Brazil: Collective Denounces Snitching from “Police Opportunists” and Anti-democratic Expulsion
Featured image: Anti-imperialist demonstration on January 28 in Recife. The demonstration was heavily repressed and the police shot live ammunition and rubber bullets, leaving one student and one journalist from AND injured, in addition to two detainees. Source: AND
On June 27, the Coletivo Mangue Vermelho and Movimento Ventania released an open letter denouncing what they called the “antidemocratic and absurd expulsion” of their organizations—along with the League of the Poor Peasants (LCP) and other movements—from the Palestine ‘Solidarity’ Committee in Pernambuco, A Nova Democracia (AND) reports. The organizations claim this expulsion was “orchestrated by PSTU-PE [United Socialist Worker’s Party – Pernambuco]|, MRT-PE [Revolutionary Worker’s Movement – Pernambuco] and PCBrasileiro-PE [Brazilian Communist Party – Pernambuco],” which they characterize as opportunistic forces with “reformist and electoral tactics.”
Since October 7th, 2023, Mangue Vermelho and Ventania actively participated in the Committee’s work, maintaining they never adopted “a sectarian position” and sought “a broad alliance in defense of Heroic Palestinian National Resistance.”
The rupture occurred following an anti-imperialist demonstration on January 28th in Recife, where police violently repressed protesters using live ammunition and rubber bullets after a McDonald’s was attacked with a petrol bomb. The repression left one student and one journalist from AND injured and took two detainees, and the images show that neither of them was involved in the action.
While Coletivo Mangue Vermelho and Ventania supported the action as part of the anti-imperialist struggle, stating that “We defend the people’s right to fight and it is up to the people, and only the people, to choose their methods of struggle.” On the other hand, PSTU-PE, MRT-PE and PCBrasileiro-PE denounced the action, accusing both organizations.
The open letter highlights this tactic as “a method typical of the extreme right and informants seeking to criminalize the popular movement” by attempting to link different organizations together.
The letter states that PSTU-PE, MRT-PE, and PCBrasileiro-PE are acting “just like the police, accusing popular and combative movements as responsible for the action, without any proof” The organizations state that these forces “joined in repeating the same discourse of shameful criminalization of activists.”
The expulsion was approved on February 4th in what the letter describes as “a session of accusation and informant activity” against student currents, the LCP, and other combative movements. The organizations characterize the process as “unjust and arbitrary” and “totally anti-democratic.”
The letter emphasizes that the LCP is “simply the most combative and persecuted peasant organization in our country.” The organizations note with pride: “for us it is an honor to be placed alongside organizations like the grandiose League of the Poor Peasants.”
In the letter, the organizations uphold the joint struggle on behalf of the oppressed peoples “The fate of Gaza, of Palestine, is inseparably tied to the fate of the Iranian people, Lebanese, Iraqi, Yemeni, Egyptian, etc. […] it is urgent to break immediately with paralysis in the face of Yankee and Zionist attacks on Iran and to move a broad, determined, and combative campaign in solidarity with it.”
You can read the full letter here:
