MANIFESTO AGAINST THE POLITICS OF EXTERMINATION in Brazil Marcelo Yuka - 05.11.2007 23:38
The statements of the Governor of the State of Rio de Janeiro according to whom the favelas are factories of the marginalized, reflect a policy of military law enforcement that targets the poorest and most marginalized segments of the population. They do not need bullets, rather they need information, family planning of their choice, education, basic sanitation, decent housing and culture. A commission representing civil society will be presenting this manifesto to Philip Alston, the United Nation representive, during his visit to Rio on Nov 7th. Alston is investigating the way the authorities are abusing power and infringe human rights. The statements of the Governor of the State of Rio de Janeiro according to whom the favelas are factories of the marginalized, reflect a policy of military law enforcement that targets the poorest and most marginalized segments of the population. They do not need bullets, rather they need information, family planning of their choice, education, basic sanitation, decent housing and culture. The social phenomenon of criminality that permeates the relations in all of society is, as we know, not exclusive to the poor and disadvantaged. In truth, the way that the crime is perpetrated among different social classes is treated differently. It is within this clouded milieu that we find the statement of the secretary of the Department of Law Enforcement who discriminated a stray bullet in Copacabana from one shot in the Complexo do Alemão [group of favelas in the North of Rio]. ? Our worry extends to the position of certain segments of the media that reinforce the ideology of extermination, which goes against the democratic state of constitutional rights; i.e. the content from the editorial page of the paper in Rio de Janeiro on October the 26th stating “the poor layers of the population have become the spare manpower for the army of criminality” We reject and denounce the policy of law enforcement, based in military confrontation and, in speaking of the potential right to interruption of unwanted pregnancy, we understand that abortion cannot be used as an instrument of a demographic policy, of social cleansing or of eugenics. E-Mail: contatoboca@gmail.com |