Spain: Reactionary Spanish imperialist Amancio Ortega expropriates lands from Brazilian peasants and deforests the Amazon
We publish an unofficial translation of the statement of the Committee to Support the New Brazil
Statement from the Committee to Support the New Brazil – 04/14/2024
The Inditex Group is rich and powerful, there is not a single person in Spain who has not heard its name, or that of its leader and founder: Amancio Ortega Gaona. Inditex is part of two important monopolies, the textile monopoly and the footwear monopoly. In the textile sector, its commercial brands are Zara Home, Bershka, Massimo Dutti, Oysho, Pull&Bear, Stradivarius and Uterqüe. In the footwear sector, its Tempe brand is the undisputed leader in Spanish footwear. In both sectors, Inditex – Amancio Ortega and his family, in particular – agrees on prices, pacts and shares the loot of the world with other imperialists in the sector. Currently, Inditex stores sum up to more than 7,000 worldwide and it has factories on several continents.
Amancio Ortega has the majority of stocks in the Inditex Group. That is why we refer to his person, since every action taken by the group is a thoughtful action taken personally. He is a reactionary of the old school: child labor in Argentina and Morocco, defrauding the public treasury, financing reactionaries and fascists, etc. The Spanish has ties to the Yankee imperialists of JP Morgan and the French imperialist of Orange (telephony): both are on his board of directors. Although they do not have such power as the majority shareholder, they are also participants in the exploitation and looting carried out by Inditex.
“Fair trade” is one of the propaganda and marketing claims of the Inditex Group. The reality is very different. In footwear, Tempe sells itself as a “socially responsible company,” but the reality is that it indirectly forces the aparadoras (female footwear workers, who sew the soles by machine) to work under conditions of semi-slavery. This is because Tempe controls the production chain of more than 70% of Spanish footwear. In the text, he says that his clothes have been made without labor exploitation, when they are sewn in clandestine workshops in oppressed nations.
Fair trade is false, pure marketing. One of these “fair trade” certification companies (as if it could exist under capitalism!), Better Cotton, has recently been found to be committing fraud. The NGO Earthsight has uncovered a network of corruption where the company certifies as “fair” and “sustainable” the cotton obtained from wild exploitation by the Brazilian masses, deforesting the Amazon along the way. First the land is expropriated, then monoculture is imposed, and finally the harvest is looted at the expense of exploiting the peasants who work it, and who previously usurped their land. This is the general scheme of how imperialism operates, another example is soybeans.
In the report made public by this British NGO, whose name is Fashion Crimes, it is pointed out that almost one million tons of “sustainable cotton” exported to Inditex in nine years (2014-2023) has been born from forced expropriation – many times, even illegal – of land to farmers and communities, and the deforestation of “El Cerrado”, a tropical savannah. This news is not surprising, since Zara – one of Inditex’s trademarks – has already been identified as one of those responsible for the deforestation of the Amazon.
As the Committee to Support the New Brazil we denounce the reactionary policy of Spanish imperialism in Brazil, particularly of Amancio Ortega Gaona who commits crimes against the international proletariat and various peoples of the world. Spanish imperialism cannot compete with Yankee imperialism, which is why it seeks to climb positions throughout Latin America. Our denunciation cannot be complete without denouncing Yankee imperialism. We also denounce the managers of the Brazilian State who allow the situation and enrich themselves with it: landowners, comprador and bureaucratic bourgeoisie, military, electoral politicians, etc.
Down with Spanish imperialism, down with Yankee imperialism!
Death to the latifundium! Long live the agrarian revolution!
