GENOCÍDIO NO BRASIL, UM ESTADO QUE MATA E DEIXA MORRER

Publicado por Mulheres em LUTA!!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1478565459045701/permalink/1530744350494478/
Brasil de Fato 
Jorge Américo e José Francisco Neto 
26/08/14
Cassiano* percebeu que havia algo de estranho quando seus amigos começaram a desaparecer. A vida seguia normal no afastado bairro Cidade Kemel, em Poá (SP), mas de repente as conversas na rua ficaram escassas e o campinho de várzea esvaziou. Aos 17 anos, o estudante inventa formas de fugir das estatísticas. Negro e morador de um bairro marcado por altos índices de violência, ele sabe que já é um sobrevivente.

“Quando eu tinha de oito para 14 anos, foram morrendo de monte as pessoas que estavam perto de mim. Eram meus amigos de infância, o pessoal que jogava bola comigo. Eles foram morrendo e desaparecendo em número absurdo e eu não sabia o que era”, recorda.

Os governantes de plantão nunca responderam à pergunta de Cassiano, mas ele foi estudar e descobriu que aquilo tinha nome: genocídio. Conheceu pessoas de um cursinho comunitário, onde soube que todos os anos dezenas de milhares de jovens muito parecidos com seus amigos têm o mesmo final trágico.

Encarceramento em massa

Assim como o manicômio de Lima Barreto, a prisão no Brasil é o “cemitério dos vivos”. A cada ano o sistema penal, altamente seletivo, vai amontoando uma multidão de homens e mulheres, na maioria jovens e negros, em celas úmidas, mal ventiladas e mal iluminadas. Já são mais de 715 mil. É uma maneira de encurtar a vida, outra face do genocídio permanentemente denunciado pelo movimento negro.

Cassiano desabafa, mas não desaba. “A gente vê um rico que comete crimes hediondos e não responde por isso. O meu irmão foi acusado de roubo majorado, que é o Artigo 157, sem estar portando nenhuma arma. Está preso há um ano e é réu primário, tinha acabado de fazer 18 anos. Ainda não teve nenhuma audiência. E o pior é que ninguém liga, ninguém percebe que o encarceramento está relacionado com o genocídio.”

O bairro onde vive a família de Cassiano está localizado em uma região de divisa na Grande São Paulo. Não é incomum moradores de uma mesma quadra pagarem Imposto Predial Territorial Urbano (IPTU) para quatro municípios diferentes. Difícil mesmo é requerer melhorias, como pavimentação e iluminação das vias, saneamento básico e coleta de lixo. As prefeituras de Poá, Itaquaquecetuba, Ferraz de Vasconcelos e São Paulo sempre dão um jeito de dizer que a culpa é do vizinho.

Trabalhar mais, viver menos

Se as possibilidades de sobrevivência estão relacionadas à qualidade de vida, isso quer dizer que menores rendimentos e menor escolaridade significam menores condições de mobilidade social e, consequentemente, a redução da esperança de vida.

Uma pessoa que viveria 73 anos não passa dos 67 simplesmente por ter nascido negra. Anos atrás o economista Marcelo Paixão calculou que, dadas as atuais condições de vida, deveríamos esperar mais 160 anos para que todos pudéssemos ter a mesma longevidade.

Melhorar a qualidade de vida a partir de melhores rendimentos não é tarefa fácil para a população negra no Brasil. No ano passado, pessoas desse grupo ganhavam, em média, R$ 1.374 por um mês trabalhado, segundo informou a Pesquisa Mensal de Emprego (PME), do IBGE.

Já os trabalhadores brancos recebiam R$ 2.396 por uma jornada semelhante. Diferença de 57%. Talvez isso explique o porquê de os pais de Cassiano terem de trabalhar tanto. “O contato é mínimo, quase não os vejo, trabalham o dia inteiro”, comenta.

Além de se preocupar com a falta de estrutura que fragiliza a família, Cassiano tenta preparar o espírito das crianças menores de casa para os dias que virão. Ele sabe que daqui a pouco elas “vão crescer e sofrer racismo na escola”. Ele passou por isso. Sabe como é, sabe como será. A avó, rocha firme, muro de arrimo, já começa a tremular. Não consegue tratar as sequelas de um derrame no Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS).

Uma periferia reerguida

Cassiano gosta de política, quer “mexer com isso quando tiver mais idade”. Mas para não perder o lirismo, não se deixar abater, não embrutecer, ingressou em um grupo de teatro. O adolescente deseja uma periferia melhor e quer vê-la se reerguer.

“Eu estou sempre conversando com os moleques e falo que o que faz o sistema ‘chorar’ de verdade e que um rico não consegue admitir é ver um pobre e favelado que estudou 11 anos em uma escola pública entrar em uma universidade pública e tirar um diploma”.

Cassiano se prepara para estudar Artes Cênicas e tem preferência pela Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ele tem consciência do tamanho do desafio. Entre os 25 estudantes que ingressaram nesse curso no último ano, apenas quatro são negros. Cassiano não tem pressa. Permanecer vivo é uma vitória cotidiana, é mais difícil que passar na USP todo dia.

http://www.brasildefato.com.br/node/29596

From Ferguson to Los Angeles: ¡Demilitarize the cops under community control!

Freedom Socialist Party
August 2014
Massive militarization of police forces has intensified a racist Rambo mentality among U.S. cops, as they disproportionately kill young African American men with impunity. Among the latest victims is Michael Brown, an 18-year-old, college-bound resident of Ferguson, Missouri, a poor, highly segregated, black suburb of St. Louis that is under the thumb of a white government and police force.

Michael’s crime? Walking while black. To compound the injustice of this present-day lynching of an unarmed youth, the cops rolled out tanks, tear gas, rubber bullets, and military combat gear in an attempt to stop the justifiable protests that erupted. Evoking images of the Jim Crow south, police turned dogs on the protesters. They jailed news media and set up a no-fly zone to block reporters from filming the assaults. Protesters responded with signs reading “I am a man” and “I am a woman,” echoing those carried by Memphis sanitation workers in 1968.

The brave protesters in Ferguson, surrounded by overwhelming police forces, don’t need President Obama telling them not to yell. They need him to order an end to the massive militarization of police forces and for those responsible for the tragic murder of Michael Brown to be held accountable.

War on communities of color

The assault on the Ferguson community has ignited a national outcry over militarized police abuse and Gestapo tactics. Huffington Post reports that under Obama’s watch, 80,000 SWAT team raids occurred in 2013 alone. Homeland Security doled out $34 billion to outfit police departments with tens of thousands of machine guns, hundreds of armored cars and aircraft, and other surplus military-grade equipment. These weapons were used to kill, create war zones, terrorize whole communities, and jail black men at seven times the rate of white men. Ferguson is the latest neighborhood to know what a U.S. war zone feels like

Tragically, hundreds of Michael Browns are murdered by the cops each year. In July, Eric Garner died in a police chokehold in Staten Island New York. On August 11 in Los Angeles, 25-year-old Ezell Ford was shot in the back three times, although, according to his mother Tritobia Ford, Ezell was lying on the ground, complying with the officers’ orders. Other cases such as that of Florida’s Marissa Alexander, a black woman threatened with a 60-year jail term for firing a gun in self-defense, point out the disparate treatment meted out to people of color by the criminal justice system.

According to Yuisa Gimeno, a resident of South Los Angeles and a Radical Woman organizer against police brutality, “We feel like we have police targets on our backs because we are poor, immigrants, transgender or people of color. From L.A. to St. Louis to New York City, we are beyond tired of cops playing racist roulette with our lives.” Gimeno calls for an elected civilian review board over the police with the power to hire, fire and discipline.

Why is police terror ramping up?

As the economic system confronts an ever-deepening crisis, capitalism relies more and more upon divide and conquer. The bosses need an unemployed or jailed army of workers who can be scapegoated for the ills showering down upon the population at large. Emily Woo Yamasaki, a Freedom Socialist Party activist in Harlem, says NYPD raids on multiple housing projects and mass arrests in Harlem this past June were carried out like a military invasion, terrorizing and brutalizing residents of all ages. She links the raids to city attempts to privatize public housing and to the drive for mass incarceration, which aims to crush resistance to an unjust system while fueling the profits of private prisons. Black and brown men are the new “terrorists;” immigrants are “stealing jobs;” and unionists are “thugs.” These lies fuel the bosses’ continued attacks on everyone’s standard of living. Youth of color bear the brunt through an astronomical unemployment rate and the poverty-to-prison pipeline. The system isn’t “broken” as some claim, it is working exactly as it is supposed to. Capitalism sees only one way out of the economic crisis — to drive down wages and eliminate the social safety net — and it must stifle Ferguson-type protests in order to do that.

Time for united action!

• Demand an end to the police violence in Ferguson. The residents don’t need increased militarization by the National Guard, they need economic and political justice.

• Build a movement that fights for immediate needs such as jobs, education and community control of the police, but don’t stop there —

• Come together to replace the bigoted capitalist system, which forces hardship and want on the many, with a socialist world of shared abundance and equality of all races and oppressed peoples.

see more:
http://www.socialism.com/drupal-6.8/statements/ferguson-los-angeles-demilitarize-cops-under-community-control

21 de agosto: Exitosa Jornada internacional por la libertad de Nestora, Mireles y todos los presos políticos mexicanos!

Declaración del Comité por la Reagrupación Internacional Revolucionaria (CRIR) 

 CRIR
Comité por la Reagrupación Internacional Revolucionaria
Agosto 2014
En México, el presidente Enrique Peña Nieto ha llenado las cárceles de presos políticos. De unos meses para acá, han sido encarcelados 300 autodefensas en Michoacán; ya había 13 policías comunitarios presos en Guerrero y ahora están en prisión cuatro dirigentes populares que en este estado se oponen a la construcción de la presa La Parota; en Puebla están recluidos aquellos que no desean la edificación de una termoeléctrica. En la capital mexicana hay presos políticos. Y hay otros presos de este tipo en Quintana Roo y otros estados.

También ha habido asesinatos políticos, como el de Galeano, un dirigente zapatista chiapaneco; y antes Rocío Mesino, dirigente campesina de Guerrero, y de numerosos periodistas, señaladamente en Veracruz.
El gobierno ha lanzado una fuerte represión contra los autodefensas comunitarios y contra todos aquellos que en México se movilizan y luchan.

Su objetivo es desalentar la necesaria y eficaz organización armada del pueblo y dar una señal a los inversionistas nacionales y extranjeros para que aprovechen las nuevas leyes que les permitirán saquear los recursos energéticos, mineros e hidráulicos en su provecho.

Es el momento de actuar. No podemos permitir que México se llene de presos políticos. No podemos aceptar que los que luchan por sus derechos sean tratados como criminales. En cambio, el gobierno mexicano tolera a jefes de los cárteles que trafican droga y que cometen innumerables delitos, y altos funcionarios gubernamentales son cómplices de las bandas criminales.

El 21 de agosto se realizaron protestas en seis ciudades de EU, en Australia, Brasil, Costa Rica, República Dominicana, Argentina. En México, las  policías comunitarias organizadas en la Casa de Justicia, "La Patria es Primero", organizaron protestas en Guerrero y en el Distrito Federal. Lo mismo la Coordinadora de Ejidos, Comunidades y Organizaciones Opositoras a La Parota, así como autodefensas de Michoacán, así como las organizaciones defensoras de los presos en la capital del país. Se realizaron diez actos de protesta en México, desde Chihuahua al Istmo de Tehuantepec, en Oaxaca, Sinaloa y Puebla.

El CRIR saluda a las organizaciones, colectivos, personas y movimientos que llevaron a cabo actos de protesta frente a las embajadas o consulados mexicanos el jueves 21 de agosto, día internacional por la libertad de Nestora Salgado, José Manuel  Mireles y todos los presos políticos mexicanos. Asimismo exhorta a continuara adelante con esta campaña, intensificando al recolección de firmas para entregar a los respectivos consulados y embajadas de México.  Esta vez es por México y sus presos; el CRIR mañana continuará la lucha contra la represión estatal y por la justicia para los y las activistas políticos y sociales, dondequiera que estén.

Comité por la Reagrupación Internacional Revolucionaria (CRIR) 
Partido Obrero Socialista (México) 
Freedom Socialist Party (EEUU y Australia) 
Partido Revolucionario de las y los Trabajadores (Costa Rica) 
Núcleo por un Partido Obrero Revolucionario (República Dominicana) 

Freedom for Mexico’s Political Prisoners

Partido Obrero Socialista-México
Posted on August 22, 2014 by Oso Sabio
On August 21st 2014, events were held in Mexico, the USA, Costa Rica, Brazil, Australia, Argentina, and the Dominican Republic in solidarity with the Mexican prisoners who have been arrested for political motives since the 2012 inauguration of President Enrique Peña Nieto. The main event was held at the Autonomous University of Mexico City (UACM), where family members of the political prisoners spoke about why their loved ones had been targeted by the government.

 President Peña Nieto came into power partly as a result of significant media support and the buying of votes, but also because of promises to “boost economic growth and tackle drug-related violence”. [1] In reality, his regime has sought to sell Mexican natural resources off to foreign capitalists and crack down on popular opposition to its neoliberal policies. More worryingly, however, the government has imprisoned a number of citizens who have stood up to the country’s violent drug cartels by forming their own community police forces.

 Far from dealing with the drug-related violence in Mexico, the government has in fact attacked and imprisoned members of the aforementioned community police forces, who had previously been successful in pushing organised criminals out of their communities. At the beginning of the gathering at the UACM, Cuauhtémoc Ruiz (of the Party of Socialist Workers (POS) and the Free Nestora Committee) described why Peña Nieto has repressed these movements. Along with movements throughout the country which have opposed unwanted capitalist projects in their communities, he said, these grassroots defence groups stand in the way of the government’s neoliberal bonanza. The central government could see itself losing control to popular organisations of social activists, and it knew that such a phenomenon would make it a lot harder to follow through with the promises it had made to capitalist elites in both Mexico and the rest of the world. The purpose of the crackdown on social activists, therefore, has been to create ‘stability’, though not the kind of stability that communities have been asking for. Instead of dealing with organised crime and giving citizens more control over their own destinies, the government’s focus has been to create stability for foreign capitalists, whose ‘investment’ (read robbery) requires an absence of popular resistance from grassroots movements. This analysis describes why drug cartels still roam the country freely while social activists languish in high security jail cells.

 In 2006, Mexican riot police responded to “protests by a local peasant organization [the FPDT] in San Salvador Atenco” with indiscriminate violence, in which “hundreds… were beaten, jailed, raped, and even killed, in the case of one 14 year old boy”. [2] Ruiz asserted that, today, a process of repression similar to that of Atenco is taking place, but this time throughout the entire country. The government’s focus on arresting social activists whilst allowing drug cartels to function as normal, he said, shows clearly the collusion that exists between the political establishment and organised criminals. A UACM union representative echoed Ruiz’s sentiments, affirming that “the nightmare of Atenco is back”.

 The “Free Nestora” campaign has been the pioneer of the movement to free all of Mexico’s political prisoners, and is based on the “illegal incarceration of Nestora Salgado”, commander of a community police force in Guerrero. In fact, the event on the 21st of August marked the one year anniversary of her imprisonment. She and 10 comrades, including leaders Gonzalo Molina and Arturo Campos, “have been stripped of their constitutional rights, denied due process, locked-up far from their families in order to break their spirits, and subjected to miserable and life-threatening treatment for a non-existent crime—protecting the people of Olinalá, as guaranteed under the Mexican constitution, from criminals and unscrupulous local political figures”. Nestora’s sister Cleotilde asserted at the UACM event that, when one person is imprisoned unjustly, “a hundred more social activists stand up”. For that reason, she insisted, the police blocked the roads surrounding her town on August 21st with the purpose of preventing supporters of the Free Nestora campaign from marching there.

 The wife of Gonzalo Molina, present at the event, argued that “the government wants us to keep quiet” whilst it allows criminals to “exist inside the government itself”. Arturo Campos’ wife, meanwhile, gave an impassioned speech about how “the government wants us blind, deaf, and mute” about the fact that “it cannot deal with crime”. She criticised the government for “torturing social activists” and affirmed that it “knows full well that they don’t deserve to be there [in prison]”. It has never been concerned with fighting crime and poverty, she said, but it is happy to imprison activists when they organise to change their fate. “This is painful”, she said, having not been able to see her husband for months, but insisted that “we mustn’t allow ourselves to be conquered by fear”. Having asserted that she would never keep silent about the injustice she and her husband have suffered, she concluded: “this is just beginning”.

 The wife of another prisoner, Marco Antonio Suástegui (spokesperson of the CECOP, which is opposed to government plans to build a dam in their community [4]), also asserted that the government wants social activists out of the way, emphasising that they are treated “like the worst of criminals” and imprisoned so that “they stop getting in the way” of government-backed capitalist projects. Having been arrested in Guerrero on the 17th of June on “completely fabricated charges of robbery and attempted murder”, Suástegui was “severely beaten and sent to the same prison as Nestora” [3].

 A representative from the December 1st movement [5] also spoke at the event, emphasising that it is not only Peña’s political party (the PRI) that is involved in repression. The so-called ‘centre-left’ party (the PRD) which governs Mexico City, he said, has also cooperated with Peña on numerous occasions to repress popular protests. As a result, he called for “unity between the countryside and the city” in asserting the right of Mexican citizens to protest.

 Other miscarriages of justice have also occurred in Mexico over the last few months, though they were not represented at the event. In May, paramilitary forces (with links to the PRI) attacked the Zapatista community of La Realidad in Chiapas, killing Jose Luis Solís López (or Galeano [7]), and wounding 15 others. In June, Dr José Manuel Mireles, a leader of Michoacán’s self-defence forces (Autodefensas), was “tricked into meeting with an army officer who arrested him after planting drugs in his vehicle”. Another 82 Autodefensa members were also arrested soon afterwards. In July, meanwhile, police shot and killed a 13-year-old boy and injured 40 other citizens in Puebla when they blocked a highway “to protest new laws that deprived them of their traditional rights”. [3]

 The sister of OCSS leader and social activist Rocío Mesino (killed in Guerrero in October 2013) spoke out at the UACM event about the impunity that her sister’s killer has enjoyed, and how “everything had been prepared for the murder”. With this comment, she suggested that the police, who have failed to bring her murderer to justice, were involved in the event. The establishment, she said, “detains and kills us to dispossess us of our natural resources”, creating “an effect of fear and terror” in order to do so.

 An ex-prisoner from Aquila’s self-defence forces in Michoacán spoke of how his father had been killed twenty five years ago for his social activism. Now, having taken up arms himself to protect his community, he insists that the government and police collude with criminals – whether they are drug traffickers or multinational corporations. The problem is, he insists, that communities like his do not have the money needed to take criminals to court.

 n Oaxaca, the CNTE [8] have fought to overturn Peña Nieto’s ill-thought-out education reform, and have been attacked as a result. The arrest of certain CNTE members, like Leonel Manzano Sosa [9], has been “a piece of theatre designed by the State”, according to Manzano’s wife. Such acts are carried out with the intention of both encouraging activists not to stand up and discrediting their movements.

 The rector of the UACM, towards the end of the act, insisted that “centres of education and culture have the duty to listen to the people” in order to “think from the people”, and that was one of the reasons why he gave the event his blessing. The big problem, however, is that the Mexican government is not ‘listening to the people’, and prefers instead to imprison them when they speak out or stand up for themselves and their communities.

In solidarity with all of the political prisoners of Mexico, and against dispossession and repression throughout the world, please add your voice to the call for freedom.

Sign the petition at https://www.change.org/p/freedom-for-nestora-salgado-american-activist-imprisoned-in-mexico, follow the campaign at https://www.facebook.com/LibertadParaNestoraFreedomforNestora, write to the Mexican president at enrique.penanieto@presidencia.gob.mx, or donate to the cause at http://freenestora.org/donate/. But, most of all, spread the word.



[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-20564446

[2] http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/cases/mexico-women-of-atenco, http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/280-police-brutality-in-atenco-mexico, and http://www.casacollective.org/story/analysis/massacre-atenco-violence-politics-and-other-campaigns-mexico

[3] http://freenestora.org/2014/08/21/u-s-campaign-to-free-nestora-issue-letter-to-mexican-president-enrique-pena-nieto/

[4] http://ososabiouk.wordpress.com/2014/06/25/mexico-army-government-harassment-against-cecop-in-guerrero-deteriorates/ and http://www.omct.org/es/human-rights-defenders/urgent-interventions/mexico/2014/07/d22753/

[5] https://mediosindependientes.wordpress.com/tag/coordinadora-1-de-diciembre/ and https://es-es.facebook.com/pages/Coordinadora-General-1-Diciembre/190808501058608

[6] http://cmdpdh.org/english/?p=1628 and http://thoolen.wordpress.com/2013/10/26/mexican-rocio-mesino-an-emblematic-human-rights-defender-murdered-like-so-many-others/
[7] http://ososabiouk.wordpress.com/2014/06/10/communique-from-la-realidad-after-the-paramilitary-aggression/

[8] http://ososabiouk.wordpress.com/2013/09/22/they-are-not-delinquents-cnte-mexico/

[9] http://mediosindependientes.wordpress.com/2014/07/24/leonel-manzano-sosa-preso-politico-de-la-cnte-facmeo-fue-torturado-por-el-gobierno/

Congreso del Partido de Libertad Socialista. Un mundo por ganar, un planeta que salvar

Freedom Socialist Party
Susan Williams
agosto de 2014
Del 24 al 27 de mayo, miembros, amigos y aliados internacionales del Partido de Libertad Socialista (FSP) de EE.UU. se congregaron en Los Ángeles para discutir los desastres económicos y ambientales que amenazan a la humanidad, y lo que se puede hacer al respecto. Justo unos días antes, se rompió una tubería que derramó 16,000 litros de petróleo, cuyo nivel llegaba a las rodillas, en las calles de una colonia de Los Ángeles, poniendo de manifiesto lo crítico de estas cuestiones.

El Consejo Distrital 36 de la Federación Americana de Empleados del Estado, Condado y Municipio (AFSCME) nos prestaron generosamente sus oficinas para el congreso. Estandartes que exigían la apertura de las fronteras, la libertad de los prisioneros políticos y los derechos de los homosexuales se unieron a los carteles del movimiento laboral que recubren las paredes. Los participantes agradecieron la cordial y atenta bienvenida de la presidenta del Consejo 36, Alice Goff, cuando se preparaban para comenzar su trabajo.

Organización global. El FSP piensa que son indispensables ciertos elementos para lograr una exitosa lucha por el socialismo: la organización, dirección y el poder que puede proveer un partido revolucionario; el liderazgo de las mujeres y de los oprimidos; y la colaboración internacional. Las sesiones desde el primer hasta el último día exploraron estas cuestiones, comenzando con una presentación fundamental acerca de la situación global y terminando con la elección de los nuevos líderes del partido.

Una fuerte vena de internacionalismo dio continuidad al congreso, al cual asistieron personas de seis países, incluyendo a camaradas de la sección del FSP de Australia. Sobre todo, los participantes estaban entusiasmados por compartir la experiencia con los compañeros latinoamericanos del FSP en el Comité por el Reagrupamiento Internacional Revolucionario (CRIR) que se creó hace un año.

Una presentación dirigida por la Secretaria Internacional del FSP, Anne Guerry Hoddersen, les dio a los miembros del CRIR la oportunidad de discutir “Un hemisferio indivisible”. Los panelistas fueron Marcos Adamés del Núcleo por un Partido Revolucionario Internacionalista de la República Dominicana; David Morera del Partido Revolucionario de las Trabajadoras y los Trabajadores de Costa Rica; Cuauhtémoc Ruiz del Partido Obrero Socialista de México; y Stephen Durham del FSP.

Un asunto que se trató fue la participación del CRIR en la campaña para liberar a Nestora Salgado, encarcelada injustamente en México por dirigir una fuerza comunitaria de autodefensa.

Conmoviendo profundamente a los miembros del FSP, los miembros del CRIR de América Latina rindieron su tributo a la co-fundadora del partido, Clara Fraser, por su pionero trabajo teórico sobre la interrelación del socialismo y el feminismo. Para construir el movimiento revolucionario en México y a nivel internacional, Ruiz declaró que, “Necesitamos muchas más Claras Fraser y Nestoras Salgado, mujeres que no sólo se unirán a los movimientos de emancipación sino que los dirigirán”.

Acerca del CRIR, Morero afirmó que, “El CRIR es el embrión de un partido internacional con el cual soñamos y el cual necesitamos”.

leer más:
http://www.socialism.com/drupal-6.8/articles/congreso-del-partido-de-libertad-socialista-%E2%80%94-un-mundo-por-ganar-un-planeta-que-salvar

En América Latina, comunidades y aborígenes enfrentan mega mineras

Protesta en septiembre de 2013 contra un proyecto minero planeado cerca de Cajamarca, Perú, el cual amenaza los suministros de agua en un área de por sí afectada ambientalmente. La policía nacional asesinó a cinco manifestantes el año anterior. Foto: Diego Cupolo

FREEDOM SOCIALIST PARTY
Hugo Cedeño
agosto de 2014
(El autor pertenece a Núcleo por un Partido Revolucionario Internacionalista (NUPORI) en la República Dominicana.)

República Dominicana y Haití están asentadas en el segundo depósito de oro más grande de América. Además posee enormes reservas de níquel, bauxita, ámbar, mármol, piedra caliza y granito. Scott Jobin-Bevans, ex-presidente del grupo minero Prospectors and Developers Association de Cánada (PDAC), afirmó que “La Española es una isla de oro” e inmediatamente se dispuso a explotarla.

Esa riqueza provoca la voracidad de las multinacionales mineras de capital norteamericano y canadiense, como la Barrick Gold, Falcondo, Unigol, Majescor, Newmont Mining, Goldcorp, que tanto en República Dominicana como en Haití se reparten la extracción de este y otros metales.

Es un negocio redondo para las mineras. Compran por 10 o 15 años el derecho a la explotación. Invierten unos 50 millones de dólares, a poco tiempo recuperan la inversión, quedándoles años de actividad productiva a su favor y a los pueblos tierras áridas e improductivas.

“Los daños de la minería a cielo abierto al ambiente, son invaluables cuando se ubican en zonas de gran riqueza hídrica, máxime cuando además, el escenario se compone de una extraordinaria biodiversidad como lo es Loma Miranda”, según el equipo ecológico de la Academia de Ciencias de la República Dominicana.

Voracidad de las multinacionales y complicidad de los gobiernos. En un acertado artículo firmado por Aidée Tassinari, publicado en la revista PLUMA, No. 14, primavera del 2010 ( www.pos.org.mx), titulado “Nueva Fiebre de Oro” ésta afirma lo siguiente:

“América Latina se ha convertido en la principal región productora de oro en el mundo al aportar el 35 por ciento de la producción mundial. Perú, México, Chile y Argentina son los principales productores”.

“La extracción de oro significa la destrucción de montañas completas. Por cada tonelada de roca destruida se extraen 0.01 onzas de oro. ... Mediante la lixiviación por cianuro se recupera el 97 por ciento del mineral diseminado”.

“Se utilizan toneladas de cianuro”, dice Aidée, y se gastan millones de galones de agua para extraer todos los metales solubles en dicho líquido, agregamos.

Las consecuencias son mortíferas, ya que el cianuro es tóxico y al mezclarlo con el agua se expande por la superficie y subsuelo, envenenando los ríos, bosques, plantaciones agrícolas, ganadería y destruyendo toda forma de vida.

¿Quienes son los beneficiados? Naturalmente que a los capitalistas propietarios de las grandes empresas mineras que saquean el continente con el apoyo de la patronal criolla y sus respectivos gobiernos.

Y si algún mandatario, fruto de las presiones de las masas, echa para atrás el acuerdo o busca renegociarlo, debe compensar económicamente a la multinacional por los años que quedan para que el contrato finalice.

Otros de los beneficiados son los negocios de las joyerías, a quienes va dirigido el 57 por ciento del oro. Algunos, el 10 por ciento, compran oro para acumular riqueza, un 12 por ciento lo usa para la producción industrial y 16 por ciento para la reservas de los Estados Unidos.

No vaya usted a creer que la explotación minera fue cuestión de suerte empresarial. Primero privatizaron empresas estatales y servicios. Luego los TLCs para acordar Leyes que protegieran sus inversiones. Nuevas normas laborales, fiscales, judiciales, tenencia de tierra y propiedad intelectual, financieras, mineras, comerciales, migratorias, antecedieron la entrada de los pulpos mineros.

¿Quienes son los afectados? En primer lugar, los aborígenes y comunidades donde se instalan las empresas. También las grandes mayorías de las masas.

Estas comunidades, llámense, Zapotecos, Chatinos, Mixtecos, Coras, Tepehuanes, Mapuches, Intag, Yasuní, Wayuu, Bari, Yuko, Chimila, Emberá Katío y Chamí, Nasa, Zenú, Cañamomo, Muisca, Diaguita, Calchaquí, Quilmes y Collas, Bayóvar, Bonao, Grand Bois, Pueblo Viejo, San Miguel, Ixtahuacán, Sipacapa y miles más que pelean contra las multinacionales y los gobiernos entreguistas.

¿Que proponemos? Si bien creemos que mientras haya capitalismo la naturaleza no estará protegida, estamos conscientes que cada lucha que haga retroceder las mineras, elevaría conciencia de que hay que salvar al planeta enterrando al sistema burgués, que como dijo Marx, “chorrea sangre por todos los poros”.

Planteamos empezar confrontando los gobiernos colocados al servicio de las mineras. Organizándonos y movilizándonos unitariamente para que sean nacionalizadas y pasen al control de los trabajadores y las comunidades.

Es lamentable que en el continente no exista una dirección política, sindical o ambientalista que unifique todas las luchas.

¿Si las multinacionales se unen para protegerse, no vale la pena que los afectados y afectadas se coordinen?

¿Podríamos llamar a un Encuentro Continental para discutir y votar un plan de lucha común?

Un plan como el de los 350 pobladores de Canoas en México, que echaron a patadas la Pacific Group cuando llegó para explotar una beta de hierro. Algo así hay que hacer, pero multiplicado por mil.

Ellos se unieron para defenderse de la multinacional, aunque en otros aspectos tuvieran diferencias. Ese tipo de unidad es la que proponemos.

leer más:
http://www.socialism.com/drupal-6.8/articles/en-am%C3%A9rica-latina-comunidades-y-abor%C3%ADgenes-enfrentan-mega-mineras

México. 21 de agosto: Acciones por la LIBERTAD DE MIRELES, NESTORA Y TODOS LOS PRESOS POLÍTICOS.

COMITÉ NESTORA LIBRE- MÉXICO
Sábado 2 de Agosto 2014
http://freenestora.wix.com/comite-nestora-libre

Internacional: EU, Costa Rica, Dominicana, Brasil, Australia, México.
Nacional: DF, Guerrero, Chihuahua, Oaxaca.

11-agosto: Reunión preparatoria en el DF (México).

En CENCOS, call. Medellín 33, col. Roma, a las 4:00 pm.

¡Únete, no faltes, participa!

CONVOCAN
Policía Comunitaria de Guerrero Casa de Justicia de Tixtla, "La Patria es Primero", de la Coordinadora Regional de Autoridades Comunitarias (CRAC).
Comité Nestora Libre, México.
Coordinadora 1o. de Diciembre.
Red Nacional Contra la Represión y la Criminalización de la Protesta Social.
Congreso Popular.
CNTE Estado de México
Universidad Revolución
Magisterio Mexiquense Contra la Reforma Educativa
Freedom Socialist Party, EUA.
Partido Obrero Socialista, México
Partido Revolucionario de las y los Trabajadores, Costa Rica.
Núcleo por un Partido Revolucionario Internacionalista, República Dominicana.
Comité por la Reagrupación Internacional de los/as Revolucionarios/as.