sábado, 10 de janeiro de 2009

Manifestação Fora Gilmar em BH

Sai Fora, Gilmar Mendes!


Na quarta-feira, 24 de junho a partir das 18h, acontece manifestação nacional pela saída de Gilmar Mendes do STF. E, desta vez, somam-se outros setores sociais que não mais suportam calados tantos desmandos nos poderes da república. As manifestações serão promovidas pelo Movimento Saia às Ruas, uma mobilização que reúne cidadãos e cidadãs de todas as classes sociais, religiões e idades, todos unidos por um país justo.

Nos últimos meses, o Brasil tem sofrido várias derrotas e retrocessos em termos de garantia de direitos, sem se dar conta de que algumas das conquistas mais nobres estão sendo ameaçadas. O STF, na gestão do pecuarista e empresário Gilmar Mendes, resolveu fazer o jogo sujo que sempre é visto no Congresso desmoralizado por Sarney, Renan Calheiros, Jáder Barbalho, Maluf, ACM e outras pragas da vida política. O povo sofre porque a Justiça trata pobres e ricos de maneira desigual. Nota-se que os privilégios de classe e o preconceito contra os movimentos sociais persistem na mais alta corte do Brasil. O povo é traídos por quem deveria zelar pela – e não destruir a – democracia.

Ao libertar o banqueiro Daniel Dantas e criminalizar os movimentos populares, o pecuarista e empresário Gilmar Mendes revela a mesma mentalidade autoritária contra a qual uma geração inteira de militantes e trabalhadores que lutou, com o objetivo de derrubar a ditadura civil-militar que sufocou o país entre 1964 e 1985.

Ao libertar o banqueiro Daniel Dantas e criminalizar os movimentos populares, o Ministro Gilmar Mendes revela a mesma mentalidade autoritária contra a qual se luta a mais 30 anos. O Brasil já não admite a visão achatada da lei, aplicada acriticamente para oprimir os mais fracos.

O Brasil já não admite a visão achatada e conservadora da lei, aplicada acriticamente para oprimir os mais fracos. O Brasil já não atura palavras de ordem judiciais – como “Estado de Direito”, “devido processo legal” ou “princípio da legalidade” – apresentada como se fossem mandamentos divinos para calar o povo. Já não há espaço no Brasil para um Judiciário das elites, um Judiciário das desigualdades.

MANIFESTAÇÃO EM BRASÍLIA:

Local: Praça dos três poderes, em frente ao Supremo Tribunal Federal STF

Quarta-feira, 24 de junho de 2009

Hora: a partir das 18h, em três capitais brasileiras,


MANIFESTAÇÃO EM BELO HORIZONTE:

Local: Rua Goiás, 226, Centro; COM A PRESENÇA DE DR. PROTÓGENES QUEIROZ

MANIFESTAÇÃO EM SÃO PAULO – SP:

Local: Avenida Paulista, 1842 (Prédio do TRF-3).

É uma mobilização nacional, dia 24/quarta, contra GILMAR MENDES.


quinta-feira, 1 de janeiro de 2009

Rede de solidariedade às Comunidades/Ocupações Urbanas Dandara, Camilo Torres e Irmã Dorothy.


Convidamos a todos aqueles indivíduos, grupos, entidades e organizações que se solidarizam a causa das Comunidades/Ocupações Dandara, Camilo Torres e Irmã Dorothy a participarem da reunião da rede de 
solidariedade e apoiadores que acontecerá:

Dia: 09/11

Hora: 18h30min

Local: Rua Espírito Santo, n° 1059, 4° andar. Próximo a Av. Augusto de Lima.

Por uma cidade onde caibam todas e todos!

People of low income are still restricted from access to the programme Minha Casa, Minha Vida

Approximately 167 thousand families with incomes of up to three minimum wages (R$ 1.4 thousand) have registered themselves, in Belo Horizonte, for the programme Minha Casa, Minha Vida, of the federal government. The delivery of the forms for participating in the programme, that seeks to build houses with subsidised instalments – for this income range –, is bound to end on Friday in the City Hall’s regional offices and through the internet (the closing time for this modality being 20h). Those who are interested, however, should expect complications. No civil construction company has presented any housing projects to Caixa Econômica Federal, under the allegation that the prices are not competitive. In order to maintain the dream of having a house, there are already people resulting to prayer, as the watchman José Paulo Pereira. “I have been praying a lot. My salary is just to pay the telephone, water and electricity bills, and rent”, he says.

“The programme faces these problems in Belo Horizonte for it has not received any construction projects. We need the help of the City Hall”, says Marivaldo Araújo Ribeiro, regional manager of Habitação da Caixa (Caixa Econômica Federal’s housing department). The Municipal Housing Secretariat says that the City Hall analyses the tax exemptions for the companies that are interested in building houses for low income populations.


The president of Câmara Brasileira da Indústria da Construção (CBIC), Paulo Safady Simão, was in a meeting earlier this week with the governor Aécio Neves, and asked for an exemption of the tax Imposto sobre Circulação de Mercadorias e Prestação de Serviços (ICMS) for building houses for low income families. According to Simão, the exemption would represent a discount of approximately R$ 2.5 thousand for each house.


In Belo Horizonte, the value that was authorised by the government for the construction of low income apartments is of up to R$ 46 thousand. The civil construction companies want this value to approach those of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, respectively R$ 51 thousand and R$ 52 thousand. “It is a large difference, if one takes into account the fact that the construction costs in Rio are almost the same as here”, remarks André de Sousa Lima Campos, director of the housing projects of the Civil Construction Union of Minas Gerais (Sinduscon-MG). The request of the construction companies reached the Ministry of Cities, but as of yet has not gone any further.

COPASA INTERRUPTED THE PROVISION OF WATER TO 1,086 FAMILIES OF ACAMPAMENTO DANDARA

Frei Gilvander Moreira.

We must, making ours Dom Oscar Romero's words, say: "Employees of COPASA, you are not obliged to follow an order of superiors that tells you to interrupt the provision of water that quenches the thirst of the poor people, for this order is against the will of God, that wants abundant life for all. In this case, the employee has the right to object on the grounds of his conscience, and say: "that I shall not do. My conscience does not allow it." And act as the tractor driver that, hearing the cries of an officer with an eviction order in his hand, got down from the tractor and, with tears in his eyes, said: "I shall loose my job, but I shall never run my tractor over the house of a poor family."
"If to cut the water that quenched the thirst of the 1,086 homeless and landless families of Acampamento Dandara COPASA is using that a protocol signed with the court, that prohibits the provision of water in irregular occupations, the action is illegal. Sílvia Helena, when a legislative chairwoman in Belo Horizonte, in 2004, during the year of the Fraternity Campaign, presented an amendment to the Organic Law of the municipality, article 150, establishing that the basic services do not depend of the regularity of the division of the soil or of the building. It aims at guaranteeing water for everyone, and has already been accepted by the municipality, currently integrating our Organic Law. The power of the municipality comes from the fact that it is the power that grants the sewage and water services in the Capital, it being the able for COPASA and the Public Ministry to establish unilateral terms."
SUEZ (a transnational water company) that provides water in South Africa, installed public water taps in the poor neighbourhoods and put, by their side, a mechanism that makes the water flow by inserting a pre-paid card. The norm is: only he who pays can drink. In Brazil there already is abusrdity of the pre-paid system, in Tocantins' water service. Exploitation with the most fundamental good for life! To the transnational companies it does not matter whether the children are kept without water, if mothers cannot cook, or if it is imposible to have any hygiene without water. The only thing that matters is the cash flow obtained by the control of the most essential good. The transnational companies have been expelled from many cities in the world, and now it is time to expell them from Brazil as well. Water must have a communitarian management. Transnational companies, as well as big announcers and the controllers of the media, ilude us with beautiful propaganda and the support of bad politicians. Away with the transnational companies. To resit is necessary. The sociologist Maurílio Libânio reflects that:
However, the transnational companies have brought a new and absurd paradigm. "Only he who pays can drink water". What a sadness it is to find water, a good essential for life and a fundamental human right, transformed into a commodity. Whenever the transnational companies advance in the water systems and are able to privatise, through direct concession or through acquisition of shares, the State systems or those who were subjected to communitarian management abandon the provision of services to put their actions in strive of "obtaining financial results". We may list many examples to show the defiling of the provision of services for the obtaining of abusive profits for the shareholders, disconnected from our reality. COPASA has sol shares in the world market, and today has got 75% of them in the hands of foreigners. For having established as its objective obtaining profits (it is in its yearly report, published in newspapers), it denies water to hundreds of people who live in poor neighbourhoods of interior cities, denying making the connection even if the plumbing is already installed. There is the payment of R$400.00 for the connection to be made. Comparing municipalities under the dominion of COPASA to those that have got the water provision administered by their own city, the tariffs are up to five times more expensive, even in equivalent residencies. Why must our population be sacrificed and undergo difficulties in otder to pay the abusive bills that generate results that are not reverted to our communities, state and country?
Rui Nogueira, in his artcile "Only he who pays can drink water", considers that: "Jesus Christ approaches the well, source of water to the region where the samaritan is. "Only he who pays can drink water". Described in such manner, the scene is shocking. There are those who become wrathful for this is not the paradigm, the model that exists in our minds. It is shocking because of the figure of Christ, and because it goes against the subconscious idea we all share that water is the essential good for all of our lives, a universal good, that cannot be denied. The figure of Christ is not connected to the mercenary mentality, and a proof of this is that he whips the salesmen in the temple. To reinforce the point, in Brazil there prevails the tradition of not denying water to those who are thirsty.
We should take as an example the hospitality of Abraham, that offered water for his guests to wash their feet (Genesis 18,1-5); the solidarity of Jacob, that takes the rock out of the well so that Rachel may quench the thirst of her flock (Genesis 29,10); Moses' decision of guaranteeing the right to water for the daughters of Jethro (Exodus 2,16-17); the generosity of the widow of Sarepthe that, in the middle of a drought, does not hesitate in giving to the prophet Elias a glass of water and a piece of her last bread (1 Kings 17, 10-11); the courage of Abdias, employee of the palace of king Acab that, even fearing the wrath of the systematic monarch, feeds the prophets with bread and water (1 Kings 18,4); the wisdom of the prophet Elysium that makes drinkable the waters for the use of the people (2 Kings 2, 19-21) and manifests his strength healing, in the Jordan, the leprosy of the Syria Naamã and making float the ace that had fallen in the river (2 Kings 5,15; 6-6); the daring of Judith that knows how to surpass the vigil of the enemy soldiers who controlled the sources of water, wanting to defeat the people through drought (Judith 7, 13-14; 12,7-9). By proceeding in such way, in gratefulness for water, we become living water. "He who follows me, from within himself shall flow rivers of living water" (John, 7-38). Rui N
According to the biblical story of the Genesis 2,1-10.15, the land is bound to be a garden of God, and man a gardener. For the people of arid regions, the first work of God was make rain available and irrigating a semi-desert region. One day, the lack of water created drought and hunger in all of Canaã. The Hebrews were obliged to migrate to Egypt (Genesis 47). There they multiplied and were oppressed by the empire of the pharaohs (Exodus 1). The slave Hebrews shouted to God and he came to liberate them, conducting them from slavery to the land of freedom, passing through the Red Sea that split into two parts, letting them pass, between the waters, with dry feet (Exodus 14). A similar event occurred when, later, led by Josiah, the Hebrews, already united in the same Israelite people, crossed River Jordan, with dry feet, to acquire the possession of the land of Canaã (Josiah 3-4).
In the beginning it was water; and from the water was made "flesh": creatures of the entire universe. We are not just sons and daughters of water. We are more. We are water that feels, that sings, that loves, that desires, that creates... The people of the Bible, fruit of the ecumenical encounter of many people and oppressed classes, was born of "tribes" that lived in a semi-arid region, or even in a desert. In the Middle-East, living is more related to the sources of water, that are few, than to just land itself, in the sense of territory. Water is related to the main founding events of the biblical people: creation, the deluge, the exit of Egypt, the entry to the promised land etc. Any biblical project is only sustained close to sources of water, rivers or wells. In the Bible there is an association of water with the word of God. To the people God gave water to drink from a hill, and for 40 years guaranteed them their daily bread and the water to drink.
The Comitê de Solidareidade Dom Luciano, of the Conferência de Religiosos do Brasil – CRB-BH, has sent an open letter to the president of COPASA, that reads: "More than three thousand children, elderly people and worers are in extremely penurious situations. The problem of cutting the provision of water in Acampamento Dandara, besides being juridical, becomes eminently humanitarian. We therefore kindly plead that COPASA urgently reinitiates the provision of water, and we suggest as a temporary measure that a fountain be installed or that water-tanks are installed. One can cannot kill a population of drought!"
It is worth mentioning that, in this camp, live 1,086 families that fight for obtaining housing, work and dignity. There are children, adults and elderly people, deprived of the fundamental right to life, worsening the already extremely precarious sanitary conditions. The delay of this situation will lead to the proliferation of infectious diseases, dehydration cases and a strong deterioration of hygiene conditions. It is, therefore, a matter of public health. It must also be noted that the conduct of COPASA is not in accordance to the principles of the Brazilian Constitution of 1988, nor to the International Human Rights Treaties or to the Organic Law of the municipality of Belo Horizonte. The nature of the occupation in nothing interferes with the concession of public services, especially in the case of such an essential good, as water, source of life.
After cutting the wire fence, in a couple of days 1,086 impoverished families had taken shelter in the camping. There are hundreds in the waiting list. They soon asked, through an official document, to COPASA – Companhia de Água e Saneamento de Minas Gerais –, that water be installed in the camp. As COPASA did not agree to install water, the occupiers improvised a connection with but five taps for the collective provision of all families. But is soon came to pass that on 14 May 2009 COPASA, with the use of police force, interrupted the clandestine arrangement for the provision of water to Acampamento Dandara.
In the morning of 9 April 2009, a holy Thursday, around 130 homeless and landless families, organised by Brigadas Populares, Fórum de Moradia do Barreiro and MST – Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra – occupied a terrain (of approximately 40 ha – 400,000 m2) that had been abandoned for more than thirty years in the Céu Azul neighbourhood, Nova Pampulha, Belo Horizonte.
"I was thirsty and thou hath giving me to drink... Every time thou denieth water to one of these small folk, it was to me that thou hath denied water", said Jesus. (Mathew, 25,42.45)

Judge reverts the decision of his colleague and once more orders the eviction of Dandara Squat.

In the afternoon of the last Monday, 8 June 2009, Dandara Squat’s juridical commission was informed that the Judge Tarcísio José Martins Costa reverted the appeal that denied the area’s eviction order. This makes it possible for the approximately one thousand families that live in the area to be evicted by the police.
According to the lawyer and professor of PUC-MG Dr. Fabio Alves dos Santos, the judge’s actions are, at the very least, extravagant, and ambiguous as to many juridical aspects. “Especially as regards the allegation of Aggravation and the very decree issued by Judge Mota e Silva. It seems as though he (Tarcísio) merely ignored it. On the other hand, the decree of reincorporation of property, issued by a first instance judge, was not adequately founded on the Civil Code. Not only as regards the proper jurisdiction, but also regarding the very ownership of Construtora Modelo.”
According to Joviano Mayer, of Brigadas Populares, who coordinates the squat together with MST, there was interference of Construtora Modelo in the decision. “The judge held the process for two months, not even receiving the construction company’s counter-arguments. And now he pronounces a sentence that goes against the one his colleague had given. We were able to prove that there was no ownership of the terrain, which has always been abandoned, but we cannot know what happened behind the curtains during these two months.”
Besides this, according to Joviano, there are problems related to the jurisdictional competence of the process initiated by the construction company. “There is an aggravation of the State Court questioning the jurisdiction of the action, which would annul the demand of Construtora Modelo, but it was also solemnly ignored.” “The Justice of Minas Gerais, conducted under the eyes and the voice of the economic powers, is tearing apart the legal codes, acting to the horror of all good principles of law.”
The Judge Tarcísio José Martins Costa, 67, became a judge of the state of Minas Gerais in 1980, having acted in the area of Childhood and the Youth, actively defending the abandoned youth for many years, avoiding their criminalisation. His decision in the case of Dandara is contrary to his historical trajectory, putting on the streets some 800 children who have not got any place to go to, in a period of financial crisis and unemployment.

How can you support

With every day that passes, we need more support, in all possible senses. See how you can strengthen this struggle and get in contact:

POLITICAL: Some congressmen have already visited the place, but from the public powers the main interlocutor has been the police. We ask if the mentality of Aécio Neve's state government and Márcio Lacerda's municipal government is one to treat the effects of the Worls Crisis, when it arrives here through unemployment and homelessness, as a police issue? To the friends who have got political contacts and connections, we ask them to make use of them in order to make the occupation more visible and to help better end the process.

SIGN THE FINANCIAL SUPPORT LETTER: For money contributions we ask for the deposit to be made in the savings account of Caixa Econômica Federal No 204470-4, ag. 2333, op. 013.
General Donations: those who cannot contribute with money, can helo with many donations, especially those related to food, clothing and myriad products (kitchen, desk and construction materials). For those who can multiply this campaign in the donation posts, centralising them in the following points, it is better, but for those who cannot take the products to the occupation, please get into contact with us that we shall come to collect them. We are gathering the donations in Casa das Irmãs, 6960 Otacílio Negrão de Lima Ave. – Bandeirantes (close to Toca da Raposa and facing the Parque Ecológico).

MILITANT: other forms of support (cultural, artistic, educational, health-related, religious etc.) are being connected through the solidarity committee. Contacts: +55 31 8522 and 9702-6725

SIGN THE SUPPORT LETTER TO DANDARA SQUAT

Comrades,

SIGN THIS LETTER SHOWING YOUR NAME IN THE "COMMENTS". PLEASE INFORM IF THE SUPPORT IS INDIVIDUAL OR INSTITUTIONAL.
SUPPORT LETTER

The morning of the last ninth of April in Belo Horizonte dawned with the announcement of a new moment for the popular struggles in our country. Ocupação Dandara was born. The result of an alliance between MST (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra), Brigadas Populares and the Fórim de Moradia do Barreiro, the initial action counted with the support of approximately 150 homeless families, that multiplied themselves into more than one thousand. Today, there already are, besides the ones mentioned above, around 300 families in the waiting list. The so often mentioned world economic crisis seems to have reached Brazil and Belo Horizonte, and it is no small issue. Its effects have already been felt by the poor people of the periphery, that go out to fight for their rights – for the crisis is not, after all, to be blamed on the poor, but rather on the rich capitalists.
Ocupação Dandara was organised based on a real demand in our society: the Urban and Land Reforms. An alliance that seeks to present alternatives to the excluded populations of the city and of the fields, that face, day after day, the obstacles for surviving in this sea of inequalities. Where property is valued more than the human being, it could not be different: just in Belo Horizonte, there are approximately 80 thousand unoccupied buildings, and 55 thousand homeless families. It is an easily solvable equation, were it not the protection to the interests of the elites. The total housing deficit in Belo Horizonte is close to 200 thousand units, between quantitative and qualitative values. In Brazil, this figure reaches 8 million!
The 400 thousand square meters that are abandoned for more than 40 years go on maintaining tents and the dreams of millions of workers. The members of Dandara want to employ of all this land as a system of urban housing that involves agricultural and non-agricultural productive systems, in a cooperative and associative regime. We are calling this system rururban. However, the State, fulfilling its role of supporting, first and foremost, the capitalist interests, continues to deter the action and to impose difficulties to the dreams of the workers.
On the last Tuesday (14/05), a decree of recovery of the terrain was conceded to Construtora Modelo, the alleged owner. The terrain has got many tributary irregularities, which did not stop the courts favouring the civil construction company. In face of the importance of this struggle now being fought, we, representing movements, organisations and various other entities, show our support and solidarity to Ocupação Dandara, upholding its demand for the social function of property and for the fundamental rights of the more than on thousand camped families.

Belo Horizonte, 17 April 2009.

SIGN THIS LETTER SHOWING YOUR NAME IN THE "COMMENTS". PLEASE INFORM IF THE SUPPORT IS INDIVIDUAL OR INSTITUTIONAL

A HISTORY OF ABUSES

Dandara Squat has been organised, since the last 9 April, in a 40 ha terrain in Céu Azul neighbourhood, in the northern region of Belo Horizonte. Organised by MST and Brigadas Populares, the squat began with 150 families and counts, today, with more than one thousand ones camping and approximately five hundred in the waiting list. The action seeks to denounce the lack of public policies related to housing and to demand the Urban and Agrarian Reforms as means of overcoming the inequalities prevailing in the cities and the country-side.
The occupied area was demanded by Construtora Modelo, installed in Belo Horizonte. In its initial petition it was incapable of proving the effective ownership of the terrain, limiting itself to annexing an alleged project for a housing complex. However, under close scrutiny, this project was related to another terrain situated in another neighbourhood. Still in relation to the process, the origin of the property of the terrain and its fiscal situation are doubtful..
In the first day of the squat, when the families were still installing themselves, the lawyer Márcia Frois, representing Modelo, went to the point of threatening the leaders of the movement. According to her, the access of the construction company to the justice would be “very easy, for my husband is a judge.” In the course of these two months the families have been constantly threatened and pressured by the police, which have gone far beyond its power.
The juridical commission that accompanies Dandara has researched the construction company’s history, verifying that it belongs to the same group that through COJAN cheated hundreds of consumers in the 1980s house market. The group works with two juridical identities, one for building and for selling houses. In practical terms, Construtora Modelo LTDA and Lótus Empreendimentos e Participações S/A work together. Consulting the system of TJMG, it is possible to verify that the two of them have got together 2577 ongoing court cases (in Belo Horizonte and Betim), in which they figure as accusers and defendants.
One may also verify that some cases reach STF, as that of the abusive clauses charged by Lótus to their debtors, in which the company retained more than 75% of the value paid by these in case of interruption of payment. Which is to say that Lótus received (stole) almost all of the amount already paid for the house, simply because someone delayed the payment of an instalment. The coordination of the squat believes that people who are capable of manipulating the terms of a contract are also capable of manipulating the “legal” system in their favour.

For more information, call: (55 31) 8815-4120, 8522-3029