AND Editorial – Just Like All Over the World, Drums of War are Beating in Brazil
We share an unofficial translation of the latest Editorial by A Nova Democracia.
The death of three Guarani-Kaiowá in a criminal fire on the morning of March 31 in Tekoha Avae’te (Dourados, Mato Grosso do Sul – MS) is a reflection of the macabre genocide against indigenous peoples in particular. A sinister episode, but by no means isolated: in 2023, the number of indigenous people murdered in Brazil increased by 15% during the first year of Luiz Inácio’s government. It is worth noting that, in the specific case of the Guarani-Kaiowá, this is not the first time their land occupations have been targets of big landlord terrorist attacks with victims being burned: in August and September 2023, there were two other identical cases, revealing the modus operandi of the paramilitary gangs of the extreme right and Bolsonaro’s fascists.
Horrendous attacks like this, carried out by Bolsonaro’s paramilitary hordes and in the service of the latifundium, do not cease, no matter the presence of the National Security Force and the Federal Police. What, in fact, has only resulted, at best,in staged displays of impartiality or in operations to “end the conflict” that had as targets – shockingly – the indigenous people, and not the heavily armed goons of “Invasão Zero.” It is not surprising that the National Force, sent to Dourados between 2023 and 2024, costing a total of R$ 5 million, had the impressive result of seizing two weapons and seven rounds of ammunition, in a territory where paramilitary gangs parade in broad daylight, often alongside the police themselves.
The conclusion of the Civil Police of the state of MS is almost pathetic, having declared that it has completely “concluded” the investigation of the crime that occurred on the 31st, just a day and a half after it took place, attributing the authorship of the crime to another indigenous woman. Since effectiveness is not the standard of Brazilian police forces – used to killing and blaming the poor, as a rule and exception – this speed cannot help but raise suspicion that there is indeed an intention to blame third parties, and not the big landlords who occupy and attack the indigenous people daily.
The silence of the current government of the false left is deafening. There has been no statement, not even of condolences. And why would there be? Luiz Inácio has a staunch defender of the big landlord gang as his Minister of Agriculture; he has Simone Tebet, a big landlord with an electoral base precisely in the Midwest, as his Minister of Planning; in Congress, his “allied base” – which is more allied to the Union budget than to the government – is entirely filled with deputies and senators from the Parliamentary Front of Agribusiness, which governs the country and coordinates the paramilitary groups of the far right in the countryside. How could Luiz Inácio engage in his known demagoguery under these circumstances? Luiz Inácio would not want to upset his peers, with whom he gets along very well, it should be noted. Thus, silence in the face of genocide is appropriate, a resounding silence that speaks much more than a thousand words from a demagogue.
More than ever, armed self-defense by peasants and indigenous people is a necessity and a reality. This is because the land occupations and self-demarcation, despite the genocide and because of it, are advancing in the Guarani-Kaiowá territory, and it could not be otherwise. It is for this reason that the latifundium is turning furiously against the masses, demonstrating fragility. In reality, impotent, the latifundium cannot contain, even with terrorism and genocide, the advance of the struggle for land and territory, which, to reach new heights, wields the same weapons as its enemies. This is a reality. Here is where the great battle will be decided from which the New Brazil will emerge: on one side, the poor of the countryside – poor peasants, indigenous people, and descendants of Quilombolas – against the dark forces of the past, of slavery and active servitude in the countryside, of the extreme right and fascism, nucleated by the latifundium wrapped in high technology. The Agrarian Revolution is the antifascist and anti-imperialist cause; it is the revolutionary democratic cause of the Nation and its people – outside of it, outside this ongoing armed conflict, the rest is merely cheap bourgeois rhetoric.
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The latest opinion poll from Atlas/Intel, conducted on April 1, reveals that Luiz Inácio has a 53.6% disapproval rating, while 44.9% approve of the president. This indicates stagnation since the last poll in February of this year. Regarding the evaluation of the government itself, 49.6% consider it “bad or terrible,” and 37.4% consider it “excellent or good” – a positive variation within the margin of error, since in February 50.8% disapproved of the government. The slight positive fluctuation is due to the misleading perception that inflation is not worse than it was in February; however, 75% of respondents believe that wages do not keep up with prices, and 86.6% consider inflation a “major personal concern.” In fact, 56.9% hold the government responsible for inflation.
The survey, the first conducted after the series of measures announced by the government were implemented, shows that, first, they have some effect; second, they are quite insufficient even for electoral recovery purposes. Not only as propaganda pieces: they are insufficient even to mitigate the problem. The price of eggs or coffee, for example, has no relation to the high export rates, and no tax exemption will resolve this, as they are goods of abundant domestic production – but, controlled by the dense monopolistic networks of the latifundium and the big bourgeoisie, such productions are directed towards export or are plundered by the high prices of intermediaries, reaching the average Brazilian at gold prices – enriching the latifundium. None of Luiz Inácio’s policies will address this problem – on the contrary, the government is giving even more power and centrality to agribusiness, both in politics (handing over control of Congress and the government budget to the big landlord center) and in the economy (the next Safra Plan, who knows how, will be even larger than the last one, which allocated R$ 400 billion just for big landlords).
Therefore, the high disapproval of the government has economic reasons. Luiz Inácio promised to restore the conditions for survival during the period of high commodity prices; but the times are of “stagflation” for bureaucratic capitalism and a slowdown in global industrial production. The demagoguery of yesteryear from his second term is no longer possible. A voluntary hostage of the latifundium and the reaction, Luiz Inácio is preparing a platform for bolsonarism – perhaps that is why the Atlas/Intel survey shows that Bolsonaro, Pablo Marçal, and Tarcísio de Freitas would defeat Luiz Inácio if the elections were held today.
On one hand, it is true that caution should be exercised regarding the trends and results for 2026 (so far away, and whose control of the state apparatus always grants electoral strength), it is also undeniable that the failure of opportunism, which governs with and for the right, only facilitates the path for its return.
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The fires of Tesla vehicles in the United States and Europe – with the most recent ones in Italy and Sweden – are spreading like acts of war against the militaristic escalation of the extreme right led by the U.S. The main target, of course, is Elon Musk, who has been an active agitator in this fascist underworld that inhabits the sewer of the imperialist crisis, always with cryptic signals. In a recent trip to Germany, Musk, whose ancestors were openly Nazis, spoke at an event for the far-right party Alternative for Germany, telling its members that they should not be ashamed of their own past. Of course, he was not referring to the peasant wars of the 16th century.
Such anti-imperialist acts of war identify that the greatest danger of a third world war lies with the provocateurs and incendiaries of it, the imperialists, primarily the extreme right and Yankee imperialism. By resorting to such actions, the masses from the most active sectors of imperialist countries demonstrate that they will reject, with increasing bellicosity, the attempt to drag the masses into an unjust war on a global scale – which the imperialists cannot do when the masses are under proletarian leadership. As Chairman Mao Tse-Tung said: “either revolution will prevent war, or war will give rise to revolution.”
