SWL Protests the Murders of MST Comrades

2060

And says NO to a constitutional coup in Brazil

mst_parana2
MST members protest the killings of Vilmar Bordim and Leomar Bhorbak in Parana, Brasil

Socialist Workers League protested the murders of Vilmar Bordim and Leomar Bhorbak, who were members of the Landless Workers Movement (MST), by the police, at Quedas do Iguazu, in Brazil. In a letter issued to the Brazilian embassy on April 15, SWL demanded justice and insisted that the police officers who killed Vilmar and Leomar and wounded not less than six others in a squatters camp, must be brought to book.

Such institutionalised violence as these murders is part of a broader and spreading state of siege being waged by the right-wing of the ruling class in Brasil. We are equally living witnesses to the unfolding fist of a coup attempt concealed within the gloves of constitutionality, aimed at rolling back the years of pro-poor people reforms instituted by the Workers’ Party (PT), in your great country.

The resolution passed by the lower house in that country on April 18, to impeach Dilma Roussseff as president for corruption and other related charges is actually much more than an attack against corruption. It is an attempt to kick out the Workers Party (PT) and rollback the reforms it has instituted over the years, which has brought millions of poor people out of poverty.

But, there are also lessons to learn for the Brazilian working class. PT represents serious contradictions in the approach of working class forces to politics. On one hand it emerged from workers’ struggles against the military dictatorship, in the late 1980s and since coming to power 13 years ago, has carried out major progressive reforms. On the other hand, it accepts the capitalist system and has also embraced elements of neoliberalism.

While we stand against any constitutional coup in that country, we make bold to urge the Brazilian working class and activists within the PT to draw the apt conclusion: we cannot make peace with the bosses. There can be nothing that between us but a chasm of ceaseless and militant struggle. If we think we can balance socialism and capitalism, we merely dig our graves as the working class.

We call for: struggle against a coup in Brazil; justice for the murdered MST comrades; a clearly socialist programme for revolution, by the working class!

by Muda Ogidan

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