Global Citizen Watch: Human Rights in Brazil1

The history of the world is littered with countless examples of people’s inhumanity towards each other and Brazil is no different from any other country. The Human Rights record of Brazil from the military dictatorships of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s to the present day raises many serious concerns, especially about the stability of one of the world’s largest emerging economies. Human rights is often viewed through the prism of domestic policy owing largely to the state’s monopoly on the use of violence, however in Brazil this monopoly extends beyond the state to paramilitary groups and death squads who are often employed to support drug traffickers, the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest and the removal by force of landless and homeless workers. Indeed such violence has even extended to those who sought to defend human rights such as Chico Mendes.

Furthermore, the Plan Condor active during the 1970s and 1980s involved the coordination between the military governments of the Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay to eliminate their “opponents” and highlights how human rights issues have international repercussions. This plan (created and supported by the USA) was carried out through the extrajudicial execution, torture and forced disappearance of thousands of people, among many other serious human rights violations. Only recently has Brazil started to show signs of a willingness to punish those responsible with the extradition of Uruguayan colonel Manuel Cordero to Argentina, although the Brazilian state still has hundreds of cases of abuse to investigate that were committed under its own military regime.

Consequently, it is clear that what Governments do to their own people is not a solely a concern of national sovereignty as some might argue. The solidarity that binds the international community together as human beings should override the doctrine of ‘non – interference in a state’s internal affairs’, after all an infringement of rights against one of us is an infringement against us all. This is even more obvious when we understand that many states (including the most powerful) have never fully respected this particular doctrine that is enshrined in article 2 of the UN Charter, or to be more precise have often chosen to respect or ignore it when there is some competitive advantage available to be won.

Moreover, what benefit is there to the millions of homeless and impoverished people in Brazil when the United States government decides to loan the state owned oil company Petrobas $2 billion (potentially rising higher) for the exploration of offshore drilling, if there are not strict and enforceable conditions attached, including the proper treatment of workers and the payment of livable wages? After all trickle-down theory has been consistently proven to not work in reality (just ask the fifty per cent of the world’s population who struggle to survive on $1 a day) and often such deals as mentioned above simply serve to enrich the existing elites, offering little or no assistance to those who need it most.