut in pension benefits. Just last month President of the Lower House Rodrigo Maia had publicly said that the Bolsa Família program “enslaves people.”

To be sure, the current alternatives for the presidency pale in comparison to the now convicted-former president Lula. Temer is perhaps the least favorite president since the end of military rule. His approval ratings are in the single digit range, and in recent poll, 90% of Brazilians said they would not vote for any candidate aligned with the current government’s platform. More alarming is the fact that the leadership vacuum invites reactionary, threatening waves. Currently second in the polls for the 2018 Presidential election is federal congressman Jair Bolsonaro, a former military officer who aspires to be Brazil’s next Trump—or perhaps Rodrigo Duterte. Promising to uproot corruption for good, Bolsonaro has already expressed his support of torture and extrajudicial killing of criminals. Various times he spoke about the military dictatorship with nostalgia, reminiscing of the regime’s “law and order.” And he suggested that beating your children can prevent them from becoming gay.

Bolsonaro’s controversial homophobic, racist, and hateful statements find sympathetic ears with those despaired of the ongoing economic recession, political stagnation, and peaking crime rate. Many of them have lost faith in the democratic institutions, and are slowly moving towards acceptance of authoritarianism. A recent survey concluded that 43% of the population would support a “temporary military intervention,” and another poll showed that 23% of Brazilians would back either a military regime or a “strong leader.” As the notion of a military coup is no longer taboo in public debate, and with Lula’s political future uncertain, Brazilians—and especially human rights advocates—should brace themselves for an intense, explosive year.

Eyal Weinberg is a PhD candidate in the History Department at The University of Texas at Austin, and he is a member of the 2017-2018 Working Paper Series Editorial Committee. His area of focus is twentieth-century Brazil.

New Research on the Relationships between Businesses and Military Regimes under Latin America’s Cold War

by Eyal Weinberg

13 FEB 2017

State terror and human rights violations during Latin America’s authoritarian phase have been amply studied in the past two decades. Scholarship has revealed how Cold War military dictatorships and juntas-headed national security states detained, tortured, and disappeared hundreds of thousands of civilians— from indigenous groups in Central America to political activists in the Southern Cone. Studies have also illuminated how the relations of military regimes with various international and domestic forces—among them U.S. policymakers, Church representatives, technocratic experts, and industrialists—enabled and facilitated that repression. Yet many facets of the repressive apparatus remain under-examined.

Recently, scholars are returning to scrutinize the interplay between business corporations and Latin American regimes. Early literature has already unraveled the close ties between business elites and authoritarian rules, from the state’s reliance on industrialists in developing a pro-market, open economy, to industrialists’ consent and sometimes-active support of coups d’état and ensuing state-led repression.  Today, newly available archives and updated approaches to the study of Latin America’s Cold War allow researchers to revisit some of these issues, as well as other questions that explore the entanglements between corporations and regimes.

Studies exemplifying this new wave of research were presented last September in a special workshop at the University of Göttingen in Germany. Presentations shed light on the changing nature of relationships between businesses and dictatorships across states and over time, analyzing the transitions from collaborations to conflicts and even opposition. They also examined the direct and indirect roles companies played in state-sponsored repression.  And they explicated how the regimes’ policy planning met business interests to introduce new domestic industries—healthcare, energy, and pharmaceutical markets, to name a few. The histories of multinational corporations under the military rules received a particular focus. Moving beyond the traditional interpretation of the authoritarian state as a guarantor of international companies, papers focused on how subsidiaries dealt with both state apparatuses and parent corporations, typically located in Europe or North America.

In Argentina, for example, German companies Deutz, Siemens, and Daimler-Benz held subsidiaries operating during the Dirty War. Case studies examined how these businesses reacted to workers’ protests and union demands, as well as how they handled reports of disappeared people in their correspondence with the distant board of directors. In 2015, for example, a team of Argentinian researchers supported by Argentina’s Ministry of Justice published a detailed report that investigates the responsibility of domestic and multinational companies in regard to human rights violations carried out on the premises of their factories. The workshop’s papers also payed considerable attention to the relationship of Volkswagen do Brasil (a subsidiary of the German car manufacturer) with the Brazilian regime and its counterinsurgency agencies. The Brazilian National Truth Commission (2012-2014) concluded that over 70 corporations, among them Volkswagen, provided security agencies with blacklists of unionizing and “problematic” workers, some of whom were later detained or fired. The workshop’s presentations illustrated the controversy over the extent of VW’s collaboration with state repression, a result of inaccessible or missing archival material. For now, appeals are still in review at the office of the Attorney General.

As the last example demonstrates, there is much to reveal about the intricate relationships between corporations and authoritarian regimes in Latin America, and particularly about their relation to human rights violations. Further archival research, as well as intellectual exchanges focused on that theme, will expand current knowledge and scholarship.

Eyal Weinberg is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at The University of Texas at Austin and member of the 2016-2017 Working Paper Series Editorial Committee.