Re: Prisão de militantes de esquerda no estado (província) na Bahia-Brasil

["Johannes Schneider" <Johannes.Schneider@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

For those ones not understanding Portugese here is a Reuters report on the 
protests:

April 22, 2000

Brazil Celebrates 500th Birthday Amid Protests
Filed at 1:51 p.m. ET
By Reuters

PORTO SEGURO (Reuters) - Brazil marked on Saturday the 500th anniversary of
its discovery by Portuguese explorers, with official celebrations of its
rich cultural diversity tempered by angry protests against centuries of ill
treatment of Indians, blacks and peasants.

Up to 60,000 people gathered in Porto Seguro, a palm-lined beach town about
600 miles north of Rio de Janeiro, where Portuguese adventurer Pedro Alvares
Cabral first dropped anchor on April 22, 1500, nearly eight years after
Christopher Columbus made his first landing in the Americas.

Police said they arrested about 40 protesters on the outskirts of Porto
Seguro who were trying to break through a police barricade. About 10,000
workers, peasants and Indians planned to disrupt official celebrations
hosted by the presidents of Brazil and Portugal later Saturday.

A regatta of nearly 60 vessels awaited the heads of state in the harbor,
after replicating the long voyage across the Atlantic to commemorate the
birth of Latin America's largest and most ethnically diverse nations.

Official celebrations planned for the day included dances by Indian groups,
the signing of a cooperation agreement between Portugal and Brazil and the
planting of a Brazil tree, the source of the red dye which Portuguese
colonizers traded in Europe and which ultimately gave the country its name.
But heavy rain threatened to call off some of the events, organizers said.

Not all visitors to Porto Seguro were ready to join the festivities. More
than 2,500 of Brazil's Indians were expected to march and voice their
opposition to celebrations they say ignore the racial killings, forced labor
and disease that slashed their population from an estimated 6 million before
the Portuguese arrived to just 350,000 today.

``This is a country where there is still murder of indigenous people, where
there is still no justice. I don't understand why I should celebrate,'' said
Marilene Jesus dos Santos, from the Pataxo Ha, Ha, Hae tribe.

Her brother, Galdino, was murdered three years ago this weekend by
middle-class teenagers who doused him with alcohol and set him ablaze while
he slept at a bus-stop in the nation's capital, Brasilia. Indians complain
the high-profile case brought only short-lived attention to the plight of
Brazil's indigenous population.

``To us, he is not dead. In the fight, he lives. He will march with us,''
Santos said.

While Indian protests were expected to be non-violent, officials expressed
some concern over Brazil's landless peasant movement, known as the MST.
Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso said late Friday the MST was
``trying to make a mess'' of the celebration.

The landless movement, which encourages peasants to invade unused farm land
to press their demands for land reform, have stepped up their activity ahead
of the 500th year anniversary.

Their goal is to draw attention to the gross inequalities in Brazil, where
more than half the nation's 165 million people live in poverty and 2 percent
of the population owns about half the nation's arable land.

The government is leaving little to chance and has assembled a security
contingent of 5,000 police officers, two Navy warships and a fleet of
helicopters to patrol Porto Seguro's tropical coast.