Global Voices » Maisie Fitzpatrick

Guinea-Bissau: Constitutional Limits on the Presidential Elections

Maisie Fitzpatrick — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 17:55:50 +0000

The first round of the presidential elections in Guinea Bissau, brought forward to 18 March following the death of the previous president, Malam Bacai Sanhá, earlier this year, may have featured a number of irregularities [pt] that would undermine the second round of voting, planned for 22 April.

Those contesting the result include Kumba Ialá, former president and leader of the main opposition party, the PRS (Partido da Renovação Social, Social Renewal Party), who received 23.36% of the votes. Ialá is calling [pt] for the ballot to be declared invalid and for voters to be registered afresh, and refusing to participate in the run-off with Carlos Gomes Junior, Prime Minister and candidate for the renowned PAIGC (Partido Africano para a Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde, African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde), which received 48.97% of the vote.

A polling station. Photo by Helena Ferro de Gouveia, on Facebook (used with permission)

A statement delivered by five of the candidates denounces ‘hidden electoral registers, fake voting cards, double voting, fake polling stations and the illegal movement of voters and election material’, as reported [pt] by the Público newspaper.

Sónia Ferreira, from the Forte Apache blog, adds [pt]:

Serifo Nhamadjo [15,75%], Henrique Rosa [5,4%], Serifo Baldé [0,46%] , Afonso Té [1,38%] e Kumba Ialá, alegam ter ocorrido fraude generalizada e actos de corrupção durante as eleições.

Cerca de metade dos guineenses inscritos nos cadernos eleitorais não votaram nas eleições presidenciais, no que constitui a mais alta taxa de abstenção, cerca de 45 por cento, alguma vez vista nas eleições na Guiné-Bissau.

Serifo Nhamadjo [15.75% of the vote], Henrique Rosa [5.4%], Serifo Baldé [0.46%], Afonso Té [1.38%] and Kuma Ialá claim that there has been widespread fraud and corruption during the elections.

Approximately half of Bissau-Guineans on the electoral roll did not vote in the presidential elections, making this the highest rate of abstention ever seen in elections in Guinea-Bissau, at around 45%.

In spite of the apparently unrelated assassination [pt] of the former head of the intelligence service, Colonel Samba Djaló, only a few hours after the polls closed, the presidential elections were praised by Bissau-Guineans and the international community alike for having taken place ‘in an orderly and peaceful manner’.

That is how the Portuguese journalist Helena Ferro de Gouveia, born in Guinea-Bissau and back there to cover the elections for Deutsche Welle, describes [pt] the elections on her blog, Domadora de Camaleões. She also depicts the ‘mess' that followed, surrounding the vote-counting and announcement of the election results:

À medida que iam sendo contados os votos, contagem manual note-se, a informação ia sendo transmitida de forma informal, quer a candidatos, quer a jornalistas, quer a observadores. Na véspera do anúncio dos resultados preliminares, Carlos Gomes Júnior liderava com maioria absoluta, segundo o “boca a boca”. Isto explica a tomada de posição de Kumba Ialá (e de outros quatro candidatos, Henrique Rosa, Serifo Nhamadjo, Serifo Balde e Afonso Té), que acabaria por passar à segunda volta, de “recusar todos os resultados” e pedir a anulação das eleições.

Só que na quarta-feira de manhã [21 de Março], com o apuramento dos votos em falta, Gomes Júnior falharia por uma margem escassa (obteve 49 por cento de votos) a vitória à primeira volta e o controverso Kumba Ialá (23 por cento) como segundo candidato mais votado deveria disputar uma segunda volta. Acontece que Kumba não quer, alegando fraude na primeira volta do escrutínio, e agora procura-se uma solução para o imbróglio.

Candidates, journalists and onlookers were being given unofficial updates as the votes were being counted by hand. On the eve of the announcement of the preliminary results, Carlos Gomes Junior was leading with an absolute majority, according to the word on the street. This explains why Kumba Ialá and the four other candidates, Henrique Rosa, Serifo Nhamadjo, Serifo Balde and Afonso Té, took the stance that they did, urging a new round of voting, rejecting all results and calling for the outcome to be declared invalid.

However, on the morning of Wednesday 21 March, when the missing votes were counted, it was found that Gomes Junior had fallen just short of victory in the first round, with 49% of the vote. As the second-place candidate, the controversial Kumba Ialá, with 23%, might have contested a second round. He chose not to do so, alleging instead that the first ballot was fraudulent, and is now looking for a way out of this muddle.

A constitutional “muddle”

Article 64 of the Constitution of the Republic [pt] of Guinea-Bissau states that the President should be elected by an absolute majority, and that if no candidate obtains an absolute majority in the first round, a new ballot should take place within 21 days, in which only the two candidates with the greatest number of votes should stand.

Early presidential elections, 2012. In the second round Carlos Gomes Junior will stand against Kumba Ialá. Images from the blog Ditadura do Consenso (used with permission).

Ialá’s refusal to participate in the second round of the presidential elections allows for the possibility that the April ballot will take place with a single candidate – Carlos Gomes Junior. Quoting the Guinean lawyer Juliano Fernandes, former Attorney General of Guinea-Bissau and current professor at the Bissau Law Faculty, Helena Ferro de Gouveia says:

Neste caso, o candidato terá de se sujeitar à votação para confirmar ou não a eleição, salientou.”Sendo essa a interpretação, no caso de desistência do outro candidato, o outro (o mais votado) concorre sozinho, ainda que se possa questionar a legitimidade democrática por se ter concorrido sozinho”.

In this case, the candidate would have to be subject to a vote in order to confirm the result of the election. Fernandes adds that, ‘as this is the interpretation of the law, if the other candidate withdraws, the remaining candidate – the one with the most votes – runs alone, even though one might question the democratic legitimacy of such a vote, given that there is only one candidate’.

Fernando Casimiro has conducted a lengthy analysis [pt] on his blog, Didinho, on the constitution and electoral law, calling attention to ‘some matters of paramount importance to be taken into consideration before seeking to terminate a process which may be slow in yielding an outcome’:

O primeiro aspecto a considerar será necessariamente a resposta às reivindicações de um grupo constituído por cinco candidatos (incluindo o segundo mais votado) formalmente apresentadas à Comissão Nacional de Eleições.

O segundo aspecto é, por via do primeiro, o pronunciamento da Comissão Nacional de Eleições sobre as reivindicações apresentadas pelos cinco candidatos contestatários.

Satisfeita ou não as reivindicações, pode haver publicação ou não dos resultados oficiais finais, com a marcação ou adiamento da data da realização da segunda volta.

O adiamento deve ser considerado porque em caso de insatisfação quanto às suas reivindicações e por direito, o grupo de candidatos contestatários pode avançar com a reivindicação para o Supremo Tribunal de Justiça que deverá pronunciar-se sobre o assunto. Tempo a correr, tempo a passar…

Só depois do pronunciamento do Supremo Tribunal de Justiça quanto às reivindicações apresentadas pelo grupo dos cinco candidatos contestatários é que a Comissão Nacional de Eleições poderá anunciar os resultados finais oficiais.

Se depois disso, esgotando-se o processo reivindicativo, com o pedido de anulação do escrutínio feito pelos contestatários, o segundo candidato mais votado decidir formalmente pela desistência ou pela recusa em participar na segunda volta, deve ter-se em atenção a interpretação em relação a desistência e recusa ou rejeição… em função dos motivos, das razões evocadas pelo candidato em questão.

Consideration needs to be given in the first place to providing a response to the demands of the group of five candidates, including the one who received the second highest number of votes, which were formally submitted to the National Electoral Committee.

In conjunction with this, the National Electoral Committee also needs to issue a statement on the demands of the five candidates who have contested the outcome.Whether or not these demands are met, there is also the question of whether the final official results should be made public, along with setting or postponing the date for the second round of voting to be carried out.

Postponement should be considered, as, under law, if their demands have not been met, the group of candidates who are contesting the result may present them to the Supreme Court of Justice, who will rule on the matter. And that all takes time…

Only after the pronouncement by the Supreme Court of Justice on the demands submitted by the group of five candidates contesting the result can the National Electoral Committee announce the official results.

If, after this process has been carried out, and the call for the ballot to be deemed invalid has been made by those contesting the result, the candidate with the second highest number of votes formally decides to withdraw from or refuse to participate in the second round, the interpretation of the law as regards withdrawal or refusal should be applied, in the light of the motives and reasons given by the candidate in question.

Online Highlights from the Portuguese-Speaking World in 2011

Maisie Fitzpatrick — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 02:11:32 +0000

2011 has been another year in which bloggers and activists from a number of Portuguese-speaking countries have come together to report, translate and promote blogs and citizen media from all over the world. This article selects the highlights in the coverage of Lusophone countries on Global Voices over the last year.

Portuguese language and culture

In February we covered several blogs that gave voice to their love of the Portuguese language, paying tribute to the great variety of dialects spoken by more than 200 million people worldwide.

Hau nia lian, hau nia rain (My language, my country). Photo by Sapo Noticias Timor Leste (public domain)

In May the newspaper @Verdade, our partner in Mozambique, described Portuguese as a language that is bound up in what it means to be Mozambican.

In its coverage of Timor Leste, Global Voices examined the role of languages in asserting the identity of a country which has 16 national languages and dozens of dialects. Some blogs on Cape Verde also suggested that there are “distinct social functions” for both the language spoken by the people, Crioulo, and the official language, Portuguese.

Online demonstrations brought a more political dimension to bear on this issue, with heated reactions to the proposal for Equatorial Guinea to become a member of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, despite having a poor track record on human rights.

Brazil: Paths towards Development

In spite of the current global crisis, Brazil is experiencing a period of economic optimism fuelled by domestic consumption. In order to maintain this growth, ongoing development policy in the country has been putting pressure on the environment and human rights.

The social cost of the rising demand for biofuels: the indigenous Guarani Kaoiwa community of Laranjeira Nhanderu were expelled from their lands 14 months ago to make way for sugarcane plantations. Photo by Annabel Symington, copyright Demotix (10/21/10).

The Amazon rainforest is seen as potential land for agriculture and as a source of raw materials and energy. Brazil's new forestry code, which regulates the use of the country's forests, has led to concerns and public demonstrations against the encouragement of farming and deforestation. “Green” agribusiness focused on biofuels and the replacement of felled trees with eucalyptus plantations have been shown to be unsustainable practices in both social and environmental terms. The dispute for land provoked by agribusiness led to the killing of activists and indigenous leaders during 2011. Yet Brazil is persisting in exporting its agribusiness model to other countries, such as Mozambique, regardless.

Coverage of events surrounding the Belo Monte Dam certainly caused the greatest outcry this year, uniting environmentalists, indigenous people and Brazilians living alongside the affected rivers. Protests in the immediate area of the dam and in major cities attracted international attention and challenged the human rights policy of Dilma Rousseff's government. This action did not wane after construction of the plant began, but rather took on different forms, including an Occupy protest by the Tupiniquim people and court cases.

These and related issues have been organised into four special features: Forest Focus: Amazon, Dossiê Belo Monte [only in pt], Indigenous Rights and Global Development.

Portugal: Crisis, Austerity and Protests

From the “Scraping-by Generation” protest in March to participation in the global protests on 15 October, Portugal has seen its political and economic crisis reach unprecedented proportions in 2011, with the fall of a government and the EU committee coming into the country to effect the financial “rescue” of public debt.

Keep calm and protest: outraged protesters outside Porto Town Hall. Photo by the protest organisers, 15 October.

Netizens took to social networks to mobilise action against severe austerity measures and to speak out in opposition to the racket conducted by the rating agencies, but also to gain inspiration from other countries, such as Iceland, on other forms of public participation.

Having launched a page devoted to special coverage of the current situation, Europe in Crisis, in September, Global Voices has acted as a bridge between different languages and has facilitated greater dialogue between outraged citizens from European countries that are suffering similar problems.

Angola: 32 Years in Power sparks Protests

In Angola the sense of revolt against the 32-year government led by José Eduardo dos Santos is becoming increasingly palpable in the streets and on the internet. Protests would have begun in March had the government not been successful in pre-empting them.

In September the police used heavy force to break up a protest, resulting in at least 18 protesters receiving prison sentences. Against all expectations, the movement has regrouped, while the number of citizen reporters in the country is also on the increase.

Video uploaded to the post Angola: Videos of Repressed Youth Protest in Luanda

Internet and the digital culture in Brazil

The fruits of increasingly widespread access to the internet in Brazil were borne out in 2011 by many creative, collective and effective examples of action. One such case was the mobilisation of social networks to take down a paedophile blog, and the call put out on Facebook to join in the unique “Different People's Big Barbeque Protest” in an upscale São Paulo neighbourhood.

Protest poster which reads "We want to be Maria Bethania", organised by Leon Prado on Facebook.

The online arena has also been the scene for a number of less auspicious episodes related to digital culture. In January the Ministry of Culture announced that it was abandoning Creative Commons licensing on its site, a blatant step backwards in public policy on the internet and copyright. Shortly afterwards, in March, the same ministry allowed the famous signer Maria Bethânia to raise 1.3 million reais tax-free for the creation of a poetry blog, thereby rousing the ire of bloggers, the twitterati and activists involved in the cultural sphere.

Cases of online censorship continue to crop up and, on occasion, overflow into the non-virtual world, with attacks on bloggers who are critical of the authorities.

In December we became aware of renewed death threats made against Ricardo Gama, who blogs against cases of the abuse of power and other irregularities by the Brazilian police. Gama had already been shot in an attack in Rio de Janeiro in March. Towards the end of this year, many were not convinced by the reason of “suicide by hanging” given for the death of Hamilton Alexandre, a controversial blogger from Santa Catarina, and social networks are being used to call for a thorough investigation of the case.

In 2012 we will continue to listen to the stories that are being told by the citizens of the world through the internet, and to amplify them so that they reach a global audience. Our doors are always open to anyone who wants to get involved in what Super magazine earlier this year dubbed “one of the 10 coolest projects on the internet”.

http://pt.globalvoicesonline.org/?p=25165

João Miguel Lima collaborated on this post.

Brazil: Census “Reveals” Majority of Population is Black or Mixed Race

Maisie Fitzpatrick — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 11:18:16 +0000

[All links lead to Portuguese language pages except when otherwise noted.]

For the first time in Brazilian history, the national census has shown that the majority of the population, 50.7% of a total 190,732,694 people, is black or mixed race. The 2010 census revealed that most of the black population is concentrated in the north and northeast of the country, and that it has the highest rate of illiteracy among the over-15 age group (between 24.7% and 27.1%).

Research has shown that there is still marked inequality in terms of income throughout the country, with the richest strata of society earning 42 times more than the poorest. Half of the Brazilian population lives on less than 375 reais per month [approximately USD $200], an amount less than the minimum wage (510 reais [approximately USD $275] at the time that the studies were carried out). Of the 16.2 million people living in extreme poverty (approximately 8.5% of the population), which is classified as having an income of 70 reais [approximately USD $38] per month or less, 70.8% are black.

In short, the average wages for black and mixed race Brazilians are 2.4 times lower than those earned by citizens of white and Far Eastern origin. In addition to this, they die younger as a result of difficult living conditions, violence and poor access to healthcare. Released on the eve of Black Awareness Day [en], these figures give rise to concerns about the situation of the Brazil's black population.

Photo by Jean Marconi, taken at Cavalcante (Goiás), published on Flickr with a Creative Commons licence (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).

Some people believe that the black population is actually even larger, as race is often confused with skin colour in Brazil. Marcelo Paxu recounts the conversation that he had with the researcher when his turn came to respond to the census:

- Qual a sua cor????
Eu perguntei o que ele achava e ele respondeu que eu é que tinha que responder qual cor eu preferia, respondi que preferia AZUL, ele então mudou a pergunta….
- Qual é a sua raça??
Respondi que era Negro ele me olhou de cima abaixo e indagou:
- Mas o Sr.é branco!!!!!!!!
Eu irritado respondi: …Meu amigão sei que não tem culpa, mas vou lhe explicar uma coisa…..sou neto de NEGRA, filho de NEGRA ,irmão de NEGRA e meu tio avó era tão PRETO que chegava a ser AZUL (cor que tinha dito a ele que mais gostava) e você ainda acha que sou branco??????

‘What colour are you?’
I asked what he meant, and he answered that I should respond by saying which colour I preferred to put down. When I said that I preferred blue, he changed the question.
‘What race are you?’
I answered that I was black. He looked me up and down, and then burst out, ‘But you’re white!’
Irritated, I replied, ‘Mate, I don’t blame you, but I’m going to explain something to you: I’m the grandson of a black woman, the son of a black woman, the brother of a black woman, and my great-uncle was so black that he was practically blue (the colour that I had said was my favourite), and now you’re telling me that I’m white?’

Mulling over the figures in a post to mark Black Awareness Day, Lari Carvalho talks about an increase in awareness, although not necessarily amongst the black population:

Na realidade, a consciência da importância da cultura africana para a história nacional, bem como o orgulho do brasileiro de ser descendente de negros têm aumentado nos últimos anos.

Prova disso são os resultados do último censo do IBGE, que indicam que a proporção de brasileiros que se definem como negros ou pardos aumentou de 44,7% para 50,7%, desde 2000. […]

O grande avanço que o resultado do último censo revela é a consciência da valorização da própria identidade entre os afro-brasileiros.

The fact is that awareness of the importance of African culture in our national history and Brazilians’ pride in their black origins have increased in recent years.

This is borne out by the results of the last census, which show that the proportion of Brazilians describing themselves as black or mixed race has increased from 44.7% to 50.7% since 2000.

This means that for the very first time since the census was first carried out, the official statistics show that black and mixed race citizens make up the majority of the Brazilian population.

The major change revealed by the last census is the way in white African Brazilians are showing an awareness of the value of their own identity.

Lays Santos is bemused that in a country where the majority of the population identifies itself as black, there is a need for a specific day to draw attention to black awareness. She thinks that “something must be wrong if we’re finding ourselves “obliged” to celebrate this day“:

[…] a sua essência está justamente em chamar atenção para inserção do negro na sociedade brasileira. Logo, podemos imaginar que ainda a população negra sofre desvantagem quando o assunto é o exercício da cidadania.
Claro que sim. Infelizmente esse problema das relações raciais no Brasil que influenciam na construção do ser social e no exercício da cidadania, está camuflado pelo mito da Democracia racial. Onde se acredita não haver desigualdade social devido à diferença étnico-racial. Quando na verdade, as estatísticas nos mostram o contrário. Como entender que a maioria da população é discriminada pela sua origem cultural? Como entender que o povo que ajudou a construir nosso país seja ainda discriminado por causa da cor da pele? Não é o Brasil um país de todos? Ao menos devia ser… O censo 2010 mostrou que ainda a desigualdade social está ainda associada a cor da pele. E isso precisa ser combatido com urgência!

[…] In essence, the precise purpose of this day is to draw attention to the inclusion of black people in Brazilian society. This leads us to suppose that the black population still suffers from disadvantages when it comes to exercising their citizenship.

This is clearly the case. Unfortunately, this problem of race relations in Brazil, which has an impact on social identity and citizenship, is camouflaged by the myth of racial democracy – the belief that there is no social inequality based on ethnic or racial differences. In reality, however, the statistics show us that the opposite is true. It is hard to comprehend how the majority of the population is discriminated against due to their cultural background, or how the people who helped to build our country are still discriminated against on the basis of their skin colour. Isn’t Brazil a country for everyone? It certainly should be! The 2010 census showed that social inequality is still linked to skin colour. We urgently need to fight this state of affairs.

Photo by Jean Marconi, taken in Cavalcante (Goiás), published on Flickr with a Creative Commons licence (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).

Clecyo considers the results of the census, racial prejudice and the living conditions of the black population in a long, thoughtful post, which begins and ends as follows:

No dia da Consciência Negra, quero esquecer das inúmeras vezes que a cor da minha pele foi critério de julgamento. Quero esquecer que os números de uma pesquisa indicam que 97% dos brasileiros dizem não ter preconceito racial, mas também que 98% dos mesmos entrevistados disseram conhecer outras pessoas que tinham. Se pudesse, queria saber como ficar transparente, de vergonha. […]

E neste dia Consciência Negra, queria realmente esquecer que dos 16 milhões de brasileiros vivendo em extrema pobreza (ou com até R$ 70 por mês), 4,2 milhões são brancos e 11,5 milhões são pardos ou pretos. E esquecer também que as mortes entre os brancos estão mais concentradas nas idades avançadas, como resultado de câncer. Porque entre os brasileiros negros, morre-se mais entre os jovens de 15 a 29 anos, principalmente entre os homens, por conta de causas externas, como acidentes e mortes violentas. Minha memória me questiona porque apenas dos 10% de brasileiros mais ricos, apenas 20% são negros, ou porque na base da pirâmide social, 73% dos negros fundamentam os 10% dos brasileiros mais pobres.

On Black Awareness Day, I want to forget about the countless times that I have been judged on my skin colour. I want to forget that the study shows that 97% of Brazilians claim that they do not harbour any racial prejudice, yet 98% of the same interviewees say that they know other people who do. If only it were possible, I would like to be able to turn transparent, out of shame. […]

Today, on Black Awareness Day, I also really want to forget that of the 16 million Brazilians who are living in extreme poverty, on less than 70 reais a month, 4.2 million are white, while 11.5 million are mixed race or black. I also want to forget that white deaths are concentrated in old age, as a result of cancer, whereas more black Brazilians die as young people, especially men in the 15–29 age group, due to external causes such as accidents or violent death. I don’t want to remember that of the richest 10% of Brazilians, only 20% are black, while at the bottom of the social pyramid the poorest 10% of Brazilians comprise 73% of the country’s black people.

Photo by Jean Marconi, taken in Cavalcante (Goiás), published on Flickr with a Creative Commons licence (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).

Researchers from the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE) visited 67.5 million households in 5,565 towns from August to October last year. The very first Brazilian census was carried out in 1872, with the population classified in only two groups: free people and slaves. The latter group, comprising indigenous people and the descendents of African citizens, made up 15% of the population.

Black Awareness Day is celebrated on 20 November, a date chosen in honour of Zumbi dos Palmares [en], a symbol of black resistance and the struggle for freedom, who died on this day in 1695.

Brazil: The Xingu River is no place for Belo Monte

Maisie Fitzpatrick — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 14:38:08 +0000

This post is part of our special coverage Forest Focus: Amazon.

In defense of Amazon Rivers, on Youtube by xinguvivoparasempre

On August 26 the President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, signed a decree that transfers the concession to harness the hydroelectric potential of the Belo Monte Dam on the Xingu River, in the State of Pará, to the Norte Energia consortium [pt], over approximately 35 years, while also authorizing the commencement of construction work. This is a controversial move [pt], involving an investment of 19.6 billion reais and the potential for supplying 26 million people with energy, at the cost of deforestation, flooding towns and displacing thousands of people. The government’s action is calculated to give the impression that the Belo Monte project is being conducted under completely normal conditions and that the construction of the dam is inevitable. Behind the scenes, however, the events suggest something rather different.

Behind the government’s official talk of “normality”, people have been organizing themselves into social and environmental resistance movements [pt] against the construction of the dam since the 1970s. They are made up of Indians and river dwellers whose present way of life and means of survival will suffer a disastrous impact if the dam is built.

Indigenous people and river dwellers from all over the area of the Amazon where the hydroelectric plant is being planned have joined together to try to establish common strategies to halt the damming of rivers in the Amazon region. These groups are fighting to be heard in order to raise public awareness and encourage people to join forces with them in demanding the interruption of the project before the construction phase of the dam. This is aimed at promoting dialogue, hitherto virtually inexistent, between stakeholders and those affected by the construction of the dam.

UHE Belo Monte, by Flickr user J.Gil shared under a CC license: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

They are counting on the support of people committed to indigenous and environmental causes. One such individual is Bishop Erwin Kräutler, the last winner of the prestigious Right Livelihood Prize for his decades-long work as an activist for indigenous rights. Kräutler, Bishop of Xingu, Pará, and President of the Indigenous Missionary Council, says [pt]:

Sou contra o projeto do jeito que foi feito, com autoritarismo e preconizando o discurso desenvolvimentista do governo que só fala das vantagens e nunca das desvantagens que Belo Monte trará. Cerca de 30 mil pessoas serão chutadas de lá [da Volta Grande do rio Xingu] e levadas sei lá pra onde. Essa obra vai ser a maior agressão já vista na Amazônia.

I am against the project and the authoritarian way in which it has been carried out, pushing the government’s development-obsessed spiel, which only talks about Belo Monte’s benefits, never the problems that it will cause. Around 30,000 people will be kicked out of the [Volta Grande] area and taken to God knows where. This will be the biggest assault on Amazonia yet.

Also committed to the cause, and one of the leaders of the case brought to the Federal Ministry of Pará, is the attorney Felício Pontes Júnior, who filed his first lawsuit against Belo Monte in 2001, ensuring that the project has not seen any action since then. Had he not done so, the plant would have been built by now. In total, the Federal Ministry of Pará has seen eight cases which deal with the trampling of legal procedures and point out irregularities in the dam’s environmental licensing. None of these claims had come before the court by September 2 this year, which shows that only a court order can change the game.

According to Pontes Júnior, the government is trying to the “fait accompli tactic”, which in law refers to the attempt to circumvent lawsuits by the idea that once work has been completed, it cannot be reversed. However, the ongoing cases may still be able to prevent the construction of the plant:

O governo federal tem soltado release sobre Belo Monte como se o fato já estivesse consumado. Temos processos em andamento que, se tiverem decisões favoráveis, nós paramos Belo Monte. (…) Nós não desistimos de barrar Belo Monte. Queremos barrar a construção da hidrelétrica sim porque todos os estudos, da Unicamp, da USP, da UnB, mostram que é uma obra inviável. (…) Nós não estamos jogando a toalha.

The federal government talks about Belo Monte as though it were inevitable. We have cases in motion which, if successful, can stop Belo Monte […] We won’t give up trying to stop the Belo Monte project. We want to halt the construction of the dam because all the studies from Unicamp, the USP and the UnB show that it is unfeasible. […] We refuse to throw in the towel.

The news about Belo Monte reported on EcoAgência on September 27 shows that Pontes Júnior has not given up the fight. He and his colleague Cláudio Terre do Amaral attended a meeting on September 24 with the representatives of the approximately 12 thousand families living in the Volta Grande area, which covers 100km of the Xingu River in the Vitória do Xingu municipality. Two opposing processes have been precipitated in this region by the construction of the plant: the disappearance of water and the formation of a lake along one stretch of the river, and the resultant flooding along another. Both phenomena are devastating for families who survive from fishing and small-scale farming, and who still do not know what will happen to their land and property if the plant is built. Pontes Júnior explains:

Ainda falta muito para que a usina se torne uma realidade, mas estamos preocupados com o fato dessas famílias não terem recebido informações concretas sobre o empreendimento.

The plant is still a long way from becoming a reality, but we are concerned that these families have not been properly informed about the project.

These families cannot even count on actually benefiting from electricity. One of their complaints is, quite justifiably, the lack of electricity, despite the Volta Grande region being only 300km from the Tucuruí dam. The electricity distribution company has already informed the farmers and river dwellers that the Light for Everyone programme will not reach the residents of the inlets that will be flooded if the dam is built.

Under the heading “Attorney fears confrontation at Belo Monte dam site”, the Indymedia [pt] blog reports Pontes Júnior’s concern that there may be a confrontation between the indigenous people and construction site employees once work is underway:

Eu estou extremamente preocupado. Porque o discurso dos indígenas está sendo no seguinte sentido: “Nós vamos morrer de qualquer jeito se esse rio [Xingu] for barrado, então nós vamos morrer lutando”. Temo por um conflito no canteiro de obras dessa hidrelétrica, entre os índios e os trabalhadores da construção civil. Isso pode acontecer e, pessoalmente, é o que mais angustia.

I am extremely worried. The indigenous people are saying things like, “We’re going to die anyway if the [Xingu] river is dammed, so we may as well die fighting.” I fear that there may be a clash at the site of the dam between the Indians and the construction workers. This is all too possible, and it’s what worries me the most.

Despite all these impacts and problems, the indigenous people reaffirmed their stance on the construction of the dam in December 2009, as reported in the Brasil Autogestionário [pt] blog:

Nós, povos Indígenas, não vamos sentar mais com nenhum representante do governo para falar sobre UHE Belo Monte; pois já falamos tempo demais e isso custou 20 anos de nossa história. Se o governo brasileiro quiser construir Belo Monte da forma arbitrária de como está sendo proposto, que seja de total responsabilidade deste governo e de seus representantes como também da justiça o que virá a acontecer com os executores dessa obra; com os trabalhadores; com os povos indígenas. O rio Xingu pode virar um rio de sangue. É esta a nossa mensagem. Que o Brasil e o mundo tenham conhecimento do que pode acontecer no futuro se os governantes brasileiros não respeitarem os nossos direitos como povos indígenas do Brasil.

We, indigenous people, refuse to sit down any more with government representatives to talk about the Belo Monte dam. We have already spent far too much time – over 20 years – talking about it. If it wishes to construct the Belo Monte dam in the arbitrary way that it is proposing, the Brazilian government and its officials bear sole accountability and legal responsibility for what happens to the perpetrators of this work, the laborers and the indigenous people. The Xingu River could become a river of blood. This is our message: Brazil and the world should be aware of what might happen in future if those in power do not respect our rights as the indigenous peoples of Brazil.

In the same interview, Pontes Júnior revealed that at the meeting of indigenous people on August 26 they decided to approach the international courts and ask them to denounce the violation of their rights:

Eu espero que, com essa decisão, nós consigamos o apoio internacional, principalmente das entidades ligadas aos direitos humanos, e também das entidades técnicas, a Comissão Mundial de Barragens, por exemplo. Estudos técnicos, por exemplo, podem comprovar a inviabilidade econômica dessa hidrelétrica.

I hope that with this decision we can secure international support primarily from bodies linked to human rights, and also from technical agencies like the World Commission on Dams. Technical studies may, for instance, prove that this dam is economically unfeasible.

This post is part of our special coverage Forest Focus: Amazon.