The following letter came out of a three-day meeting organized by the Plataforma BNDES, a group of Brazilian and South American civil society organizations and social movements pushing to reform Brazil’s Development Bank (BNDES) from a highly questionable and destructive development model.
The meeting was the first of its kind and united over 200 representatives of communities, including those from Bolivia and Ecuador, that are being negatively affected by the projects and companies that BNDES finances.
Translated by: Katherine Needles
We are indigenous peoples, quilombolas [descendants of escaped slaves], riverine communities, farmers, fishermen, and workers of Brazil, Ecuador and Bolivia present at the first South American Meeting of Populations Affected by the Projects Financed by BNDES.
We have all been affected by these projects, about which we were never consulted and which were presented to us as development projects that will bring progress to Brazil and the rest of South America. These are projects financed by BNDES, Brazil’s National Bank for Economic and Social Development, directed toward the monoculture of sugar cane and eucalyptus, the unsustainable production of meat, mining exploration, the construction of pulp mills, factories producing bio-energy, steel mills, power plants and infrastructure works such as ports, railroads, highways, and pipelines for gas and mining. These developments have directly and profoundly affected our lives, especially the lives of women. They have expelled us from our lands, they destroy and contaminate our natural wealth, the rivers, the forests, the air and the ocean, on which we depend for survival. They affect our health, and intensify the continued exploitation of our countries’ populations in a permanent way.
BNDES’ growing investments, which in 2009 alone should exceed R$ 160 billion (US$ 92.6 billion), are drawn from the Workers Fund (FAT) and the National Treasury to increase the profits of a powerful few dozen multinational and international corporations. With this comes their appropriation of our territories, our water, our forests and biodiversity, threatening not only the food security of our communities, but also the food, resource and energy sovereignty of our countries. Furthermore, the financing of such investments promotes a form of South American integration premised on the concentration of capital, the control and privatization of common resources and territories, and the export of our continent’s wealth.
Numerous times we have urged authorities to protest against the BNDES financing model and the projects the bank finances, but our arguments are consistently dismissed. In fact, what we protest is the commitment of the large majority of the Executive, Legislative and Judiciary to defend projects that continually violate our rights. Each day we confront increasing difficulties in the demarcation of our indigenous and quilombola lands, in achieving agrarian reform, and in finding good jobs with guaranteed rights in the countryside and in the city. We denounce the very real and hateful threats, persecution, and criminalization that we suffer, which have already cost the lives of innumerous friends, fallen in the battle to defend our territory, rivers, oceans and forests.
Our shared experience demonstrates that there is a block, formed by large multinational companies, the State and the mainstream media, which creates, promotes, and benefits from projects financed by BNDES. The principle argument used by BNDES to justify the financing of these projects – job creation – is false. BNDES-financed projects destroy thousands of employment opportunities in affected communities and the jobs created by the projects are not only insufficient, but they also increase the overexploitation of labor, frequently leading to the practice of slave labor. Major infrastructure projects and the restructuring of production methods that automate and outsource production further impact workers. The result is a high number of unemployed and injured workers, whose rights are evermore degraded.
Our fight is for life and against the death that the projects BNDES promotes through its financing. We fight for a reversal of the capitalist logic of accumulation and profit, which is the cause of the environmental, climatic, economic and social crisis in which we live. Our fight is to ensure respect for the dignity and diversity of the many different ways of life of South American people.
In light of this situation, we commit to:
- Continue our fight to defend our land, air, and water, convinced this will be the principle tool to resist the projects financed by BNDES.
- Network with our communities and movements and with the people of our countries to pass on all the information and complaints related to this meeting, and to encourage training workshops in our regions of Brazil and South America to raise awareness about the role of BNDES and the governments that promote this model, referred to as development, but which is essentially a means for large multinational corporations to accumulate profit.
- Increasingly articulate and strengthen our battle against projects including dams, monoculture plantations, cellulose, agrofuels, agriculture, mining, infrastructure, and steel mills, in order to strengthen our resistance.
- Require that BNDES adopt transparent social and environmental criteria that are not restricted to environmental legislation and ‘market environmentalism’, incorporating criteria of equality that respects the diversity of the various ways of life and means of production that exist in out territories. Furthermore, we demand the respect for human rights and the rigorous application of all treaties and conventions ratified by our countries.
- Denounce the serious impacts these projects have on indigenous peoples in our countries, while supporting and encouraging their struggle against projects that destroy their territories, as well as demanding the immediate demarcation and protection of indigenous lands.
- Examine the irregularities of companies financed by BNDES.
- Hold BNDES and the governments responsible and accountable for the losses caused by bank-financed projects and demand the suspension of the financing for companies that violate workers rights and damage the environment.
- Strengthen our fight for a popular agenda that provides space for shared perspectives, principally for the youth, so that we do not abandon our territories to the threats of projects financed by BNDES.
- Fight for a strong integration of peoples in our countries, and for an economy of solidarity, which respects our rights, guarantees our sovereignty, and works for the good of our communities and the integrity of our territories.
- We demand that BNDES become an instrument to strengthen this new social project.
Rio de Janeiro, 25 November, 2009
Signed by the representatives of the following organizations:
Actionaid Brasil
Assembléia Popular
Assoc. de Moradores Sem Casa de Entre Rios de MG
Associação Indígena Tupiniqueira e Guarani ES – AITG
Amigos da Terra – Amazônia Brasileira
Associação de Funcionários do BNB
ATTAC Brasil
Campanha Justiça dos Trilhos
Centro de Apoio Sócio-Ambiental – CASA
Central Única dos Trabalhadores – CUT
Centro de Defesa de Direitos Indígenas – CDDI
Centro de Educação e Documentação para Ação Comunitária – CEDAC
Comissão Pastoral da Terra – CPT
Confederação Nacional dos Trabalhadores da Agricultura – CONTAG
Conselho Indigenista Missionário – CIMI
Coordenação das Organizações Indígenas da Bacia Amazônica – COICA
Central Única dos Trabalhadores – CUT
Coordenação das Organizações Indígenas da Amazônia Brasileira – COIAB
Sistema de Cooperativas de Crédito Rural com Integração Solidária – Cresol
Esplar Centro de Pesquisa e Assessoria
Equipe de Conservação da Amazônia – ACT Brasil
Federação Nacional dos Trabalhadores e Trabalhadoras na Agricultura Familiar – FETRAF
Foro Boliviano sobre Medio Ambiente y Desarrollo – Fobomade
Fórum Brasileiro de Economia Solidária – FBES
Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Alimentar e Nutricional – FBSAN
Fórum Permanente de Mulheres do RJ
Frente Nacional do Saneamento Ambiental – FNSA
Federação de Órgãos para Assistência Social e Educacional – Fase
Fórum Brasileiro de Economia Solidária – FBES
Fórum Popular e Independente do Madeira
Fórum Permanente de Mulheres
Instituto Brasileiro de Inovações Pró-Sociedade Saudável – IBISS-CO
Instituto Políticas Alternativas para o Cone Sul – PACS
Instituto Brasileiro de Análises Sociais e Econômicas – Ibase
Instituto de Estudos Socioeconômicos – Inesc
Justiça Global
Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens -MAB
Movimento dos Pequenos Agricultores – MPA
Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra _ MST
Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Teto – MTST
Movimento Nacional de Direitos Humanos _MNDH
Movimento Quilombola
Movimento Xingu Vivo para Sempre
Núcleo Amigos da Terra Brasil
Pastoral da Juventude Rural de ES – PJR
Plataforma Direitos Humanos, Econômicos, Sociais, Culturais e Ambientais – DESCHA
Rede Alerta contra o Deserto Verde
Rede Brasileira de Justiça Ambiental
Rede Brasil sobre Instituições Financeiras Multilaterais
Rede Brasileira de Teatro de Rua
Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos
Rede Brasileira pela Integração dos Povos – REBRIP
Repórter Brasil
Sindicato Matabasi Inconfidentes – Congonhas MG
Sindicato dos Trabalhadores Rurais de Mucuri – BA
Sindicato dos Portuários – Suporte/ES
