115 lines
7.3 KiB
Markdown
115 lines
7.3 KiB
Markdown
For centuries, those who made a living by extracting and collecting
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rubber from rubber trees had been virtual slaves to the powerful rubber
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barons who controlled the Amazon region. Attempts were made in the 1960s
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to unionize these workers, called “rubber tappers;” however, these
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attempts failed. The 1970s marked a shift in the dynamics of the
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extraction of resources from the Amazon. Ranchers from Southern Brazil
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began to buy up huge tracts of land in order to clear them for cattle
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grazing land. The rubber tappers who lived on this land were forcibly
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evicted, cutting them off from their source of income. This began new
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attempts to organize the rubber tappers and in 1975 a trade union
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campaign was successfully organized in Brasileia. The President of the
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union was Wilson Pinheiro and the Secretary was a young man from the
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Xapuri region, Chico Mendes, who later became the iconic figure of the
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movement. Having undergone training sessions in grassroots organizing,
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Mendes journeyed back to his hometown of Xapuri to establish a branch of
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the union there.
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With the help of Marina Silva, Mendes successfully organized the Xapuri
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Rural Workers’ Union in 1977. At the time a member of the city council,
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Chico was unable to serve as the head of the union and passed this
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responsibility to Derci Teles de Carvalho. The primary goal of the
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organization was to stop ranchers from clear cutting Xapuri’s forests
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for grazing land. In his speeches, Mendes drew a link between survival
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of the forest and survival of the rubber tappers, whose means of support
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was the Brazilian nuts and rubber they gathered from the forest. 1977
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also marked the creation of a weekly paper called the Varadoura, which
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was founded to broadcast information on the deforestation of Acre
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region. The editor of the newspaper relied heavily on Chico to give him
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weekly updates of the campaign, which Chico used as a recruitment
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opportunity.
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The primary tactic of the campaign, employed from almost the start, was
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the use of empates, or “stand offs.” This tactic involved groups of
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activists confronting laborers hired to clear the forests and attempting
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to convince them to lay down their saws. Empates were overwhelmingly
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successful as many of the men hired to clear the forests had been rubber
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tappers before the taking of their land. This tactic was not solely
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benign however, as it often involved the destruction of the laborers’
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camps and possessions, forcing them to return to their homesteads.
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Participants in the empates were often beaten and arrested by military
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police called on by the ranchers to keep order. The campaigners met this
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treatment with non-violence, such as singing hymns. When imprisoned, the
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campaigners often numbered too many for the jail’s holding capacity and
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thus were soon released. As the campaign evolved so did the empates,
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moving to encompass the entire rubber tapper community, men, women, and
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children. Women and children would move to the front of the group,
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discouraging the Military police from shooting into the crowd.
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In 1979 Chico introduced a strategy to establish schools and
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cooperatives on the rubber estates. The rational behind this agenda was
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that these programs would improve the living conditions on the estates,
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which would in turn give rubber tappers more incentive to organize to
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keep their lands and remain in the forest. Originally engineered for
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adults, the education program quickly expanded to children. Classes
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included literacy training as well as global and environmental
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awareness. Although the Mendes’ schools were a huge success, the attempt
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to establish cooperatives on the estates failed. Mendes tried to
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compensate for this by spending almost all of his time journeying from
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estate to estate spreading information and recruiting. 1980 marked the
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assassination of the president of the Brasileia union, Wilson Pinheiro.
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This resulted in a shift in the axis of the movement from Brasileia to
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Xapuri.
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The next few years were marked by a series of empates and assassinations
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of union leaders. Then in 1985 the UDR, Democratic Ruralist Union, was
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formed. This group was formed by the ranchers in response to Chico’s
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efforts to organize against deforestation. The UDR hired large numbers
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of armed forces to combat the union movement and initiated a number of
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targeted assassinations of union leaders. 1985 also marked the founding
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of the National Council of Rubber Tappers (CNS) by Mendes and other key
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union leaders. The group gained widespread international support since
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it was seen as both a social justice and environmental protection
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campaign. Later that year Chico organized the First National Rubber
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Tappers Congress. From this meeting emerged the proposal for extractive
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reserves, legally protected forest areas held in trust for people who
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lived and worked in a sustainable manner. This proposal offered an
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economically viable alternative to the clearing of forests for grazing
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land and would be the primary demand for the remainder of the campaign.
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In 1986 the Xapuri Rural Workers’ Union allied with the indigenous
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people of Brazil, who had also been historically discriminated against
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and overlooked. This was particularly significant because the Indians
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and rubber tappers had traditionally been at odds with one another over
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forest resources. Thus, the alliance between these two groups signaled
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for government officials the seriousness of the campaigns demands. In
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June of 1986 Mendes organized over 200 tappers for a march on the
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federal forestry office of Xapuri. Upon arrival the group staged a
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sit-in, but were quickly evicted by the police. For the remainder of
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1986 and 1987 the focus of the movement was recruitment of rubber
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tappers for empates and rallying international support for the cause.
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International recognition of Mendes with the Ted Turner’s Better World
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Society Prize and United Nation’s Global 500 Environmental Prize, both
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awarded to him in 1987, spread awareness of the campaign.
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In October of 1988, following a renewed wave of empates, Mendes
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convinced the Brazilian government to declare a 61,000 acre tract of
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traditional rubber tapper territory to be off limits to logging. This
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tract was declared the first ever extractive reserve. This victory for
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the union sparked a wave of assassinations of the movement’s leaders.
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The constant recipient of death threats, Mendes warned authorities for
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over a month of his impending assassination at the hands of the da Silva
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brothers, two local cattle ranchers. These calls for protection were
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ignored, and on Thursday 22 December 1988 Mendes was assassinated by
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Darli Alves da Silva. Following his death, the Second National Congress
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of Rubber Tappers met in early 1989, issuing twenty-seven demands on
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environmental and human rights protection. Within the next decade
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several of Mendes’ co-campaigners were elected to important government
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offices, which helped to break the political stronghold of the UDR,
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creating a more receptive environment for legislation protecting the
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Amazon forests. As of 2001 twenty-one additional extractive reserves
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have been established in seven Brazilian states. However, this accounts
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for only 1.5 % of the area of the Amazon, and deforestation rates
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continued to grow in the Amazon, peaking in 1994. In addition, problems
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such as illegal logging and unstable rubber prices persist, making it
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ever harder for rubber tappers to earn a sufficient income. |