Brazil: update on Independence Day protests

As mentioned earlier, the Brazilian Independence Day, became a day of struggle for honesty, dignity, freedom of speech and social rights. At least 13 people were injured by police, and other 27, arrested in Rio de Janeiro when they attempted to obstruct the ritual military parade.

In Sao Paulo as well, several avenues were blocked and national flags burned. The subsequent repression caused at least 39 arrested and two injured, both victims of car attacks by the police.

Other cities with significant protests were Fortaleza and Maceió in the NE of the country. In Fortaleza some 30 people were arrested, while in Maceió the ritual military parade had to be suspended. 

Source: Webguerrillero[es].

Brazil: protests take over Independence Day

The Independence Day demonstration in Rio de Janeiro has been violently repressed by police forces using tear gas and rubber bullets. The demonstration coincided in time and space with the ritual military parade, which had already been reduced in size because of the expected protests, which have been called for all the country against corruption and anti-social policies. 

We are tired of the most expensive World Cup ever, of the politicians, of the highest interest rates on Earth, of teachers living with misery salaries, of public works that never end, of the mercenary and manipulated press, said one of the demonstrators.

Events still unfolding in this Brazilian Independence Day.

Source: Webguerrillero[es].

Brazil: protests against public waste for Pope's visit

There have been a number of large protests in Brazil against the propaganda visit by that king of nowhere they call Pope, some Bergoglio posh jesuit who collaborated with the fascist terror in Argentina and now pretends to be a saint with the help of media lies. 

The focus in Brazil is anyhow public resource waste, with millions being spent in this visit that serves nobody but the sectarian vultures. 

It is the same as with football or the Olympic Games: instead of using public money for what is needed: public services, agrarian reform, housing, jobs... it is wasted in ridiculous populist activities with no purpose. 

Police employed themselves violently against the masses, as in this image where they use a taser gun against a citizen.

Source: Webguerrillero[es].

Argentina, Brazil: controversy on Bergoglio's visit

The fascist criminal Pope Bergoglio is visiting his native Argentina this week, as well as nearby Brazil. Believe it or not the Argentine state is wasting USD 82 million in this private religious activity. 

Even more controversial is the the felling of some 300 trees in Niteroi (Brazil) to make room for Christian fanatics to perpetrate virtual human sacrifice (mass), an act denounced as "criminal" by the vice-mayor of this city.

There are already anti-Pope demonstrations called, although it is unclear how many people will attend. 

Source: Webguerrillero[es].

Brazil: demands of the protesters

Today July 11 is a day of national mobilization across Brazil.

The Platform of Working Class Organizations has issued the following demands:

1. Weekly working hours limited to 40 by law.
2. Abandonment of the constitutional reform project that would demolish worker rights.
3. A progressive tax reform, so the wealthy pay more. 
4. Priority of public investment in quality health, education and transport services, instead of debt payment and primary surplus.
5. Suspension of oil and mining exploitation auctions, which only benefit multinational corporations.
6. Zero tariff in public transport for all the population. 

The popular mobilization in Brazil, far from receding is growing, affecting to all kinds of popular sectors. Notably worker mobilization is increasing dramatically across the country. 

The several farm worker organizations have also presented their own list of demands:

1. Recovery of national sovereignty over the land. The government should declare null the sold farmlands and/or expropriate the ones already ceded to foreign capitalists.
2. Speed up the agrarian reform, settling in thousands of farmer families now living at the roadsides.
3. Public policies of support, stimulation and credit for cheap, healthy and ecological food produce. Structural programs for rural youth and women.
4. Grant the rights of rural peoples by acknowledging and delimiting the indigenous lands, as well as the rights of people affected by reservoirs, fishing demarcations, etc.
5. Ban immediately the pesticides and other agrotoxics already banned elsewhere on Earth, ban of air fumigation. Deep revision of the policies towards GMOs and social control.
6. Government policy of control of deforestation, support for the recovery of degraded areas and reforestation by the locals. 
7. Suppression of privatization of natural resources such as water, energy, forests, rivers, minerals and the sea. Immediate abandonment of the the Mining Bill project and an ample and democratic debate for a new such law.
8. Immediate implementation of programs to eradicate illiteracy and grant access to school to all rural communities.
9. Suspension of auctions of irrigated zones in the NE and their destination to agrarian reform instead, as well as democratization of access and management of water resources.
10. End of the Kandir Law, which leaves untaxed the big agricultural and mineral exporters.

Source: LINyM[es].

Brazil: football championship besieged by very angry protesters

Brazil just smashed Spain 3-0 inside the walls of the stadium but many Brazilians did not care at all. They were not there to celebrate nor cheer their national team but to fight against the waste of public resources in football instead of spending them in social programs. 

While the players kicked the pointless ball around the field, thousands of protesters and police forces fought a fierce battle. The tear gas unavoidably reached Maracaná Stadium, affecting part of the public. 

The demonstration began cheerfully at Plaza Saens Penha, some two kilometers away from the stadium, under applause of the neighbors. They chanted "Maracanós" (i.e. Maraca-us) and accused Governor Sérgio Cabral (PMDB) of being a dictator. 

However just hundreds of meters away from Maracaná, the clashes began as some protesters apparently attacked the police line. The 18,000 police and military personnel deployed responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and it seems that also live fire. 

A group of protesters attempted to assault the building of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CFB). 

Seven people were injured: five civilians and two police agents.

Source: Webguerrillero[es].

Brazil: protests continue

The focus has moved now from Sao Paulo and Rio to the interior: in Brasilia and Minas Gerais, where major marches took place. In Belo Horizonte and its suburb of Juatuba some protesters have built fire barricades and cut traffic in several roads.

Source: Webguerrillero[es].

Brazil: Passe Livre calls off protests in Sao Paulo because of fascist infiltration

The Passe Livre (Free Pass) movement of Sao Paulo, a small grassroots organization of some 40-50 people who initiated the massive protests in Brazil, has decided to call off demonstrations in Sao Paulo after fascist provokers were spotted in the demos, harassing and attacking left-wing activists and causing widespread outrage. 

Lucas Monteiro, speaker of the movement, declared to Terra Magazine that they will not call more marches in the largest city of Brazil by the moment, although they will continue to work towards the zero tariff.

This does not necessarily apply to other states and cities, where the MPL cells are autonomous. 

Source: Webguerrillero[es].

Brazil: protests continue and gather massive adherences - far-right manipulation however

A huge march shattered Rio de Janeiro yesterday, while many others took place through the country[es]. President Rousseff has canceled her planned visit to Japan. 

Rio tonight

In Salvador de Bahía, police charged with rubber bullets and tear gas against the protesters at some 2 Km of the stadium where a game between Nigeria and Uruguay was scheduled. At least one protester an one police agent were injured.

In Rio de Janeiro police only allowed those with football tickets to get down the subway in the stations near Maracaná stadium. This did not impede the protest anyhow. 

The Landless People Movement (MST), the National Students' Union (UNE), the major labor union (CUT), the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) and even the ruling Workers' Party (PT) announced their adherence to the protests. Other left-wing parties (PSOL, PCO, PSTU) were already supportive of them since the very beginning. 

Far-right interference

There are some apparent contradictions here because the marches have got a marked "apolitical" character, which, as Tsavvko denounces[por], has been exploited by some far-right groups ("painted faces") to manipulate them, expelling not just members of the ruling PT but also those from opposition left-wing parties under the confusing slogan "without party". 

At some moment provokers began attacking activists of the PT, the PCO, the PSTU and the PSOL who were in the march. Some cried "without violence" while throwing objects and tried to push out partisan protesters. Many cried that "all are PT members", chanting anti-PT slogans while burning banners of the PCO or the PSTU. Or just arrived, all hated them and attacked as crazied mob. 

...

That way, the chants of "opportunism" were sarcastic, thrown to ALL the parties, notably the PSTU, PCO and PSOL, who have been there since the very first day of the protests, right in the front line, contributing, while the #clasemediaofre, only joined the demonstrations later and, worse, with their own and reactionary agenda. 

Militants were insulted and attacked and I even saw myself, right near me, a thug with a pocket knife, who was contained by a woman, apparently a friend of him, before he could attack or injure anyone. 

Banners were torn down and burned, and militants were attacked and insulted, expelled from the demonstration. Unacceptable.

"Cara pintadas" (fascists) in Sao Paulo

Some police agents joined the protesters

In quite impacting videos we can see how a whole squad of military police agents symbolically joined the demonstrators in Sao Paulo, sitting down in the middle of them while being applauded at the chant of "the people united will not be defeated". 

In Rio as well, a plain clothes police agent, unloaded his weapon and threw it to the bonfire.

Brazil: partial victories for protesters

After the President Dilma Rousseff decided, much more wisely than Turkey's Erdogan, to publicly acknowledge that the protesters have at least some reason, not just with bus tariff rise but even with the issue of excessive waste for the World Cup while social expenditure is neglected, masterfully realigning herself with the popular feeling, many state and local authorities have stepped back and even announced reductions in the public transport fares. 

However this trend has not been uniform through the federative state. The cities of Porto Alegre, Joao Pessoa, Montes Carlos, Blumenau, Recife, Cuiabá, Manaus, Natal, Vitoria, Pelotas and Goiania have announced a reduction of the fare or the cancellation of planned rises. Even the Mayor of Sao Paulo, Fernando Haddad, who vocally opposed the protesters and justified repression in recent days, has left open the gate for such a pacifying move, while the Mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes, has agreed to meet with the protesters. 

However the Governor of the state, Sérgio Cabral, rejected any concession, as did the Transport Secretary of the Federal District (Brasilia), José Walter Vázquez Filho. 

The demand to redirect some of the wasteful World Cup expenditures to social services, got an unlikely supporter: veteran football star Rivaldo. The former Barça star declared via Twitter:

It is a shame to be spending so much money in this World Cup while leaving schools and hospitals in precarious conditions.

Protest in Sao Paulo continue in any case, with a large demonstration marching through the city last night. A so-called black block caused some incidents but otherwise the protest was peaceful.

The Pase Livre (Free Pass) movement has only 40 affiliates but, to the surprise of all managed to summon more than a million people in the last days across the South American country.

Sources: Webguerrillero[es] (link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4), Blog do Tsavkko[por].


Update: Tsavkko writes[por]: "Tariff rise revoked: we won the battle, the war is not over".

He denounces that this is done without touching the large private profits of the transport companies, therefore charging it to the citizens by other means.

Haddad and Alckmin (governor and mayor of Sao Paulo)
We please the people and we do not touch the profits
of the transport mafia! OK, buddy!

Brazil: what do they want?

That's what Tsavvko ponders today, in first person plural, at his blog[por]: what do we want?:

We were 100 thousand in Rio, more than 100 thousand in São Paulo (...), more than 20 thousand in Belém, thousands in Brazilia (...)

But why?

The revolt was not born because of 20 cents, 10 cents nor 30 cents. It only EXPLODED after simultaneous rises in all the country. While the PT claims that the whole country is doing very well, the people on the streets showed that this image is not real. We are not smiling with the Cup, we are not happy with education, with culture, with health...

(...)

Natives are massacred and abused in their lands, in truth many are losing their lands, LGBT people are murdered on the streets just for being in love, the periphery cries against the genocide it suffers, and all the population revolts against a politics of identical options, without alternatives, in which PSDB and PT get dirty into mutual accusations but are just two sides of the same coin: corrupt, privatizing, giving away the nation, worried only for getting rich themselves and not for transforming the country.

(...)

We face a wave without precedent of conservatism, of religious medievalism, of attempts to destroy the judicial power instead or reforming it and turning it more democratic. The people exploded against a corrupt Congress and state parliaments, disconnected from the reality of the people. While we take the packed buses, subways and trains, the politicians impose their own private patterns using luxury cars paid with our money and live in mansions out of the reach for the vast majority of the people.

We fight and are out in the streets for dignity, for respect.

(...)

Now, why all the demonstrations through the country?

First, we are unsatisfied with the Cup, with the absurd expenditures (...) a demonstration of the political incapacity of Dilma and allies.

Second, we are also unsatisfied with the violence displayed by governments and police commanders in agreement, as well as with the scoundrel mass media which had to change sides after they were themselves victims of police violence.

Third, we are unsatisfied with the daily problems of the country: education, health, culture...

(...)

The paths are many, the claims are many and none of them is contradictory, in fact they are complementary. We want a new model of country, a human, just Brazil for us the Brazilians (and whoever else lives here, naturally), and not for a bunch of tourists who come for the Coup and then leave.

The PT does not manage to understand what happens and uses its fanatic clique in order to attempt to demobilize and also co-opt the masses. And they fail miserably.

As I said before, a large fraction, if not the majority, of the demonstrators never before protested at all and, in the case of the youth, it does not feel itself represented by the PT and much less falls in the trick of "greater evil" used by the PT. (...)

It must be said that Brazil is no island. Protests shatter the World: indignados, against austerity, against dictatorships, for freedom, against islamization... These are paths that look different but have the same character: the dissatisfaction of the population, very especially the youth, with institutional and traditional politics, a disbelief towards political parties and the search of real and effective social changes. 

(...)

Brazil: popular protests continue in Sao Paulo, Rio and other cities

The Brazilian social protests threaten the World Cup. Yesterday police attacked with rubber bullets and tear gas some 3000 demonstrators (right) who tried to reach the Maracaná stadium when an international match between the selections of Mexico and Italy was taking place. 

On Saturday similar incidents took place at a match between Brazil and Japan. Police charged brutally as well, resulting in 33 injured and some 20 people arrested. 

The public expenditure waste in the World Cup has become a contentious issue as the cost of life climbs up and public investment is diverted from social needs to the show.

Hundreds of thousands march in Sao Paulo

As mentioned before, some 20,000 people marched on Thursday evening through the streets of Sao Paulo, faced with the most brutal police repression. The trigger is the rise of 7% in bus tariffs, what is not trivial when transport may be 26% of any worker's expenditure and its quality is extremely low (obsolete and packed buses). Sao Paulo particularly has been developed as a business for corrupt transport companies. 

The demand of many protesters is now free public transport, as the woman at the right puts it: if you do not pay for education and hospital, why would you pay PUBLIC transport?

All public services in Brazil are low quality but it is particularly annoying when you have to pay lots for it. 

Yesterday there were more protests in the largest city of the Southern Hemisphere reaching the overwhelming figure of hundreds of thousands:

As of now, I have no reports on possible repression. However previous protests were almost literally massacred, with hundreds injured, including a journalist who will most likely lose his left eye. 

Solidarity protests also took place in Argentina, where protesters marched to the Brazilian Embassy in Buenos Aires. 

Sources: Occupied Taksim, Webguerrillero[es] (link 1, link 2).

Brazil: another video of the brutal repression in Sao Paulo

Must watch video: police first attacks demonstrators chanting "no violence", then attacks the press, then it all becomes a war zone of sorts. This is what is happening in Brazil:

Upon this show of gratuitous police brutality, which happened on the evening of Thursday 13th (already mentioned from another point of view here), people began chanting: peace is over, Turkey is here. 

Protests have extended to other cities of the South American giant: at least to Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre. 

Grievances are not just about the bus fare rise of 7% but also there seems to be deep growing discontent in Brazilian society. Some protesters hunched at anti-abortion law, others to rising crime and then of course many at the crowded, yet expensive, public transport system.

Sources: Webguerrillero[es], Occupied Taksim.

Brazil: brutal repression against Sao Paulo protests (again) - updated: more than 150 arrested, 10 injured, incl. 7 journalists

Our friend Tsavkko, the Angry Brazilian, narrates today in first person[por] the latest brutal repression suffered by protesters against the bus tariff rise in the largest city of the South American country. It happened tonight.

The protest began calmly: some 20,000 citizens although there was tension against PT members and sympathizers who for the first time showed up in the march. 

Military Police provocations began right away but the march continued peacefully even after the arbitrary and very violent arrest of a boy who did nothing to cause that attack and, later, of another protester who was helping a motorcycle rider. 

Provocations like these continued all the way. Police was obviously trying to trigger a pretext, any pretext, to justify their pre-designed violent repression. 

Eventually they did attack without any pretext, from several sides, as in an ambush. 

Tsavkko describes this as "a massacre", "the most brutal violence I have ever witnessed". Police attacked from all sides using brutal amounts of tear gas, rubber bullets and other weapons.

After a most complicated "cat and mouse game" which lasted several hours. Meanwhile he witnessed many incidents: journalists attacked, people shot just for crying out "shame!", round up of students, brutal attacks against any group of people with no need of any pretext. 

Police even broke the video cameras in their own vehicles, with the obvious intent of hiding evidence and blaming demonstrators for that (however there is wide independent video-evidence of who did it in fact). 

Tsavkko says:

I have been in Pinherinho, I have participated in dozens of demonstrations before in Sao Paulo and Recife, I have been bathed in pepper gas, I was shot at several times (luckily they always missed) and I have seen police deployments absurdly huge, but today in Saop Paulo I have seen a battlefield. Today is a day to be named the Massacre of Passe Livre, sponsored by Alckmin and Haddad, two bandits of power. 

Police violence was so great that even usually tame media like Folha or Globo, have been forced to underline it with first pages or relatively balanced TV reports.

He concludes: tomorrow it will be better, today we were 20,000, tomorrow we will be 50,000. 

Today's call is at: Segunda, 17h, no Largo da Batata!



Update: at least 150 people have been arrested in the brutal repression, according to the attorneys of Free Pass Movement, which organized the demo.

At least 10 people were injured, seven of them journalists.

Some of the arrested have been accused of (go figure!) carrying vinegar with them, which can be used to counter the effects of tear gases (lemon also works pretty well). However police claims that the product can be used to make home-made bombs (what is absolutely false).

The cause of the struggle is the rise of the bus tariff in 3.20 reales (1.6 USD), which is a 7% rise. That means that before the rise the urban bus fare was already of ~22.90 USD, what is absolutely crazy (here it's around 1 euro).

Source: Webguerrillero[es].

Brazil: images of the protests and repression at Sao Paulo

The Blog do Tsavkko - The Angry Brazilian posts today a large selection of photos and videos of the repression of the protests in Sao Paulo, triggered by bus tariff rise.

Brazil: large protests against bus cost rise result in major clashes in São Paulo

For several days already popular protests have shattered the largest Brazilian city, São Paulo, with widespread clashes between police and protesters. The trigger of this popular uprising is the rise of bus tariffs. More demonstrations have been called for the upcoming days. 

While two years ago the ruling Workers' Party (PT) criticized a similar bout of police repression by bourgeois (PSDB) mayor Gilberto Kassad, now the same government attacks the protesters, as the city hall is now in the hands of a PT member: Fernando Haddad. 

The PT has already abandoned and betrayed one after another most popular causes, like the Landless People's Movement (MST) or, to a large degree, environmental protection of the Amazon jungle, in the benefit of bourgeois oligarchs and developist policies with a mere varnish of social-democracy expressed in some welfare state, mostly intended to keep people sedated.

 

 

Source: Blog do Tsavvko[por] (includes links to videos and photo galleries).