Essential Afro-Latino/ Caribbean Current Events

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CIA Used Herald Reporter as "Propaganda Outlet" in '60s, Documents Show

JERRY IANNELLI | MAY 3, 2018 | 8:00AM

Thanks to the cache of John F. Kennedy-related files the government recently released, Miamians now know about the utterly bonkers plot the feds cooked up to stage a false-flag bombing on its own populace in Miami and then blame the deaths and chaos on Fidel Castro.

But according to CIA documents the Miami Herald dug up yesterday (and a few that New Times subsequently found), the JFK archive is full of all kinds of other insane tidbits about life in the CIA-informant-filled Magic City during the Cold War era. Namely, two Herald journalists — reporter Alvin Burt and Latin America editor Don Bohning — were working as covert CIA informants while also writing and editing for the newspaper in the late '60s.

According to declassified CIA documents, Burt was given the codename "AMCARBON-1," while Bohning was called "AMCARBON-3." Records show the CIA believed both men could have had access to useful information about the Cuban exile community in Miami. Documents show both men gave information to the CIA: Burt reported on Cuban anti-Castro revolutionaries, while Bohning passed along at least one tidbit about then-Louisiana prosecutor Jim Garrison's investigation into the Kennedy assassination. Another CIA report shows the agency hoped to use its South Florida news-media connections for "surfacing propaganda items."

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The existence of the AMCARBON informants in the Herald newsroom has been discussed since at least 2005, when writer Joan Mellen referenced Burt and Bohning in her controversial book about the Garrison investigation, A Farewell to Justice. But the newly released archive paints a picture of the work the two journalists did for the intelligence agency. The "AMCARBON-1" nickname also turns up in JFK documents published by the Mary Ferrell Foundation: The foundation's CIA codename database also notes that another possible informant, AMCARBON-2, might have existed in the Herald newsroom as well.

First, on March 19, 1964, records from the Mary Ferrell Foundation show the agency wrote a full report about Burt's relationship with the unnamed "AMCARBON-2" journalist, the CIA's "KUBARK" interrogation and torture program, and the infamous "JM/WAVE" CIA outpost on the University of Miami campus. The report says CIA higherups gave JM/WAVE operatives permission to "contact the major South Florida news media in an attempt to work out a relationship with these news media which would ensure that they would not turn the publicity spotlight on those KUBARK activities in South Florida which might come to their attention."

Later in the report, the CIA says it "successfully" used Burt as a "propaganda outlet through which items of interest to KUBARK could be surfaced in the free world press." The CIA then listed three instances in which it fed stories to Burt.

CIA

The CIA's ties to the Herald have been rumored since the Cold War began. A 1975 Harper's Magazine article by noted journalists Taylor Branch and George Crile III quoted a former JM/WAVE agent as saying the Herald's Cuba reporters were given free access to the CIA site and showered with scoops to keep them happy.

"A paper like the Miami Herald would have one or two reporters with jurisdiction for Cuba, and we would give them access to the station," the operative told the magazine. "So we would feed them information and give them a career out of handouts. The guys learn not to hurt you. Only occasionally do you give them a big lie, and then only for a good reason. The paper was always willing to keep things quiet for us."

Burt sent information he'd gleaned from journalists about Manolo Ray — a former Castro confidant-turned-anti-Castro-warrior in Miami — to the CIA. In one June 3, 1964 cable, Burt warned the CIA that the Herald had learned that Ray and a group of his collaborators had been arrested by Bahamian police in what would later become a relatively small international incident. On June 4, Burt messaged the CIA again to warn the agency that the Associated Press had also learned about the arrest and was preparing to publish a story about the affair.

CIA
From there, the newly released government archive shows that Burt spoke to Ray on the phone after the arrest and that Burt then passed on the contents of that phone call to the feds. In a June 13 report from that year, Burt told the CIA that Ray was still willing to infiltrate Cuba.


"Ray gives every intention he plans to go ahead with new infil plans but AMCARBON-1 felt Ray not convincing on this issue," the cable reads.

(The documents also detail an unrelated incident in which Burt was accidentally shot by U.S. military forces while he was on a reporting trip to the Dominican Republic.)

As for Bohning, the documents say he also became an informant for the intelligence agency in 1967. The documents don't list whether Bohning passed the government much useful information — except that a person named Winston Smith had called from the Garrison investigation. Smith told Bohning he was helping Garrison investigate Rolando Masferrer, the former head of pre-Castro Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista's Secret Police.

CIA

A man purporting to be Bohning posted on a web forum discussion about the CIA's alleged infiltration of the Herald in the '60s and said he, at least, believed both sides were using each other.

"I don't think the CIA was using the Miami Herald during that period any more than the Miami Herald was using the CIA," Bohning wrote.


SHOW ME HOW

The Herald suggests a similar conclusion in a story today about some of the archived documents. Focusing mostly on Bohning — who went on to become an influential editor at the paper — sources tell the daily they believe the journalist mostly engaged in standard horse-trading with CIA sources to get scoops.

"It would have been derelict not to have routine contact with CIA officers," Mark Seibel, a Herald foreign editor at the time, tells the paper. "I never saw any indication that those contacts skewed Herald coverage and am not aware of any evidence that Don [Bohning] ever passed any information to the CIA."

Burt's name comes up one other time in the CIA archive posted on the Ferrell Foundation site. A March 1964 report mentions the CIA didn't think Burt was a very good reporter. In fact, agents made him sound like kind of a stooge — though calling him "honest" and "cooperative," they said he wasn't well sourced in Latin America and therefore wasn't particularly great just yet at finding information by himself.

"As a matter of fact, AMCARBON-1 is less valuable as a source of positive intelligence than most journalists," CIA agents wrote.

Link:
CIA Used Herald Reporter as "Propaganda Outlet" in '60s, Documents Show

 

[Yehuda]

Why did Afro-descendants shout at the São Paulo Forum

Everything was going fine in the event until something in the end caused discomfort

By: Aiden Salgado Cassiani | 1 August 2019

From July 25th to 28th the XXV Sao Paulo Forum took place in the city of Caracas under the slogan “Peace, Sovereignty and Prosperity for the People”. There were 723 international delegates from over 50 countries from five continents and twice as many national delegates. Among the attendees there was a diversity of populations of all ages, ethnic groups, religions, genders and sexual orientations. The common denominator was the ideological unity against North American interventionism, in favor of peace, sovereignty and the development of the peoples, especially in the specific case against Yankee interventionism in Venezuela. Under this orientation, different discussions and debates were held with the highest theoretical and political level.

The forum was created in 1990 in the city of São Paulo in Brazil by the Workers' Party as an arena for leftist political parties and it has become the most important space worldwide where intellectuals, social activists, politicians and socialist militants meet. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the so-called “end of history”, leftist political parties found in the São Paulo Forum a place of resistance to build agendas and programs to face the capitalist model in its different expressions: neo-slavery, colonialism, globalization, neoliberalism, imperialism, patriarchy, among others, all with the aim of giving a new direction to the socialist project, a kind of First and Second International, under the new logic of this historical period.

On this occasion, during the XXV edition, three days were devoted to debating, where different sectors met separately and prepared documents that would then be read and incorporated into the final declaration, and the agenda or work plan that would be presented as a conclusion in the fourth and last day of the forum. The first three days of debate went on according to the agreed methodology. Everything went very well until the African and Afro-descendant assistants, represented in delegations from different countries, who also worked the same as the other sectors on two documents — Final declaration of the meeting: Afro-descendants in our America and Caribbean against neoliberalism and imperialism and the Afro-descendant anti-imperialist agenda within the framework of the São Paulo Forum 2019–2020 — found that not a single paragraph of the documents prepared in the forum by the representatives of this community had been incorporated into the final declaration. The outrage shook up the final plenary session of the São Paulo Forum as never seen in its previous editions.

Faced with this omission, the Afro-descendants got up from the chairs and raised their voices like good maroons, paralyzing the development of the forum. "Where are the Afro-descendants?", we shouted. Attendees sympathized with our claim by getting up from the chairs, which forced the documents to be reconsidered and our section included.

This leads us to think: does the left still remains locked in the principles of orthodox Marxism, which is not able to look beyond the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat without taking into account other struggles such as the struggle for racial equality, the women's struggle, the environmental movement, etc.? Do the participating political parties of the São Paulo Forum only have a Western theoretical enunciation referent and want to apply it in all latitudes of the world without observing particularities?

This forum, which was not only attended by leftist parties but also social movements, had to leave us an experience with ethnic groups, since it is not conceivable that humanist and socialist proposals continue to be built on this side of the world in favor of the millions of the The Wretched of the Earth — as Fanon would say — while the contribution of Africans and their descendants is unknown. We are more than 150 million men and women descendants of the African diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean, and since we were brought under the condition of slaves we contribute to the formation of the new nations. In addition, we participated decisively in the independence movements and currently continue to contribute. Not to mention that we continue to be the most exploited among the exploited: we suffer from poverty, racism and racial discrimination. Consequently, we faithfully believe that the capitalist system that enslaved us and has us in these conditions of miserable, second-class citizens, cannot offer us anything other than humiliation as human beings.

It is urgent that the left understand that this percentage of people of African descent must be taken into account in the processes of mobilization, social organization and direction, as well as in electoral contests. Likewise, it must understand that we are not this minority they usually talk about, nor are we have the minors that Kant — to use his categories — speaks of in his illustration; we are a people with conscience and we want to leave this state of affairs, where we have been immersed in a system of exploitation and exclusion that has no mercy for the human species and we are convinced that the capitalist system that enslaved us and has us in these conditions of miserable, second-class citizens — I repeat — does not have the solution to our problems of poverty, exclusion and discrimination. That is why today we fight hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder with the dispossessed sectors for the construction of a better world without exploitation, without clusters and discrimination. And to remember the motto with which the forum was born: “another world is possible”.

From the Palenque, still a maroon.

Why did Afro-descendants shout at the São Paulo Forum

 

[Yehuda]

Why did Afro-descendants shout at the São Paulo Forum

Everything was going fine in the event until something in the end caused discomfort

By: Aiden Salgado Cassiani | 1 August 2019

From July 25th to 28th the XXV Sao Paulo Forum took place in the city of Caracas under the slogan “Peace, Sovereignty and Prosperity for the People”. There were 723 international delegates from over 50 countries from five continents and twice as many national delegates. Among the attendees there was a diversity of populations of all ages, ethnic groups, religions, genders and sexual orientations. The common denominator was the ideological unity against North American interventionism, in favor of peace, sovereignty and the development of the peoples, especially in the specific case against Yankee interventionism in Venezuela. Under this orientation, different discussions and debates were held with the highest theoretical and political level.

The forum was created in 1990 in the city of São Paulo in Brazil by the Workers' Party as an arena for leftist political parties and it has become the most important space worldwide where intellectuals, social activists, politicians and socialist militants meet. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the so-called “end of history”, leftist political parties found in the São Paulo Forum a place of resistance to build agendas and programs to face the capitalist model in its different expressions: neo-slavery, colonialism, globalization, neoliberalism, imperialism, patriarchy, among others, all with the aim of giving a new direction to the socialist project, a kind of First and Second International, under the new logic of this historical period.

On this occasion, during the XXV edition, three days were devoted to debating, where different sectors met separately and prepared documents that would then be read and incorporated into the final declaration, and the agenda or work plan that would be presented as a conclusion in the fourth and last day of the forum. The first three days of debate went on according to the agreed methodology. Everything went very well until the African and Afro-descendant assistants, represented in delegations from different countries, who also worked the same as the other sectors on two documents — Final declaration of the meeting: Afro-descendants in our America and Caribbean against neoliberalism and imperialism and the Afro-descendant anti-imperialist agenda within the framework of the São Paulo Forum 2019–2020 — found that not a single paragraph of the documents prepared in the forum by the representatives of this community had been incorporated into the final declaration. The outrage shook up the final plenary session of the São Paulo Forum as never seen in its previous editions.

Faced with this omission, the Afro-descendants got up from the chairs and raised their voices like good maroons, paralyzing the development of the forum. "Where are the Afro-descendants?", we shouted. Attendees sympathized with our claim by getting up from the chairs, which forced the documents to be reconsidered and our section included.

This leads us to think: does the left still remains locked in the principles of orthodox Marxism, which is not able to look beyond the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat without taking into account other struggles such as the struggle for racial equality, the women's struggle, the environmental movement, etc.? Do the participating political parties of the São Paulo Forum only have a Western theoretical enunciation referent and want to apply it in all latitudes of the world without observing particularities?

This forum, which was not only attended by leftist parties but also social movements, had to leave us an experience with ethnic groups, since it is not conceivable that humanist and socialist proposals continue to be built on this side of the world in favor of the millions of the The Wretched of the Earth — as Fanon would say — while the contribution of Africans and their descendants is unknown. We are more than 150 million men and women descendants of the African diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean, and since we were brought under the condition of slaves we contribute to the formation of the new nations. In addition, we participated decisively in the independence movements and currently continue to contribute. Not to mention that we continue to be the most exploited among the exploited: we suffer from poverty, racism and racial discrimination. Consequently, we faithfully believe that the capitalist system that enslaved us and has us in these conditions of miserable, second-class citizens, cannot offer us anything other than humiliation as human beings.

It is urgent that the left understand that this percentage of people of African descent must be taken into account in the processes of mobilization, social organization and direction, as well as in electoral contests. Likewise, it must understand that we are not this minority they usually talk about, nor are we have the minors that Kant — to use his categories — speaks of in his illustration; we are a people with conscience and we want to leave this state of affairs, where we have been immersed in a system of exploitation and exclusion that has no mercy for the human species and we are convinced that the capitalist system that enslaved us and has us in these conditions of miserable, second-class citizens — I repeat — does not have the solution to our problems of poverty, exclusion and discrimination. That is why today we fight hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder with the dispossessed sectors for the construction of a better world without exploitation, without clusters and discrimination. And to remember the motto with which the forum was born: “another world is possible”.

From the Palenque, still a maroon.

Why did Afro-descendants shout at the São Paulo Forum

Their declaration

 

[Yehuda]

Afro-descendant movements in Venezuela exchange experiences with Zwelivelile “Mandla” Mandela, Nelson Mandela's grandson

Written by Patricia Martínez on 27/07/2019. Posted in Noticias

This Saturday, on the XXV edition of the São Paulo Forum, Venezuelan Afro-descendant movements exchanged experiences with the South African political activist Zwelivelile Mandlesizwe, grandson of Nelson Mandela.

Among the Afro-Venezuelan movements that participated were the “Cumbe of Afro-Venezuelan Women”, the Juan Ramón Lugo Afro-Revolutionary Movement, the Afrosoy Movement, the “Trenzas insurgentes” Afro-descendant feminist movement, as well as the Afro-Venezuelan Social Movement.

The South African activist took the opportunity to tell them how he first met his grandfather, Nelson Mandela, who by then had never seen his grandson, since he was born when he was deprived of liberty. It was precisely in prison where this first meeting between grandfather and grandson took place, which became a decisive moment, because from there Zwelivelile Mandlesizwe set out to follow Mandela's footsteps, a path that has led him to continue his anti-imperialist struggle.

On behalf of the Juan Ramón Lugo Afro-Revolutionary Movement, activist Chucho García said that “Mandela is a fighting agenda that is the agenda that we carry out for peace, which was what Mandela achieved during his presidency in South Africa, he managed to unite the South African people”.

Finally, García also pointed out that this event was very significant because it called for an agenda between Africa and the diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Afro-descendant movements in Venezuela exchange experiences with Zwelivelile “Mandla” Mandela, Nelson Mandela's grandson

 

[Yehuda]

Afro-Venezuelan movements and institutions: "Bachelet's report is biased and racist"

July 13 2019

We condemn the biased and racist report presented by the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, about the situation in our country, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, which is subjected to international sabotage, facing the multidimensional blockade that it has been suffering from since the decree of former President Obama and deepened by the government of Donald Trump, accompanied by neoliberal governments of Europe and Latin America.

Dr. Bachelet kept quiet about the assassination of over fifteen Afro-descendant victims in the guarimbas led by far-right and racial extermination groups of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie. She annulled in her report the case of 21 year old Orlando Figuera, burned alive by racial extermination groups in the Altamira square, Caracas. Dr. Bachelet and her work team that was in Venezuela were unable to interview the families of the victims who still suffer from the racial hatred that the Venezuelan ultra-right implanted. Dr. Bachelet's report violates Article 4 of the UN's Convention against Racial Discrimination, which states that “the States condemn all propaganda and all organizations that are inspired by ideas or theories that promote racial hatred”, and that is what happened with the lynching of the young Figuera, who was stabbed and burned, as Afro-Venezuelan female poet Lilia Ferrer says in her book of poems Voces del tiempo, in a poem dedicated to Figuera:

Black skin stripped naked
that runs distressing,
bare are its furrows
bare are its dreams.
And the air is imbued with an ignited body
lighted are the wings of the hurt Phoenix

Dr. Bachelet, your biased report is covered in a discriminatory and racist blanket. It is unfortunate you have let yourself become involved with UNRELIABLE INDICATORS and your team has not reached the bottom of the problem that the human rights violations have its epicenter in the government of Donald Trump, the same government that supports the governments of racial extermination such as that of President Ivan Duque in Colombia which has killed in its short time more than a hundred Afro-descendant leaders as well as the president of Honduras Juan Hernández who has exterminated more than fifteen percent of the Afro-indigenous Garifuna community. Is there no report from your work team on those racist murders that Donald Trump has commited?

We invite the UN Rapporteur on Afro-descendant issues to visit our country so that they know how the blockade is affecting our Afro-descendant communities and at the same time collect the testimonies of the relatives of the Afro-descendant fallen victims in the Guarimbas (terrorist acts) led by the Popular Will political party to which the violator of the Venezuelan Constitution and ventriloquist of the US government belongs, terrorist and aspiring president Juan Guaidó.

Juan Ramón Lugo Afro-Revolutionary Movement, Trenzas Insurgentes, Guillermo Ribas Maroon Organization, Afrotuyero Movement, Jose Leonardo Chirino Anti-Imperialist Front, Conadecafro, AfroSoy, Pan-African Bloc of Venezuela and Afrojuventud Rebelde.

Afro-Venezuelan movements and institutions: "Bachelet's report is biased and racist"

 

[Yehuda]

In prison for 30 days, Preta Ferreira says: 'I'm in prison because I was born a poor black woman'

The housing rights activist, who was arrested with her family on June 24 for anonymous reports of extortion, was interviewed by Rádio Brasil Atual.

Published by: Redação RBA | 24/07/2019 15:30

Preta Ferreira, in an interview with reporter Nahama Nunes: "They can't keep me here forever. I will fight twice as harder than I already fought"

São Paulo — Janice Ferreira da Silva, known as Preta Ferreira, has been in jail for 30 days without comitting any crime. She was detained with her brother, Sidney Ferreira and her mother, leader of the City Center Homeless People's Movement (Movimento Sem Teto do Centro, MSTC) and the Fight for Housing Front (Frente de Luta por Moradia, FLM), Carmen Silva. The charge is extortion by charging a fee for residents in occupied condominiums in the center of São Paulo — in a trial that disregards that these contributions are decided at residents' meetings, registered in the registry office and proven by receipts. For Preta, the truth is different. “I'm not a thug, I've always worked. I was arrested because I was born a poor black woman in a country where the bosses are male chauvinists and racists.”

Preta was interviewed yesterday (23) by reporter Nahama Nunes, of Rádio Brasil Atual. The interview was recorded and broadcast on TVT's Seu Jornal (watch below). She is in the Women's Penitentiary of Santana, in the North Zone of São Paulo's capital. The housing rights activist criticizes the decision, justifies the charging of such a fee and, emotionally, classifies her imprisonment as a political one. “I was arrested because I fought for constitutional rights. Who should be in jail is the one who has not fulfilled his constitutional duties. Housing is a constitutional right”, she said.

The activist is in a special cell, since she has a higher education degree — she majored in Advertising. She argues that the social movement is going through a criminalization process in the country and, that, ideally, she would not even like to wage her daily struggle. “Nobody occupies these buildings because they want to. We occupy them due to necessity, because we do not want to die of cold. We are not vandals. We occupy them because we need to. Do you think I didn't want to have my house? I wanted to, but how will I buy it? I work to eat or to pay for housing. Where in São Paulo does anyone live with a minimum wage?” she asked.

Accusations

Preta's defense claims that she did not even have full access to the inquiry that led to her arrest. On the 10th, the Superior Court of Justice (Superior Tribunal de Justiça, STJ) denied an injunction calling for the prisoners' release. What is known is the accusation of extortion, which might have been made anomymously to police. Such a charge had already been applied against Carmen last year. She was acquitted. “How is she responding twice for the same crime?” Asks Preta about her mother.

Extortion

About the amounts charged to residents of occupations under control of MSTC, Preta says they exist, are fair and are in accordance with the law. “Everything they paid I paid too. I can't extort anyone and give proof of that. The movement gives proof of payments. These fees were decided by the residents themselves, just so there was no theft”, she said.

She explains that, after the movement occupies a government building, it is not suitable for housing. The city itself — after the collapse of the Wilton Paes de Almeida building in Largo do Paiçandu, in São Paulo's city center, last year — demands quality standards from localities, under penalty of expropriation. “The city hall, the government leaves the building abandoned. We go and occupy it. When we arrive the building is not beautiful and wonderful. Who is going to pay for that? It will have to come from somewhere.”

Preta also explains that, in addition to light, water, fire extinguishers and structural maintenance, occupations also need the service of some professionals, all paid by the residents themselves. “The resources are used within the occupations themselves. We pay lawyers, doormen. Who works for free? 24 hour doorman, lawyers, administrative body, social workers. Not even the government works for free. We have to pay the people who work for the movement”, she said. All of this, she says, is agreed upon in the movement's assemblies that are recorded in the registry office.

A mixture of movements

The activist states that the courts treat all housing rights movements as if they were one thing; the entire social movement is brought together and criminalized. Therefore, facts about the case of the Wilton Paes de Almeida building, which collapsed after a fire, would be in her trial, even though her movement had no connection to that building. “They mixed in a lot of movements that have nothing to do with it. They mixed Ananias in and I have never seen him in my life. They mixed MSTC with the Paiçandu building, that is a lie. I can't pay for doing something if I had nothing to do with it. The building fell, well go investigate it. There is this man on the run, why?”

Political intimidation

Preta was the presenter, before being arrested, of the Free Lula Bulletin. She even received a letter from the former president, who is imprisoned in Curitiba. The rise of the far-right in the political arena is related to hers and Lula's arrest, she says. “Lula gave a lot of opportunities, he listened to social movements and the poor. I know what he's going through and he knows what I'm going through. We know why we are in prison. This is the dictatorship of 2019.”

The activist also denounces that she was intimidated by a commissioner and a prison guard. “The commissioner said he is from the right and that next year he was going to run and said fukk everybody from the Workers' Party. He said that on the State Office of Criminal Investigations (Departamento Estadual de Investigações Criminais, DEIC). So I am a political prisoner. The DEIC guard said 'fukk these people from the Workers' Party'.”

Support

Since the arbitrary arrests, artists have mobilized. Names such as Ana Cañas, Chico César e Maria Gadú were at DEIC throughout the day of her arrest. “The support is gratifying. It gives me more willpower. When I leave, I will leave stronger. They can't keep me here forever. I will charge everything and everyone. I will fight twice as harder than I already fought. After this arrest I now think I'm very important”, said Preta.

This Wednesday, at 1 pm, in Praça do Patriarca, in the city center of São Paulo, a public act will be held in defense of the freedom of Preta and the other arrested leaders of the homeless peoples' movement.



In prison for 30 days, Preta Ferreira says: 'I'm in prison because I was born a poor black woman'

 

[Yehuda]

Carmen, Preta's mother, homeless leaders: why they want us locked up

Flávia Martinelli
July 3 2019 04h02

Carmen Silva leads one of the largest organized urban housing rights movements in Brazil, the City Center Homeless People's Movement (Movimento dos Sem-Teto do Centro, MSTC) of São Paulo. She was provisionally arrested last week, along with her children Sidney Silva and Preta Ferreira, who are also part of the movement. The siblings have been detained — together with another militant and a leader of another similarly focused organization — and are seeking habeas corpus to defend themselves in freedom.

Carmen's lawyers say they are waiting for access to the investigative inquiry for her to present herself for clarification. She gave some interviews to Universa, all about six months ago. At the time, she was fighting another case with charges similar to those of now. She was acquitted. Excerpts from the conversations are posted here.

See the story of this baiana migrant, who once lived on the streets in São Paulo and today is in charge of five occupations. MSTC, which she is the president of, has 2,000 members who have already been awarded their own house and another 5,000 associates. Together, they are all part of the Fight for Housing Front (Frente de Luta por Moradia, FLM), which brings together nine other movements, totalling almost 30,000 people.

Carmen Silva and Preta Ferreira, from the City Center Homeless People's Movement (Photo: Rodrigo Zaim)

Another Northeastern saga

It could have been another harsh story of a homeless woman: tired of being beaten for over a decade by her alcoholic and jealous husband, a Northeastern black woman leaves her eight children with relatives and goes to São Paulo to earn a living. Her dream is to bring her kids to the metropolis, but she finds herself helpless, without even having a place to live.

The tragic and predictable script, however, had a twist when Carmen Silva Ferreira attended the meeting of a housing advocacy group. “I went to a Tenement Forum meeting at the insistence of a lady I met at a hostel. I worked during the day and went to sleep there. I was on the street, just like her”, says Carmen. It was 1996 and Carmen used to say that “this occupation thing is nothing but lies”.

Carmen speaks to a police officer during the occupation of the abandoned National Institute of Social Security (Instituto Nacional do Seguro Social, INSS) building in the center of São Paulo (Photo: Jardiel Carvalho)

But the migrant, coming from the lower half of Salvador at the age of 35, saw people like her at that meeting: black women, single mothers, workers who had to choose between paying for food and a place to live. “There were entire families showing eviction letters, saying that they lived on the edge of a stream and were facing death. They were all broken up like me, with no way out.”

Meanwhile, São Paulo's old center was unpopulated, with hundreds of abandoned buildings and almost no public housing policy for the low-income population. “Why couldn't the workers live there on the center, huh? There were hundreds of empty buildings and landlords who had over 200 properties they couldn't care for and pay tax. Not to mention the buildings that were owned by the state because of debts that exceeded real estate values.”

Homeless meeting during occupation at the former Cambridge Hotel. Carmen is the protagonist of the film that describes the struggle for housing. (Photo: Jardiel Carvalho)

São Paulo has 1,385 idle properties, which are abandoned, with no social function, underused or undeveloped land, according to the last Municipal Housing Plan of 2016. The housing deficit is at 358,000 new houses and the city has another 830,000 homes located in precarious settlements on the banks of streams, stilt houses and built by wood, for example, that need regularization and improvements.

Today, 23 years after the first meeting to discuss the right to housing, guaranteed by the 1988 Constitution, Carmen regrets being still called "invader or vandal" by society. At 59, the leader is proud to be “Dona Carmen, among authorities, artists, independent journalists, real estate registry offices and even police officers.”

Conservation scene of the abandoned INSS building on the day of the second occupation on site two years ago. More than 50 tons of trash were removed during this time. (Photo: Jardiel Carvalho)

Last week, she was ordered to be temporarily detained in search and seizure operations in addresses of 17 leaders from different housing rights movements. All, according to police, are suspected of criminal association and extortion, for charging "rents" between $200 and $400 in occupations they coordinate.

The investigation concerns the tragedy that occurred on May 1, 2018, when the homeless-occupied building Wilton Paes de Almeida collapsed after a fire that left nine dead. The building's coordinator, Ananias Pereira dos Santos, the target of a warrant not yet served, was commanding the occupation at Wilton Paes, which Carmen said has nothing to do with her movement. “It's an arbitrariness of justice”, says MSTC defense attorney Ariel de Castro.

Carmen was acquitted earlier this year in another lawsuit based on similar charges. Judge Marcos Vieira de Morais, of the 26th Criminal Court of São Paulo, stated that the accusers had no evidence and based the verdict on the presentation of invoices and minutes that the movement leader sent. According to the sentence, they proved accountability that helped with the maintenance and restoration of occupations. “The defense attached to the records invoices and minutes of meetings showing the allocation of individual contributions that each family should pay to support the monthly expenses of the building”, the judge wrote in the ruling.

Carmen is waiting for the current trial to unfold. In an interview at the State Office of Criminal Investigations (Departamento Estadual de Investigações Criminais, DEIC), commissioner André Figueiredo, responsible for the investigation, explained that the arrests were requested by the Public Prossecutor's Office, and on-duty judge Marco Antônio Vargas, from the 26th Criminal Court of São Paulo, understood that arrests would be necessary.

At the police station door where Preta and Sidney presented themselves and were arrested, protests took place throughout the week. On social media, the support from celebrities intensifies. Dozens of artists, such as Caetano Veloso, Criolo, Mariana Aydar, Marcelo Janeci, Cleo Pires, Duda Beat, Leticia Letrux, Maria Gadú, Ana Cañas, Lua Leça, Spartakus, Mel Lisboa, Jean Wyllys, Mônica Benício, Chico César, Emicida, Bruno Gagliasso, Clara Averbuck, Maria Casadevall, Otto, Erica Malunguinho, Paulo Miklos, Preta Rara, Fioti, Karina Buhr, Bia Ferreira, Doralyce and Monique Evelle have already spoken on the case.

Instagram/Facebook

Carmen knowns the underworld of the São Paulo real estate market like few others. She learned to pull records of buildings left stinking with property taxes that exceed the value of real estate. She found out what the paperwork that proves the abandonment of public buildings say.

“We've already removed more than 50 tons of trash in a single occupation”, she recalls, speaking of the old INSS building on Nove de Julho Avenue, occupied again two years ago. “I do the work the city doesn't do. Not only do I identify real estate without a social function, I turn them into healthy popular housing and cultural centers for the city.”

It was the third time the place was occupied. The first was in 1997 and by then the building was abandoned for 20 years. The electrical installations were redone and today the focus is on hydraulics. There are safety reports and site inspection, in addition to the trained fire brigade. There are 123 families living in the building, about 500 people, including 66 children, who have a pre-university entrace exam, a library, a playroom, music classes, therapy, a dentist and regular visits by family doctors and vaccination campaings.

 

[Yehuda]

Here is some of her story, in a video from the Mídia Ninja channel the UOL report accompained the making of:



The building has hosted three architecture biennials: Amsterdam, São Paulo, Venice and this year will have the Chicago one. One of the residents was elected to the region's Guardianship Council. Cássia Felet, professor and researcher at Unesp, made a master's thesis arguing that the mental health of the occupation's children is better than the average of the children of São Paulo.

Carmen also delved deeper into the dynamics of developers, millionaires, or investment funds profiting from the demolition or abandonment of downtown buildings. “Without spending a penny, they await tax incentives and have privileged access to public revitalization or requalification projects. The real estate market heats up and profits of more than 1000% bubble up in those enterprises where poor people don't enter”, she says.

Flag of the Fight for Housing Front (FLM) in the occupation of the former INSS building. (Photo: Jardiel Carvalho)

She looks at homelessness for the poor “as un urban continuity of the slave regime”. “The abolition never existed. The former slaves were denied access to housing and land. It also happened to the indians and happens today to all those excluded from this system who does not want to lose its cheap labor”, she says. And she finishes it with a loose laugh and without mincing her words: “What do they want from us? They expect us to be happy with hunger in the slums? Yeah, right!”.

In the public administration sphere, she was coordinator of the Participatory Council of the Sé region in the city for two bienniums and today she is the municipal and state councilor of Housing and public policies for women. She also coordinates the management board of two blocks that are right in the middle of Cracolândia.

In time: Carmen brought her children to São Paulo in the 1990s. Among them were Preta Ferreira and Sidney, who are still in prison. In São Paulo, besides leading the housing rights movement, she had a career for 20 years in the same insurance brokerage company. It was her first job in the city and she continues as a service provider for entrepreneurs. A lecturer in architecture and urbanism courses, she is also an actress. She played herself in Eliane Caffé's film Era o Hotel Cambridge, which spent 20 weeks in theaters and was seen by over 30,000 spectators.

The official trailer for the movie where Carmen plays herself:



Music video by Preta Ferreira, who is a singer, actress, publicist and cultural articulator:



The first occupation is now a cultural reference

It was in 1997 that Carmen participated — along with two thousand other people — in the first occupation of the imposing INSS public building in São Paulo's center. The place was filthy and useless for 20 years. At the time, it was considered the largest occupation in the city. “It was a fuss. The press called us vandals, they didn't even hear us.”

But Carmen now had a zip code and proof of residence, albeit provisional. “It makes a hell of a difference! Without an address, you're nothing. You can't open a bank account, send a résumé, do a refrigerator installment, nothing.” Without the anguish of having to decide whether to pay rent or put food on the plate, it is possible to live beyond survival. “I remember the horror of living in someone's house as a favor. When I arrived, I spent almost a year looking for a job. When I got it, I was in such debt that I couldn't even afford a pension in Pari. Next thing I knew, I was on the street”, says the leader who always hears similar stories in the occupations.

“They want me locked up because I represent many”

Carmen remembers the shame, loneliness, and desperation that comes with sleeping in the open. Like many, she hid her situation from her family because she did want to “return more defeated than when I left”. In the street, she found out about a hostel and met all kinds of people there. “Good and bad people. What saved me was having focus: I had to get my kids. I also learned another important lesson: you're nobody if you're alone.”

It was in the housing rights movement that the individualistic Carmen died. “I never thought about my job again, my home, my life and me, me, me... I relearned to live focusing on the collective. I'm many. That's why they want me locked up. Me and everyone who is with me.”

The occupation turned housing project

Today, Carmen pays the bills with five family members. They pay a R$ 1,800 rent in an apartment in the center. “I no longer need to live in an occupation and take someone's place”, she says. She is awaiting funding for a home of her own at the former Cambridge Hotel, one of the buildings she occupied and lived in under poor conditions for four years.

In 2015, the housing project carried out by the occupants with technical advice from the NGO Peabiru won the call for proposals of the Minha Casa, Minha Vida Program lauched in 2009 during Lula's presidency. The hotel will turn into bank-financed public housing with a deed, an occupancy certificate and everything regularized by the city hall for 121 families who will occupy the old 27.5 m² and 55m² rooms.

The dream of home ownership, which will come true within a year of renovations (which they call retrofit, or a complete readjustment), is the collective result of hundreds of clashes not always friendly to the public, including repossession with police officers, pepper spray and mace, as well as society's prejudice.

Carmen looks at the city aware that it is indeed possible to allocate vacant properties in the Center for those who have no place to live (Photo: Daniela Moura/Mídia Ninja)

It's not easy to deal with the people in the occupations

Carmen is known for being hard in all these places. “I have to be strong. A lot of people depend on me.” Everything happens in an occupation. “There was a man who wanted to push drugs and got ran out by the movement, a woman who claimed to be a city employee and really all she wanted was to keep smuggling cigarettes in the building.”

There's a coordinator for every floor of the building and this person needs to even break up silly fights between neighbors. “Do you know why I'm often rude? Because my ears are deaf to gossip. It's so many people I bump into that I know a person's tricks and opportunism. There's everything in this big world. But having rules here is essential. Outside, you can do whatever you want but not inside! A man can't hit a woman, kids have to go to school and can't be alone in the house, no noise after 10 p.m. and cleanliness is everyone's business”, she says, calm but with arched eyebrows.

“I never imagined a woman like me who came here in disrepair, destroyed in body and soul, would be fighting for so many people's right to housing.” People with a story like hers: 60% of occupations under Carmen's watchful eyes house single mothers. The movement, in turn, has 80% female strength, including emerging leaders. It's the kind of life that, like on Northeastern poet João Cabral de Neto's poem Morte e Vida Severina, “stubbornly builds itself”.

Carmen, Preta's mother, homeless leaders: why they want us locked up

 

[Yehuda]

Who is Benkos Biohó, Ivan Márquez's replacement in Congress?

July 23 2019, 2:33 P.M.

The new Farc senator is said to be one of those responsible for the Bojayá massacre. He was once part of the Farc General Staff and was one of the ideologues. This is his story.

Benkos Biohó assures that Márquez has not left the peace process, despite his concerns. Photo: Semana

Israel Zúñiga, better known as Benkos Biohó — before, during and after the war — came to Congress to occupy Ivan Márquez's chair, after the Council of State decreed his political death. He is Farc's new senator and the first one to be sworn in by President of the Senate Lidio García. Political life is not strange to him, he will move like fish in the water.

Benkos is persecuted by the public accusations that claim he's responsible for the Bojayá massacre, on May 2 2002, when a mortar launched by the Farc ended the lives of civilians trying to escape guerrilla and paramilitary crossfire.

According to the National Center for Historical Memory, men from the 5th, 34th and 57th Fronts of the Farc's José María Córdoba Mobile Column participated in this confrontation. During his guerrilla life Benkos belonged to several fronts: the 57th, 19th, 41st and 34th, where he was before signing the peace agreement.

Although Benkos describes himself simply as a “combatant”, he was part of the Farc General Staff, and thus had command responsibility. He will tell his truth before the Special Jurisdiction for Peace. On December 18, 2014, Benkos apologized to the victims of Bojayá, along with Pablo Catatumbo and Pastor Alape, who acted as the spokesperson at the Bellavista church.

Benkos' story

He was born in Barranquilla in 1966. His family migrated there after being displaced during the La Violencia period (between 1946 and 1958) in an invasion neighborhood in the city's southwest. His political work began in 1988, the same year the popular election of mayors came into effect; at that time he was part of a group of young people fighting for basic public services for the Santo Domingo neighborhood.

“My parents were close with the ANAPO, there was always a picture in the house. It was seen at the time as something progressive compared to the Conservative and the Liberal Party”, says Benkos.

Being the youngest of four brothers, he ended up studying in a private school called Los Alpes, owned by the communist party, because his parents did not want him to follow in the footsteps of one of his brothers, who studied at a public school and would end up in revolts. “We had to go look for him in prison”, he says.

Then he went to college, and although he is reputed to be a doctor, he says he was an assistant to professors of many careers; he learned everything from sociology to medicine. There he combined the student movement with the political activity of his neighborhood.

When he entered the Farc he was assigned to the 19th Front, relatively close to Sierra Nevada, and in the late 90s he was transferred to Chocó, just during the beginning of paramilitarism. “I arrived as an agent of political and organizational action”, says Benkos.

His ideologue functions were maintained. He says that every day at the camp there were two hours of training in an impromptu classroom where they listened to the news summary and studied.

When the peace process arrived, Benkos, as a member of the General Staff, participated in the Havana talks so that “ethnic issues were reflected in the agreements”. Not surprisingly, he called himself Benkos, as did the palenquero leader of Matuna and Montes de María. “I studied in a communist school, and there was a teacher who is the first man to write about Benkos in this country. When I arrived at the Front I claimed his name as my own”, said the Farc senator. His name is a reference to Maroon leader Benkos Biohó, who at the beginning of the 17th century led the revolution of San Basilio de Palenque.

In his first words as a congressman Benkos defended Iván Márquez, whom he still considers part of the peace process even though he has not complied with the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, and said that we must “move from combat to debate”. He is considered the hardline wing of the Farc, however his congressional colleagues have the expectations that his ideological radicalism is not an obstacle for him to develop the responsibilities that others, such as Senators Sandra Ramírez and Carlos Antonio Lozada, or representative Marcos Calarcá, have assumed with the terms of the agreement.

Who is Benkos Biohó, Ivan Márquez's replacement in Congress?

 

[Yehuda]

Mexico City Congress recognizes Afro-Mexican community

The amendment to Article 2 of the Constitution now recognizes them as one of Mexico's original peoples.

By Redacción GH | July 31 2019

Mexico City. — The Mexico City Congress approved an amendment on Article 2 of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, where Afro-descendants are recognized as one of Mexico's original peoples.

Recognizing that discriminatory and classist attitudes towards people still persist because of their skin tone, the opinion was ratified unanimously by 53 lawmakers present.

Up until four years ago, it was unknown how many Afro-descendants were in Mexico, since they were not counted on the censuses.

It was until 2015 when a question was added on the census, where it became known that there are 1,38 million people who recognize themselves as Afro-Mexican, or 1,8% of the population.

Deputy Valentina Batres indicates that the Afro-Mexican community was only recognized in the constitutions of Guerrero and Oaxaca, and a large part suffers at school, work and housing levels.

“For centuries Afro-Mexicans were ignored as one of the original peoples. However, they have been here since before the consolidation of Mexico as a nation state, being architects of its creation and of our history. For example, the contribution of women and men of African descent to the construction of Mexico is ignored”, Batres said.

“There is little recognition regarding the fact that our country's second President, Vicente Guerrero, was of African descent. There is also silence on liberator and general José María Morelo's origins; the mulatto ancestors of the Flores Magón brothers — precursors of the Mexican Revolution — remain unknown”, said the legislator.

In addition to the capital, a dozen local congresses have recognized Afro-Mexicans: Chiapas, Coahuila, State of Mexico, Hidalgo, Michoacán, Oaxaca, Puebla, Sinaloa, Querétaro, Veracruz, Jalisco and Tabasco.

With four more states in favor, an official promulgation could be made.

Mexico City Congress recognizes Afro-Mexican community

 

[Yehuda]

Thomas Sankara's 'enfants'

During the August Revolution in Burkina Faso (1983–1987), 600 students between the ages of 11 and 14 moved to Cuba to receive training in various fields.

Tribute to Sankara: “Your children educated in Cuba will never forget you. Freedom can only be won through struggle”. ÀLEX MEYER VERDEJO

ÀLEX MEYER VERDEJO
Published August 15 2019 06:50

The Seventh Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries was held in New Delhi from March 7 to 12, 1983. Young captain Thomas Sankara attended as Prime Minister of the Republic of Upper Volta, and there he met Fidel Castro for the first time. “With this first conversation I understood that Fidel has a great humanity, a very sharp intuition and that he was very aware of the importance of our struggle and the problems of our country. We became very good friends”. Months later, on August 4, 1983, there was the uprising that would make Thomas Sankara president.

The arrival of the revolutionary government removed the foundations of the neocolonial Republic of Upper Volta: its name changed to Burkina Faso (combining the Dyula and Mossi languages), followed by nationalizations, land reform, improvement in public services, direct participation through the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, promotion of local products, opening of responsible positions to women, etc. The level of literacy was around 4% at that time, and had a threefold to fourfold increase in four years. For Thomas Sankara, education was fundamental to the struggle of the Burkinabé people: “The schools must teach people how to read, how to write, but above all they must teach how to count. Not to count on your fingers in a dreamy way, but to count on your own strength”.

In this sense, the Cuban Revolution is also known for giving this vital importance to the educational system. In his speech at the Third National Congress of Municipal Education Councils (1962), Fidel Castro said that “a spirit of extraordinary collective improvement has been created, a true interest for study. We Cubans can proudly say that in the field of education we are at America's forefront”. At the same time, the great Cuban commitment to the so-called “proletarian internationalism” has meant that over the decades links have been established with numerous revolutionary processes around the world.

Despite the context of the blockade and attempts to destabilize the revolution, Cuba collaborated with some fifty African countries, according to Hedelberto López in his book Cuba, pequeño gigante contra el Apartheid ("Cuba, a small giant against Apartheid"). The island played an active role in the fight against South African apartheid, supported various liberation processes in former colonies and revolutionary processes of new independent states. In December 1983, Cuba and Burkina Faso agreed to create a joint cooperation committee. In July 1984 they signed an agreement with implications in industry, agriculture, transport, health and education. In October 1985, 600 places were offered at Isla de la Juventud, in Cuba, for high school students. In March 1986, the Burkinabé president sent a letter to Fidel Castro assuring his “constant availability to continue strengthening our revolutions”.

Thomas Sankara and Fidel Castro with children from Burkina Faso.

Nebon Babou Bassono, who has been living in Barcelona for 11 years, explains that he is “one of those 600 students who went to Cuba in 86.” The 600 places were distributed among adolescents aged 11–14 from the 45 provinces that then formed Burkina Faso. The ones who could opt for them were young orphans (of one or both parents) or youth in vulnerable situations. There was a minimum reserved for girls, who were 135 of the total of 600.

The Cuban government and the Burkinabé government had agreed on a series of studies, most of them focused on a specific professional area. Some fifty young students were able to choose studies aimed at further university education. Bassono says that “it was a moment of revolutionary euphoria. For me, being chosen to go to another country with the same ideology meant a lot. Back then in Burkina Faso there was an air of rupture, of emancipation of the people with regard to the metropolis. And Cuba was a hope. I will always be very grateful for having been able to study there.”

Just one year later, Thomas Sankara was assassinated. Blaise Compaoré began to preside over a government that would last until 2014 and which would restore neocolonial ties. “The ambassador of Cuba to Burkina Faso came and updated us. We would hear what happened on the radio. The question was... what now?”, says this Burkinabé based in Barcelona. Later, a delegation from the new Burkinabé government traveled to Cuba to report that nothing would change. However, the entire spectrum of military and ideological training was eliminated. “When we heard about the murder we fell apart. We made a request to the the Cuban government to train us militarily. What was our intention with this? Those of us who were there know what was our intention... but the Cuban government did not agree”, says Bassono.

Despite the death of the political context that had taken them to Cuba, the Children of Sankara continued their studies. “I made more networks in four years on that island than I made living here in Barcelona for the past 11 years. I felt like one more Cuban. It was not a thing of ‘I am an African and an immigrant, I am in an European country and I have to deal with Europeans’”, says Bassono. Until 1978, Isla de la Juventud was called Isla de los Piños, but the National Assembly of People's Power renamed it after thousands of young students who collaborated in its reconstruction after Hurricane Alma in 1966. When Burkina Faso students were on the island, it was a strong hub for internationalist revolutionary training. This is how Bassono sees it: “Angola, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Congo, Nicaragua, Korea... there we were comrades: the poor people of the world fighting against imperialism.”

“After finishing high school, you chose a specialization and you went to the Great Island. I had to go to Santiago de Cuba. I studied Industrial Engineering”. Between 1992 and 1994 the bulk of the students returned to Burkina Faso. The group that went to college returned a decade later, and some people stayed in Cuba. The return was not easy: they were very young when they left, and many spoke Spanish better than French. And they had the stigma of being “communists” in a counter-revolutionary context. Bassono recalls how “at the time you left you were the hope of the family... and you come back as a sucker whom people look at askance. There are some extreme cases of people who have committed suicide.”

Many had serious problems finding work. The main exception were those who had studied Medicine. The need for this specialty was so pressing that it went above the stigma. “I went to a factory to look for a job, and when they saw ‘Cuba. Patria o muerte: venceremos’ in my diploma they stared at it like ‘damn, he's going to cause trouble’. They were hard times: feeling like a persona non grata in my own country. But all of us whom they called ‘the Cubans’ kept in touch: we supported each other and organized to demand our rights”, says Bassono.

“When Thomas Sankara came to visit us in Cuba, he told us he considered us ‘the torch of the revolution’. So of course, we would always say to ourselves ‘we are the torch of the revolution’. But a year went by and he was assassinated”, says Bassono. It happened on October 15, 1987, and his figure was largely buried during the 27 years of the Blaise Compaoré government. A stage that ended abruptly with the popular mobilizations of the end of October 2014. On August 4, an act of presentation of the Thomas Sankara Memorial was held in Ouagadougou. A man intervened enthusiastically speaking of the August Revolution. On his shirt it said: “Thomas Sankara, your children educated in Cuba will never forget you.”

Thomas Sankara's 'enfants'

 

[Yehuda]

“We have to be emphatic, but without thinking we are making an extreme rupture”, states Moisés Rocha (Workers' Party), pre-candidate for mayor of Salvador

YURI SILVA
Published August 7 2019

Salvador councilman Moisés Rocha (Workers' Party) is the third one interviewed by the Mídia 4P portal in this series of interviews with black pre-candidates running for mayor of Salvador. In his third term at the City Council, he guarantees he won't seek reelection in the legislative branch in order to dispute Palácio Tomé de Souza, and reflects on backstage politics in Bahia's capital.

In this conversation with 4P journalist and editor-in-chief Yuri Silva at the Alaíde do Feijão restaurant, Rocha discussed the Workers' Party's internal issues, the troubles supporting a black candidacy in the face of party bureaucracy, the divisions created by the establishment to create intrigues in the black movement, among other related subjects.

He also reflected, in his replies, on the first two interviews published by the portal, made respectively with the president of bloco afro Ilê Aiyê Antônio Carlos dos Santos, known as Vovô, who's under the Democratic Labour Party and had his name launched for the dispute, and with sociologist and militant of the black women movement Vilma Reis (Workers' Party).

Mídia 4P — You were one of the first, if not the first, black politicians to announce you were running for mayor, even saying you would not try to be reelected councilman. What was your intention when you made this move? What debate do you want to provoke?

Moisés Rocha — I want to start by congratulating the portal for stimulating debate, stimulating discussion and listening to the black pre-nominations so far. I find this very important for people to be aware not only of the motivations, proposals and projects, but the real motivation, and the references that we have in our city that can actually occupy this place exercising majority rule. I was very happy that you suggested that this conversation take place here in Alaíde do Feijão, because this place is in fact a quilombo of resistance. We already come here routinely to talk about everyday issues, but we took the initiative to form the Feijão Bench, every Tuesday in this review format, as we call it, where we started discussing political issues, black movement issues, all with bread, salami and cheese, as well as Alaíde's gizzard. These heated debates are turning 6 years old, going from the old place to this new space. From here came the suggestion, in fact, in the face of provocations, that we should make available the black names that have the potential to dispute Salvador's City Hall and hold this debate within the party. The aim is indeed to show that we do have capable, competent and able people. Our goal is, under no circumstances, to have a personal project. The Workers' Party, for example, has a city project ready and delivered since Nelson Pelegrino first ran for mayor. And it wasn't us who created it, it was our ancestors, the rebellious ones from way back, who left all this luggage ready for us to use now. So we made this provocation and put up our name. We recently made it clear in the election team, as Mano Brown said, that we need to pay attention to our base. Our party needs to do it, all progressive parties need to do it, we need to have more dialogue with the people. There's a black population in this city, as well as a non-black population, who needs to see this happen in a majority black city.

How do you evaluate the movements of other pre-candidates? I don't think we have ever had as many black candidates as we have this year.

I find it extremely positive. I like talking to people around me who witness what happened here. Alaíde is right here and she knows our goal was not to have one name. There might be a convergence at a certain point, but our goal was that several names could be put in order to show that this city has a capable and competent black panel. And there are even names out of the quotes that could be mentioned. We could mention Elias Sampaio, Sérgio São Bernardo, Samuel Vida, Lívia Vaz, Margareth Menezes, as we have Leci Brandão as a state congresswoman, as we had Netinho de Paula as a candiate. We have competent names and that's what this city needs to understand. People say they think it's important, but the election is not about being white or being black, they just think you have to be competent. That's because at first they try to divide us using William Lynch's theory, which as widely used in slavery. To keep us dominated, they make black people fight white people, black men fight black women, the youth fight the elders, the light-skinned fight the dark-skinned, party A fights party B, and that keeps us from occupying places of power. When they say that competence is what matters, they want to deny that we are competent. What's absurd and abnormal is a city where 84% of the population is black is unable to elect a black mayor. Edvaldo Brito was mayor from August 1978 to April 1979, for 8 months, and later couldn't be a candidate, even though he was qualified. We need to make it clear that, first, they are not going to divide us. We need to make black convergence really happen. And second, that we have the ability, the competence, to put an end to this kind of speech that says color doesn't matter. It's strange that this city can't put us to exercise majority rule. In 1937, Getúlio Vargas ended the Black Brazilian Front because he knew that it was a way for us to climb up positions of power. There's always a structure trying to keep us from reorganizing to exercise majority rule as we should.

Your party has at least three black pre-candidates: Vilma Reis, Valmir Assunção and yourself. How is this discussion going to be internally? Can you unify to compete with the whites who historically have been the candidates of the Workers' Party?

I would even mention other names, such as councilman Luiz Carlos Suíca, who could put up his name. There's councilwoman Marta Rodrigues, a woman who's on her second term, who's been president of the party and who could put up her name, and I even think it would be a refurbishment in the political tendency she is a part of. We have an important board. Someone who's paying more attention to this, understanding that we need to speak the language of the streets, that we need to hear our base, is our great leader, great revolutionary José Sérgio Gabrielli, who wrote a fantastic open letter drawing the attention of the party's higher authorities to have the insight to realize that this is a different movement and that we must not ride this wave, but make this wave come true. We do not mean to say we have a name that is the best or the worst. We have a project that, early on, within the organization, was delivered to the party. Governor Rui Costa knows, for example, that within his Government Program that are several black movement proposals. If they're not implemented, it's because there is no interest, but they're there. They were delivered. We'll try, within this Workers' Party direct election process going on now, to press this issue so that the Workers' Party can do differently and make reparation.

You and Valmir Assunção are very close and both are pre-candidates. How are you discussing this? What strategy are you thinking of?

Within the Workers' Party, only two councilmen have had three consecutive terms. One is of tremendous enormity, respect by everyone regardless of political group, who is making the revolution wherever he is, which is Zezéu Ribeiro. And myself, even with all the difficulty, criticism, moments when they said I would probably be out. And I'm the only one who belongs to no political tendency. I'm not linked to any state or federal deputy, I've never been a priority candidate for any of them throughout my political career. I've been a campaign manager. I was in five campaigns of former federal deputy Luiz Alberto, helping to build, making it happen, but I was never in a tendency, especially since at the time the group said it had no tendency, we had the Dois de Junho Collective. So I feel very comfortable. I have great respect for Valmir. We've eaten off used spoons at many Landless Workers' Movement marches. He knows my commitment, my relationship with the community, my participation in daily life for a long time. That's why I have great affection for Lucinha, a personal sympathy, and she's even a candidate in PED (The Workers' Party's direct election process). So I talk to Valmir as calmly as I talk to you. He was recently in our office and I said “Valmir, I think you're an excellent name, but I think you should show more affinity to the city, more affection for the city, show a willingness to exercise leadership in the city, because you're a fantastic figure”. I would have no problem, in the name of convergence, a perspective of unity, with stepping down. I have no personal vanity. We have to stop saying we want to make politics different and we are never ahead. In the last election, it was evident that we were useless even for deputy mayor. We had Gilmar's pre-candidacy, Valmir's pre-candidacy, Luiz Alberto's, and then the party's ticket was composed of two non-black people.

 

[Yehuda]

In addition to the Workers' Party, there are other black candidates in other parties. Which name do you think can bring the most people together?

If we do not allow ourselves to be contaminated by Lynch's theory, any name can bring people together. I want to remind you that here in our country, in Porto Alegre there was once a black mayor, Alceu Collares, who then went on to be Rio Grande do Sul's first black governor. Espírito Santo has had a black governor. Rio de Janeiro elected a black senator who then went on to be governor, Benedita da Silva. It's very strange that Salvador can't do the same. It's strange that my party, the Workers' Party can't see the national reference in black senator Paulo Paim. The senator of the Statute of Racial Equality, the Statute of the Elderly, the Statute on Persons with Disabilities, the only senator from the South, the Southeast and the Central-West to be reelected in this last battle we faced. The only senator who has a national campaign. Brazil's retirees unite to defend Paulo Paim's candidacy. For me, he should be the president. But they insist on leaving him invisible. Here we make the same mistake, sometimes even among ourselves. Washington, D.C., Chicago, New York and San Francisco elected black mayors. Black people are a minority in New York. Black people in San Francisco aren't even 10% of the population. It's strange that Salvador can't elect a black man or woman. And then I say with all convinction, of course some are a little ahead, because they are on a longer path, they climbed up political spaces. So we can say that congresswoman Olívia Santana, if we were to look at as a marathon, would be an elite athlete. There are some elite athletes. We just can't let jealousy, vanity and individuality take over this process. We need to invert values in this city, which is a poor city. This city that only invest R$ 15 million in repairing, that pays for mothers not to put their children in day care, instead of building day care centers. We need to get out of our offices, we need a man or a woman who actually talks to the communities.

What impact, in your assessment, with your three-term experience, would the election of a black mayor in Salvador have on public policies?

Certainly there would be too much pressure to maintain the status quo. Just as there is no free lunch, there is no free distribution of power. Power is conquered. When you're elected, you don't necessarily get the power. First there needs to be a lot of political will. Then you have to have a lot of skill. In a short amount of time, you can see that, if they want to, they can take it away from you. So it will be important to have dialogue with all segments of society. You'll have to make greater investment in education, in health. We need to invest a lot in social assistance, to take care of our people, and invest a lot, a lot, in basic education, in day care centers, in kindergarten, in full-time school. And there's the big problem. When those who have been controlling, dominating power for a long time, perceive even the slightest ascension, even if it comes by baby steps, they rebel and use financial power to control the media and political means.

So, in order to elect a black mayor we would need to make broad alliances, even with this status quo, or would it be possible to win the election without those alliances?

There is one thing that is fundamental: not every black person is an ally and not every white person is an enemy. There's an Ilê Aiyê song that says “the black dissident is a traitor”. And we have a lot of black dissidents. And we have a few whites who understand the importance of correcting the direction of this city. The Brazilian political system has not undergone a thorough reform and, unfortunately, you can only build so-called coalition governments. I have no doubt that, at first, we will need to do as we have done in several other moments. In Apartheid, all the fighting, all the resistance, all the confrontation, which were fundamental to guarantee the victory, did not guarantee Mandela as the president, in an drastic rupture. We have to be emphatic, objective, we have to be clear in what we want, but without thinking we are making an extreme rupture, a revolution, because we're not. We would love to, but we're not. We can't give in, we can't give up on certain political principles and projects, but we will need to negotiate. This is the path to a building that is wide and at no risk of being interrupted midway. I've been inside of movements seeking this drastic rupture, but we have not yet accumulated strength for it. But I have no doubt that we should walk showing the population the importance of exercising majority rule. And Vovô's speech is interesting in that sense. The new thing in politics is black men and women in positions of power. If it's a black man, for the city it's a fantastic victory. If it's a woman, it's twice as fantastic. Because we'll be overcoming the barrier or racism and sexism.

How far does the willingness of those who put their names go to go all the way in confronting their parties for this black candidacy to exist?

You can be sure that our goal is to go all the way in this debate, this discussion. I often say that they have to be ashamed of denying us that right, not us. I can quietly abdicate, give up, in favor of another. I told Vovô that if the Democratic Labour Party says he's a candidate, I'm with him and I won't give up. They need to understand that it is not possible to be left-wing and look at black people the same as others. I tell you very strongly that we need to reverse priorities. We have competence, who knows what is best for our pain is us.

Finally, what is more difficult for you to achieve this goal and what can break this obstacle?

We have some flaws, some vanities, some troubles understanding ourselves that we need to overcome. But this surely isn't our biggest obstacle. Our biggest obstacle is certainly those who dominate power in Salvador, Bahia and Brazil understanding the importance of making this transition. And I am very convinced that, just as they did with Ilê in 1974, they will do it with us now. They'll say that we want a black candidacy in a hasty manner. They'll say that it's not the moment, that society isn't ready, that the important thing to have is not the name but the political project. It takes political will. Because when you have political will, you can make Rui Costa become governor. Rui Costa today walks with his own legs. He occupied a strategic space in the government and this made strengthened him. Why can't black candidates fill strategic positions that strengthen their names? The question is for the party and the governor. Why was federal deputy Luiz Alberto never thought of for mayor of Salvador? So political will is lacking. This is our biggest challenge: overcoming the lack of affection and political will of those who rule the parties.

“We have to be emphatic, but without thinking we are making an extreme rupture”, states Moisés Rocha (Workers' Party), pre-candidate for mayor of Salvador

 

[loyola llothta]

 

[Yehuda]

The Triple Frontier as the empire's strategy against Venezuela

By: Jesús Chucho García | Friday, August 16 2019 | 01:12 PM

The government of Donald Trump and the three stooges (Pompeo, Pence and Bolton) and their puppet, self-proclaimed president of Venezuelan magical realism Juan Guaidó, have been combining all forms of struggle against the decision of the Venezuelan people to be sovereign and anti-imperialist.

These forms of struggle during these almost twenty years of the Bolivarian process have been changing according to the conjuncture of the regional geopolitics of our continent and worldwide.

When president Barack "Oreo" Obama occupied the White House, he had more than twenty advisors just for the Venezuelan case as well as five thousand lobby offices surrounding the presidential house of which 120 are controlled by the US oil companies that had investments in our country from Monsanto to Procter and Gamble, from McDonald's to pharmaceutical and automobile companies. They all began to conspire against the country since we proclaimed the new Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic.

Their first try was the failed coup against Hugo Chávez in April 2002 when they imposed a puppet state that failed to stay even 24 hours in Miraflores. Then came the Oil Coup and from then on sabotage and forms of struggle for destabilization were systematic, creating dialogues more false than a "three dollar bill", then moving to seek consensus in the US Foreign Ministry for Latin America, that is, the OAS, but when they failed there, they created another form of struggle called the TERROR diplomacy with the so-called Lima group or cartel, which failed despite its last meeting in Lima where they also failed to reach a majority consensus despite the pressure of president TRUMP. Then more than a hundred economic, financial, sanitary measures until reaching the embargo, but even with all that our people still have hope in the Bolivarian process, despite our internal errors and a great inability to manage as well as the existence of overlapping enemies that get mad when we make specific criticisms to help straighten this country that belongs to all Venezuelan men and women. Our historical conscience has allowed us to get by but we also demand that they not continue improvising, manipulating with leaders taken out of a detergent box, placing mediocre people in decision-making positions that only give people secondhand embarrassment. We must change and move forward against imperialism and colonialism and the incapacity and signs of internal corruption.

The Triple Frontier: the new imperialist fight

For some time now we have been making the triple frontier approach very sensitive for any invasion of our country, given that the United States Congress condemned that kind of United States action against Venezuela. The non-disposable form of invasion would come through the triple border: Guyana, Brazil and Colombia, where their pro-imperialist governments are studying with the USSOUTHCOM strategic command a real possibility given the failure of Trump's puppet government in Venezuela and the military support from Honduras and Colombia to the guarimbas of 2017 and the skirmishes of last year when they tried to assassinate President Maduro. Colombia has 10 military bases. Brazil attacked the autonomy of an airport in the Venezuelan Amazon last year and now in Guyana oil company ExxonMobil is doing exactly what Russia dennounced these past few days: a military base is being built in the Venezuelan territory of Essequibo by England (who stole part of our gold reserve) and the US with ExxonMobil where they already started with high techonoly paramilitary training. This triple frontier combined with gringo military bases in the Caribbean against Venezuela pose a real danger we must be aware of.

The Triple Frontier as the empire's strategy against Venezuela