July 16, 2020
Frei Betto, photo: Bill Hackwell
Dear friends,
There’s genocide in Brazil! At the time of this writing, July 16, 2020, Covid-19, which emerged here in February of this year, will have already killed 76,000 people. There are already more than 2 million infected. By Sunday, July 19th, we will reach 80 thousand deaths. It is possible that by the time you read this dramatic appeal, the deaths will have reached 100,000.
When I remember that in the Vietnam War, that went on for more than 20 years, 58,000 lives of U.S. military personnel were sacrificed, I have a measure of the seriousness of what is happening in my country. This horror causes outrage and discomfort. We all know that the preventive and restrictive measures, adopted in so many other countries, could have avoided such a number of deaths.
This genocide is not the result of the indifference of the Bolsonaro government. It is intentional. Bolsonaro is satisfied with the death of others. When he was a federal deputy, in a television interview in 1999, he declared: “By voting you will change nothing in this country, nothing, absolutely nothing! Unfortunately, it will only change if one day we go to a civil war here, and do the job that the military regime did not do: kill about 30,000.
In voting in favor of the impeachment of President Dilma, he offered his vote in memory of the army’s most notorious torturer, Colonel Carlos Brilhante Ustra.
Because he is so obsessed with death, one of his main government policies is to free up the trade in arms and ammunition. When asked at the presidential palace door if he didn’t care about the victims of the pandemic, he replied: “I don’t believe in those numbers” (March 27, 92 deaths); “We will all die someday” (March 29, 136 deaths); “So what? What do you want me to do?” (April 28, 5,017 deaths).
Why this necrophiliac policy? From the beginning, he declared that the important thing was not to save lives, but the economy. Hence his refusal to declare a quarantine, to comply with WHO guidelines and to import respirators and personal protective equipment. The Supreme Court had to delegate this responsibility to governors and mayors.
Bolsonaro did not even respect the authority of his own health ministers. Since February, Brazil has had two, both fired for refusing to adopt the same attitude as the president. Now, at the head of the ministry, there is General Pazuello, who does not understand anything about health issues; he tried to hide the data on the evolution of the number of victims of the coronavirus; he employed 38 military personnel in key functions of the ministry, without them having the required qualifications; and he canceled the press conferences that were the way for the population to receive orientation.
It would be exhaustive to list here how many measures to free up resources to help victims and low-income families (over 100 million Brazilians) that have never been implemented.
The reasons for the Bolsonaro government’s criminal intent are obvious. Leaving the elderly to die in order to save Social Security resources. Letting people with pre-existing diseases die to save resources from SUS, the national health system. Allowing the poor to die in order to save resources from the Family Income and other social programs for the 52.5 million Brazilians living in poverty and the 13.5 million in extreme poverty. (Federal Government data).
Long before The Economist did, on the digital networks I treat the president as Bolsonaro, while Rome burns, he plays the lyre and announces chloroquine, a drug with no scientific efficacy against the new coronavirus. However, its manufacturers are political allies of the president…
I thank you for your kind interest in spreading this letter. Only pressure from abroad can stop the genocide that is ravaging our beloved and wonderful Brazil.
Fraternally,
Frei Betto
Frei Betto is a Dominican friar and writer, advisor to FAO and social movements.
Translation, Resumen Latinoamericano, North America bureau