A major humanitarian crisis is engulfing the Yanomami. In the last few months several communities have been subjected to repeated, violent attacks by heavily armed goldminers who are operating illegally in the Yanomami territory. Following one such attack on Palimiu community, two young children drowned in the river as they tried to escape.
On 5 June a large group of miners entered the community of Maikohipi and set off tear gas canisters, forcing the Yanomami to flee into the forest.
Another community, Walomapi has been under constant attack since 10 May, according to the indigenous health body, Condisi-YY. The latest there was on 8 June, when miners fired at Yanomami hunters who had to dive into the river to escape.
Junior Hekurari Yanomami, president of Condisi-YY said: “The situation is chaotic… the authorities must act urgently…. and uphold the Brazilian constitution.”
Since 30 April Yanomami organisations have sent six desperate appeals to the authorities. A federal judge ruled on 12 May that the authorities must establish a permanent presence in the Palimiu region to guarantee the safety of the Yanomami communities. On 24 May a Supreme Court judge ordered the government to immediately take “all necessary measures to protect the lives, health and security of the Yanomami.” The UN and OAS have also condemned the violence and urged the authorities to take immediate action, but the authorities have done little.
According to Dario Kopenawa, vice-president of Hutukara Yanomami Association: “Every day, the Yanomami are intimidated. There’s a lot of harassment, death threats, shouting, brandishing guns, shooting with tear gas. The authorities have never sent in security forces permanently… The authorities have not complied with our requests [for protection and to remove the miners]. The situation is very tense.”
Uncontacted Yanomami communities are highly vulnerable to attacks and diseases transmitted by the miners, and fears are growing for their safety.
The social and environmental impacts of the invasion are immense: 20,000 miners are polluting the river systems with highly toxic mercury. Several studies have shown that some Yanomami communities in the mining zones have levels of mercury poisoning significantly over the WHO’s recommended limit.
The miners are also destroying the forest – a recent report by Hutukara revealed that 2,400 hectares of forest have been destroyed. In 2020, deforestation increased by 30%.
Yanomami leader and shaman Davi Kopenawa, chairman of Hutukara Yanomami Association said: “You see the dirty water, the yellowish river, pits everywhere. These prospectors are like pigs from big farms—they dig a lot of holes looking for precious stones like gold and diamonds. They eventually come back. Twenty years ago, we managed to send these invaders away, and they returned. They are coming in like starved beasts, looking for the wealth of our land. They are advancing very fast.”
Along with the attacks, miners are also spreading malaria and Covid-19. In the past five years cases of malaria have increased by 500%. In 2020 the indigenous health department registered 20,000 cases of malaria. More than a third of the total Yanomami population may have been exposed to Covid-19, making a lethal combination which is devastating their health and ability to feed themselves. Yanomami children are dying from malaria, pneumonia and malnutrition.
Survival International has worked closely with the Yanomami for 50 years. Our Research Director Fiona Watson, who knows them well, is available for interview: press@survivalinternational.org
Editor’s note: If anyone should still have any doubts that we are living in CORPORATE FASCISM, this is imminent proof.
From the statement by Jessica and Ruby when they openly admitted and took full credit for carrying out eco-sabotage: “Some may view these actions as violent, but be not mistaken. We acted from our hearts and never threatened human life nor personal property,” Montoya said. “What we did do was fight a private corporation that has run rampant across our country, seizing land and polluting our nation’s water supply. You may not agree with our tactics, but you can clearly see their necessity in light of the broken federal government and the corporations they represent.”
Des Moines, IA –On Wednesday Federal Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger sentenced Jessica Reznicek to 8 years in prison, followed by 3 years supervised probation, and a restitution of $3,198,512.70 paid to Energy Transfer LLC for the actions she took in 2016 to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline.
“I am saddened to be preparing for prison following today’s sentencing hearing. My spirit remains strong, however, as I feel held in love, support and prayer by so many near and far. Regardless of my sentence I am hopeful that movements to protect the water live on in the struggles against Line 3 and the Mountain Valley Pipelines.”
Jessica Reznicek
The judge sided with the Federal prosecutors and applied a domestic terrorism enhancement to Jessica’s case. The enhancement originated in the Bush era Patriot Act, which expanded the definition of terrorism to cover “domestic,” as opposed to international, terrorism. Theprosecutor requested the enhancement claiming that Jessica’s acts of resistance were “violent”, “dangerous”, and sought to “intimidate the government”. The judge decided that this argument provided enough evidence to substantiate the enhancement, saying it was necessary to discourage others from taking similar actions.
The enhancement increases Jessica’s sentence, but also has far reaching implications for broader social justice movements. This use of this enhancement interprets non-violent actions that challenge corporate profit as acts of terror against the government.
On today’s decision one of Jessica’s attorneys Bill Quigley stated, “Unfortunately, actions to protect our human right to water were found to be less important than the profit and property of corporations which are destroying our lands and waters. For a country which was founded by the rebellion of the Boston Tea Party this is extremely disappointing. But the community of resistance will no doubt carry on. And history will judge if Jessica Reznicek is a criminal or a prophet. Many of us are betting she’s a prophet.”
In her statement to the court Jessica highlighted how the water system for her hometown of Des Moines is on the verge of collapse. The city water department has admitted that both the Des Moines and Racoon rivers are so polluted and low that in the upcoming weeks they might not be able to continue to use them to supply the capital with drinking water. Meanwhile “victim” in this case Energy Transfer Partners and its subsidiaries are responsible for 313 reported spills since 2012 on liquid lines, 35 caused water contamination. In the last 5 years the company had more accidents harming people or the environment than any other operator.
Jessica will remain on house arrest until she has to self-report for her sentence and plans to file an appeal within the 14 day window allowed by the court.
This article originally appeared in Indian Country Today on Jun 24. Republished with permission.
Editor’s note: DGR stands in deep solidarity with indigenous peoples worldwide. The American Holocaust is the largest genocide in human history, and it is ongoing. The catholic church and the school system, two of the most disgusting and evil institutions of this culture, have been – and still are – playing a vital role in this. We deeply condemn both of them for their horrible atrocities.
Featured image: The site near the former Marieval residential school where a ground search has been underway Thursday. APTN journalist Dennis Ward says they are some of the first images being shared by The Federation of Sovereign Nations and Cowessess First Nation. (Photo by Dennis Ward, Twitter)
WARNING: This story has disturbing details about residential and boarding schools. If you are feeling triggered, here is a resource list for trauma responses from the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition in the US. The National Indian Residential School Crisis Hotline in Canada can be reached at 1-866-925-4419. If you’re in Treaty 4 territory, call 306-522-7494.
Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan says it discovered 751 unmarked graves at the site of the former Marieval Indian Residential School in a press conference Thursday. The discovery follows last month’s report of 215 graves at another school.
They are currently treating the area as a “crime scene,” Cowessess Chief Cadmus Delorme said.
The graves were found using ground-penetrating radar which resulted in 751 “hits,″ indicating that at least 600 bodies were buried in the area, Delorme said. The radar operators said their results could have a margin of error of 10 percent.
“We want to make sure when we tell our story that we’re not trying to make numbers sound bigger than they are,” Delorme said. “I like to say over 600, just to be assured.”
He said the area continues to be searched while the radar hits are reviewed by a technical team. All numbers will be verified in the coming weeks.
He said each grave – some only one meter by one meter apart – was now marked with a small flag. It is unknown if all of the dead are children, Delorme said.
“This was a crime against humanity, an assault on First Nations,” Chief Bobby Cameron of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous First Nations in Saskatchewan said. He said he expects more graves will be found on residential school grounds across Canada.
“We will not stop until we find all the bodies,” Cameron said.
The site at Marieval is an open space of unmarked graves, Delorme said. The Catholic church removed headstones from the site in 1960 and tombstones were never put back, he said.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday he is “terribly saddened” to learn of the unmarked graves. He added that the findings “only deepen the pain” that many feel.
“The findings in Marieval and Kamloops are part of a larger tragedy,” Trudeau said in a statement. “They are a shameful reminder of the systemic racism, discrimination, and injustice that Indigenous peoples have faced – and continue to face – in this country. And together, we must acknowledge this truth, learn from our past, and walk the shared path of reconciliation, so we can build a better future.”
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said the entire province mourns the discovery of the unmarked graves.
Don Bolen, Archbishop of Regina, Saskatchewan, posted a letter to the Cowessess First Nation on the archdiocese’s website.
“The news is overwhelming and I can only imagine the pain and waves of emotion that you and your people are experiencing right now,” Bolen wrote.
Bolen said two years ago he apologized to the Cowessess people for the “failures and sins of Church leaders in the past.”
“I know that apologies seem a very small step as the weight of past suffering comes into greater light, but I extend that apology again, and pledge to do what we can to turn that apology into meaningful concrete acts – including assisting in accessing information that will help to provide names and information about those buried in unmarked graves,” he said.
Delorme says the search at Marieval began in June. It was prompted by the discovery of 215 unmarked graves of children — some as young as 3 years old — at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, which was once Canada’s largest Indigenous residential school near Kamloops, British Columbia.
Following that discovery, the Canadian federal government announced a $27 million fund to help pay for searches at schools across the country. Pope Francis also expressed his pain over the discovery and pressed religious and political authorities to shed light on “this sad affair,” but he did not offer the apology sought by First Nations and by Canadian prime minister.
“We are not asking for pity but we are asking for understanding,” Delorme said. “We need time to heal and this country [Canada] must stand by us.”
Next steps for the Indigenous nation will include putting names to the graves found, Delorme said. It has reached out to the Catholic church to identify these individuals.
The First Nation is located north of North Dakota and about 85 miles east of Regina, the capital of Saskatchewan, a Canadian province. The Marieval Indian Residential School operated from 1899 to 1997.
Florence Sparvier, 80, said she attended the residential school.
“The nuns were very mean to us,” she said. “We had to learn how to be Roman Catholic. We couldn’t say our own little blessings.”
Nuns at the school were “condemning about our people” and the pain inflicted continues generations later, Sparvier said.
“We learned how to not like who we were,” she said. “That has gone on and it’s still going on.”
“The Pope needs to apologize for what happened,” Cameron said. “An apology is one stage in the way of a healing journey.”
From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 First Nations children were required to attend state-funded Christian schools as part of a program to assimilate them into Canadian society. They were forced to convert to Christianity and not allowed to speak their Native languages. Many were beaten and verbally abused, and up to 6,000 are said to have died.
The Canadian government has admitted that physical and sexual abuse was rampant in the schools, with students beaten for speaking their Native languages.
According to the release from the FSIN, the community and former school site are closed because of COVID-19 precautions.
The release also stated: “We ask that all members of the media please be respectful of survivors, descendants and the communities affected by this discovery and respect privacy at this time.”
Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania is believed to have been a template for Canada’s residential schools after it passed the Indian Act in 1876.
Nicholas Flood Davin, then a member of Parliament, was tasked with finding a means to educate the country’s Indigenous peoples. Davin visited Carlisle in 1879 and was impressed with U.S. Army Lt. Richard Pratt, the school’s founder. Pratt’s motto, “Kill the Indian, save the man,” helped shape the regimented, military style that defined most boarding schools.
Researchers say that most of the more than 350 U.S. Indian boarding schools — more than double the 130 or so schools in Canada — have cemeteries associated with them. Unlike Canada, the U.S. has never had an accurate accounting of the number of Indian boarding schools, the number of children who attended or those who died at the schools.
U.S. Department of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced a new initiative this week that will result in a detailed report compiled by the Interior and will include historical records of boarding school locations, burial sites and enrollment logs of children’s names and tribal affiliations
The unprecedented move will ultimately aim to create healing by understanding the true scope of boarding schools in the U.S., said Haaland, Laguna Pueblo.
Many reacted to Thursday’s news on social media.
“The spirits of our murdered children are stepping out of the shadows of their lost graves and screaming out for justice,” Brandi Morin, Cree and Iroquois, said in a video posted to Twitter.
“This is a wake up call,” Morin said. “It’s time to face this.”
Featured image: Photo of Damon Clarke, chairman of the Hualapai Tribe by Josh Kelety
Thacker Pass gets a mention in this article in the Phoenix New Times about another proposed lithium mine in Arizona, one that would use the same sulfuric acid leaching process that the Thacker Pass lithium mine would use. It’s also yet another mine threatening the water and land of indigenous people.
“The brewing tension surrounding the project in Wikieup represents a broader fight over lithium mining that is taking place in other states. Increasing use of electric cars and renewable energy has caused demand for lithium to soar, with projections for even more needed in the near future. But some observers are raising red flags, like in Wikieup, about the potential harmful environmental impacts of lithium mines.”
In this case the mining company is Hawkstone Mining, another foreign mining company (Australian, like Jindalee, the mining company that wants to mine lithium just across the OR border from Thacker Pass).
As members of the Hualapai Tribe noted, the mining would disturb their cultural sites (just like the Thacker Pass mine would disturb the cultural sites of the Paiute Shoshone people), and could use up or contaminate ground water in a state in the middle of extraordinary drought.
“There is no water in the state of Arizona. Everyone is fighting for water. Here, in this area, it’s arid and there’s not a lot of water. Whatever water there is here has already been taken by farming and ranching. To allow a big industry to come in that’s going to use tons of water and ruin our water system … then it’s a big problem. This place can’t support something that uses a lot of water, whether it’s lithium or not. We’re all in support of changing our consumption of fossil fuels. But at the cost of the environment just to get that for more cellphones and whatever else, it’s a problem.” — Hualapai Tribe Councilmember Richard Powskey
Peehee mm’huh / Thacker Pass is a special, unique and wonderful place. AND our effort at Thacker Pass is representative of a growing struggle throughout the American West as mining companies ramp up to meet projected lithium demand for EV batteries and energy storage and an ever-increasing number of devices.
As we said when we began this fight: this is just the beginning. We take a stand at Peehee mm’huh for all the land and water that may otherwise be stolen for lithium for cars and gadgets and technology that we do not “need” to live well on this beautiful Earth.
Join us to #ProtectThackerPass and all the other lands under threat from mining.
Vale, the Brazilian mining company responsible for two deadly dam collapses since 2015, has another dam that’s at “imminent risk of rupture,” a government audit warns.
The Xingu dam at Vale’s Alegria mine in Mariana municipality, Minas Gerais state, has been retired since 1998, but excess water in the mining waste that it’s holding back threatens to liquefy the embankment and spark a potentially disastrous collapse.
Liquefaction also caused the collapse of a Vale tailings dam in 2019 in Brumadinho municipality, also in Minas Gerais, that killed nearly 300 people; the 2015 collapse of another Vale dam, in Mariana in 2015, caused extensive pollution and is considered Brazil’s worst environmental disaster to date.
Vale has denied the risk of a collapse at the Xingu dam and says it continues to monitor the structure ahead of its decommissioning; regulators, however, say the company still hasn’t carried out requested measures to improve the structure’s safety, and have ordered an evacuation of the immediate vicinity.
This article originally appeared in Mongabay.
Featured image: Vale’s Xingu mining complex in Mariana. Image by Google.
A dam holding back mining waste from Brazilian miner Vale is at risk of collapsing, a government audit says. The same company was responsible for two tailings dam collapses since 2015 that unleashed millions of gallons of toxic sludge and killed hundreds of people in Brazil’s southeastern state of Minas Gerais.
The retired Xingu dam at Vale’s Alegria iron ore mine in Mariana — the same municipality where a Vale tailings dam collapsed in November 2015 in what’s considered Brazil’s worst environmental disaster to date — is at “serious and imminent risk of rupture by liquefaction,” according to an audit report from the Minas Gerais state labor department (SRT), cited by government news agency Agência Brasil. The SRT did not immediately reply to Mongabay’s emailed requests for comment; it also did not answer any phone calls.
In the May 20 audit report, only released last week, the SRT said the Xingu dam “does not present stability conditions.” “It is, therefore, an extremely serious situation that puts at risk workers who perform activities, access or remain on the crest, on the downstream slopes, in the flood area and in the area on the tailings upstream of the dam,” the document says.
In a statement, Vale denied the imminent risk, saying the dam “is monitored and inspected daily.” It said the structure’s conditions and safety level remain unchanged, rated level 2 on a three-point scale.
The 2015 collapse of the Fundão tailings dam belonging to Samarco, a joint venture between Vale and Anglo-Australian miner BHP Billiton, killed 19 people in the village of Bento Rodrigues, burying them in toxic mud, and flushing mining waste into rivers that affected 39 municipalities across two states. The mining waste eventually flowed more than 650 kilometers (400 miles) from its source to the Atlantic Ocean.
The district prosecutor’s office in Mariana told Mongabay that the Minas Gerais state prosecutor-general has requested the National Mining Agency (ANM) to assess the real risk of the dam rupture. “Any irregularity in the change in the classification of the structure will be evaluated after the inspection carried out by the ANM and, if necessary, with subsequent investigations,” the district prosecutor’s office said.
The ANM rated the Xingu dam’s safety at level 2 in a September 2020 assessment, after requesting Vale to improve the structure. Vale has fulfilled part of the request, but has sought a deadline extension for other repair works, without major changes in the structure, according to the ANM’s website.
In its most recent inspection, on May 5, ANM identified structural problems where no corrective measures had been implemented, according to its website. By then, the ANM considered the potential environmental impact “relevant” and the socioeconomic impact “medium,” given the concentration of residential, farming and industrial facilities located downstream of the dam.
Vale ceased dumping mining waste in the Xingu dam in 1998, but keeps workers on site to monitor the dam’s stability until it’s fully decommissioned. The decommissioning plans is in place but hasn’t been carried out yet, according to Ronilton Condessa, director of the Mariana mining workers’ union, Metabase. No timeline has been given for the decommissioning; a similar structure, the Doutor dam at Vale’s Timbopeba mine in neighboring Ouro Preto municipality, will take up to nine years.
Last week, Vale announced the suspension of train operations to the Mariana complex where its Alegria mine is located, after an evacuation order from labor auditors. The area in the immediate vicinity of the mine, known as the self-rescue zone, remains evacuated. Work at both the Timbopeba and Alegria mines has been halted.
Condessa said that because the Xingu dam is located inside the mining complex, workers continue to pass by it daily on their way to other mines that are still active.
Vale has scheduled a meeting with workers from the dam for June 16 to explain the current situation, according to Condessa. “The evacuation orders look like a preventive measure, but we still need to see a technical study in order to properly evaluate the risk,” he told Mongabay in a phone interview.
The Minas Gerais state civil defense agency said the evacuation of the self-rescue zone was ordered on a “preventive basis to protect the lives of people living downstream of the dam.”
“In collaboration with the SRT, Vale is taking measures to continue to guarantee the safety of workers, in order to resume activities,” Vale said in a June 4 statement.
A two-and-a-half-hour drive west of the Alegria mine in Mariana is the municipality of Brumadinho. This was the site in 2019 of Brazil’s deadliest mining disaster, when a tailings dam at Vale’s Córrego do Feijão iron ore mine collapsed, killing nearly 300 people. The cause of the dam’s failure was attributed to a process known as liquefaction, in which excess water weakens the dam’s embankment. This is the same risk recently identified at the Xingu dam at Vale’s Alegria mine.
Brazil’s Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens has been fighting for decades against the privatization of water and for popular control over natural resources.
This article originally appeared in Roarmag.
Featured image: Vale open pit iron ore mine, Carajas, Para, 2009
A person can go a few weeks without food, years without proper shelter, but only a few days without water. Water is fundamental, yet we often forget how much we rely on it. Only 37 percent of the world’s rivers remain free-flowing and numerous hydro dams have destroyed freshwater systems on every continent, threatening food security for millions of people and contributing to the decimation of freshwater non-human life.
Dams and dam failures have catastrophic socio-environmental consequences. In the 20th century alone, large dam projects displaced 40 to 80 million people globally. At the same time, the communities most impacted by dams have been typically excluded from the political decision-making processes affecting their lives.
In Brazil there is an extensive network of mining companies, electric companies and other corporate powers that construct, own and operate dams throughout the country. But for the communities directly affected by hydro dam projects, water and energy are not commodities. Brazil’s Movement of People Affected by Dams (Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens, or MAB — pronounced “mah-bee”) fights against the displacement and privatization of water, rivers and other natural resources in the belief that everyday people should have sovereignty and control over their own resources.
MAB is a member of La Via Campesina, a transnational social movement representing 300 million people across five continents with over 150 member organizations committed to food sovereignty and climate justice. MAB also works with social movements across Brazil, including the more widely-known Landless Workers Movement (MST), unions and human rights organizations. These alliances speak to the importance of peasant movements and Global South movements in constructing globalizations from below.
MAB focuses its fights on six interconnected areas: human rights, energy, water, dams, the Amazon and international solidarity. The movement organizes for tangible policy and system-level changes and actively creates an alternative to capitalist globalization.
DISASTER CAPITALISM
Just over two years ago, on January 25, 2019, the worst environmental crime in Brazil’s history resulted in the loss of 272 lives. In Córrego do Feijão in Brumadinho, in the state of Minas Gerais, a dam owned by the transnational mining company Vale collapsed. Originally a state-owned company, Vale was privatized in 1997 and since then has made untold billions of dollars mining iron ore and other minerals.
Brazil is the world’s second-largest producer of mineral ores and in 2018 iron ore accounted for 20 percent of all exports from Brazil to the United States. More than 45 percent of Vale’s shareholders are international, including some of the world’s largest investment management companies based in the US such as BlackRock and Capital Group.
The logic of profit has dispossessed people of their sovereignty, their wealth and their water, the very essence of life. The massive dams Vale uses in its mining operations privatize and pollute water used by thousands of people.
When you fly over the state of Minas Gerais, you can see the iron mines as large gaping holes in the ground. Vale and its subsidiaries own and control 175 dams in Brazil, of which 129 are iron ore dams and Minas Gerais accounts for the vast majority of these. Minas Gerais is a region where thousands of people depend upon the water for their livelihood and survival, but the mining leaves the water contaminated. Agriculture and fishing are disrupted or halted, and residents struggle to live without access to potable water.
Exacerbating the problems associated with the privatization and contamination of water for residents, local economy and ecosystems, the dams themselves are vulnerable: the types of dams Vale uses are relatively cheap to build, but also present higher security risks because of their poor structure. When the Brumadinho iron ore mine collapsed, it released a mudflow that swept through a worker cafeteria at lunchtime before wiping out homes, farms and infrastructure. The disaster killed 272 people and an additional 11 people were never found. What made it a crime was that Vale knew something like this could happen. In an earlier assessment, Vale had classified the dam as “two times more likely to fail than the maximum level of risk tolerated under internal guidelines.”
The Associação Estadual de Defesa Ambiental e Social (State Association of Environmental and Social Defense) conducted an assessment and released a report in collaboration with more than 7,000 residents in the regions impacted by the dam collapse. This report shows that depending on the town — the effects of the collapse vary from those communities buried in mud, to those impacted further downstream — 55 to 65 percent of people currently lack employment due to the dam disaster.
Brumadinho is considered one of the worst socio-environmental crimes in the history of Brazil, but it is far from the only one. Five years ago, a dam collapsed in Mariana, killing 20 people; the impacted communities still suffer the effects and are without reparations. On the second anniversary of the Brumadinho collapse, on January 24, 2021, another dam collapsed in Santa Catarina. On March 25, 2021, a dam in Maranhão state, owned by a subsidiary of the Canadian company Equinox Gold, collapsed, polluting the water reservoir of the city of Godofredo Viana, leaving 4,000 people without potable water.
On January 22, 2021, MAB held a virtual international press conference to commemorate two years since the Brumadinho collapse. Jôelisia Feitosa, an atingida (an “affected person”) from Juatuba, one of the communities affected by the dam collapse, described the fallout. People are suffering from skin diseases due to the contaminated water; small farmers cannot continue with their livelihood; people who relied on fishing can no longer do so. As a result, many people have been forced to leave. The lack of potable water has created an emergency. Feitosa said that presently, there are “not conditions for surviving here” anymore. The after-effects of the collapse, compounded by the pandemic, continue to take lives.
There are more than 100,000 atingidos in the region, but people do not know what is going to happen or when emergency aid will come. Further, government negotiations with Vale for “reparations” were conducted without the participation of atingidos. On February 4, 2021, the Brazilian government and Vale reached an accord. Nearly US$7 billion was awarded to the state of Minas Gerais, making it the largest settlement in Brazil’s history, along with murder charges for company officials.
To MAB, however, the accord is illegitimate. It was made under false pretenses, the affected population was not included in the process, and the money, which is not even going to those who are most impacted, does not begin to cover the irreparable and continuing damages. As José Geraldo Martins, a member of the MAB state coordination, said: “[Vale’s] crime destroyed ways of life, dreams, personal projects and the possibility of a future as planned. This leads to people becoming ill, emotionally, mentally, and physically. It aggravates existing health problems and creates new ones.”
As Feitosa put it: “Vale is manipulating the government, manipulating justice.” The accord was reached without the full participation of atingidos, and to make matters worse, Vale decided who qualifies as an atingido based on whether or not people have formal titles to ancestral lands. Vale’s actions create a dangerous precedent that allows corporations to extract, exploit and take human life with impunity. Nearly 300 people died from the 2019 dam collapse, and since then almost 400,000 people have died in Brazil from COVID-19. Yet, during this time, Vale has made a record profit. Neither the dam collapse nor the pandemic has stopped production or profits, even as workers are dying.
FIGHTING BACK: MAB’S STRUGGLE FOR WATER AND LIFE
MAB is committed to continued resistance and will bring the case to the Supreme Court. MAB organizes marches and direct actions and also partners with other movements in activities all across Brazil. They have recently occupied highways and blocked the entrance and exit of trucks to Vale’s facilities. MAB also uses powerful, embodied art and theater calledmística that tells a real story and asks participants to put themselves into mindset that “we are all affected.”
MAB emphasizes popular education to understand how historical processes inform present-day struggles. Drawing heavily on Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, they focus on collaborative learning and literacy by making use, for example, of small break-out groups where people take turns reading and discussing short passages. In these projects, there is an intentional effort to fight against interlocking systems of oppression: classism, racism, heterosexism and patriarchy, which are viewed as interlinked with capitalism at the root.
MAB also has a skilled communication team that makes use of online media, including holding frequent talks and panels broadcast via Facebook Live. A recent MAP pamphlet entitled, “Our fight is for life, Enough with Impunity!” details four women important to MAB’s struggle: Dilma, Nicinha, Berta and Marielle. Dilma and Nichina are two women atingidas who were murdered in their fights against dam projects in their communities. Berta was a Honduran environmentalist who also engaged in dam struggles and was murdered. Marielle was a Black, lesbian, socialist city-councilwoman (with Brazil’s Socialism and Liberty Party) in Rio who was murdered in 2018.
For MAB, the struggles of those who have died in their fight for a better world serve as seeds of resistance, a theme further explored in their film “Women Embroidering Resistance.”
For the past two years, MAB has organized events to commemorate the anniversary of the crime committed by Vale in Brumadinho. In 2020, MAB organized a five-day march and international seminar, beginning in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais’ state capital, and ending in Córrego do Feijão with a memorial service. Hundreds of people from around Brazil as well as allies from 17 countries marched through Belo Horizonte, chanting, “Vale killed the people, killed the river, killed the fish!”
Famed liberation theologian Leonardo Boff is a supporter of MAB and spoke at the seminar, decrying that letting people starve is a sin and asserting that “everyone has the right to land; everyone has the right to education; everyone has the right to culture; we all need security and have the right to housing—these are common and basic rights.” He went on: “We don’t get this world by voting — we need participatory democracy.”
MAB commemorated the second anniversary of Brumadinho this past January with various symbolic actions. In one such event, people tossed 11 roses into the water to honor the 11 people who have still not been found, with additional petals to honor the river that has been killed by the mining company. They also organized various virtual actions since the pandemic precluded an in-person convergence like the one held the year before.
JUSTICE THROUGH STRUGGLE AND ORGANIZATION
Less than a month after commemorating Brumadinho in 2020, COVID-19 exploded and the world went into lockdown. Brazil is now one of the hardest-hit countries with the actions and inactions of right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro — from calling COVID-19 a “little flu” to encouraging people to take hydroxychloroquine as a remedy, to defunding the public health system, and cutting back social services — leading to a dire situation.
In April, Brazil recorded over 4,000 COVID-19 deaths in 24 hours, with a death toll second only to the United States. On May 30, the official death toll from COVID-19 was 461,931. Brazil will not soon realize vaccine distribution to the entire population, and people continue to die from lack of oxygen in some regions, prompting an investigation of Bolsonaro and the health minister for mismanagement.
On May 29, 2021, MAB participated in protests with other social movements, unions and the population in general that spanned across 213 cities in Brazil (and 14 cities around the world). The protesters called for Bolsonaro’s impeachment, demanded vaccines and emergency aid for all, and denounced cuts to public health care and education as well as efforts to privatize public services.
In the past five years, the number of Brazilians experiencing hunger has grown to nearly 37 percent. The COVID-19 crisis has only worsened this reality. In August 2020, Bolsonaro vetoed a bill that would have granted emergency assistance to family farmers.
But Brazil’s story is one of resistance, resilience and hope. Efforts bringing together many social movements, unions and other popular organizations have mounted critical mutual aid efforts. MAB is a leader in these efforts, putting together baskets with essential food, hand sanitizer and other essential goods for families in need. The pandemic presents significant challenges, but MAB has continued to resist Bolsonaro’s policies. For example, they are fighting against the defunding of the national public health care system and continuing to organize in communities impacted by dam projects or threatened by new ones.
The fight for the right to water and against the socio-environmental impacts of dams is global. MAB’s struggle is one of resistance against the capitalist system for a world where the rights of people come ahead of profit. As MAB has said: “In 2020, Brazil did not sow rights; on the contrary, the country took lives, especially the lives of women, Black and poor people, all with a lot of violence and impunity.”
MAB’s struggle extends beyond the fight against water privatization. It is part of a global effort to regain the commons of water and fight against the commodification and privatization of life. MAB’s insistence that all forms of oppression are interconnected is also a statement of hope and a catalyst for envisioning a different world. Imagining new possibilities is a prerequisite for creating them.
This year, MAB celebrates 30 years of fighting to guarantee rights and their message is that the only way is to fight and organize: “Justice only with struggle and organization.” In doing so, they are sending a strong message to Vale: they cannot commit a crime like Brumadinho again and profit will not be valued over life.
Caitlin Schroering holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Pittsburgh. She has 16 years of experience in community, political, environmental and labor organizing.
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