People's Democracy

IS there a campaign to annihilate the leading lights of the leftist Workers Party in order to stall its confident march towards winning the forthcoming presidential polls in Brazil ? This doubt arises as a spate of kidnaps and killings of senior leaders and popular mayors belonging to Workers Party (PT) took place, mostly in Sao Paulo state of Brazil in the recent past.

Celso Daniel, 50, popular mayor of the industrial suburb of Santo Andre, was kidnapped by an armed gang while returning from a restaurant on January 18, 2002 and two days later his battered and bullet ridden body was found near the main highway. An economics professor, Celso Daniel was a key leader of the Workers Party, who chaired the committee for drafting the election manifesto of the party for the coming October, 2002 presidential polls. He was personally close to the Workers Party president Luiz Inacio da Silva, popularly called as Lula, who is the current favourite to win the presidential polls.

A BBC report described the scene of funeral thus :

The killing of mayor Celso Daniel is only the latest part of a consistent campaign to liquidate senior leaders of Workers Party. The Campinas city mayor Antonio Costa Santos was gunned down on September 10, 2001. He was also a popular leader belonging to Workers Party. In the same month, the party mayors of Franca, Batatais, Ribeirao Preto and Ribeirao Vermelho all received death threats, allegedly from a previously unknown group, the Brazilian Revolutionary Action Front (FARB). This group has claimed responsibility for other killings also, saying it was in response to growing centrist tendencies in the Workers Party. The increasingly unpopular present government has done precious little to nab the culprits in any of these cases strengthening fears of political motivation behind these killings.

A report submitted by the Workers Party to the minister of justice on December 4, 2001 stated that since 1998 there have been 12 killings, 15 attempted killings and 52 cases of death threats against their leaders. These included incidents like on November 11, 2001, when the farm of the PT mayor of Ribeirao Correntes was invaded by four hooded gunmen, who claimed to be "looking for the mayor's head" ("buscar a cabeca"). He had also been receiving threats from FARB. On November 28, 2001, the mayor of Embu survived the bombing of his house.

The latest incident took place a day after the kidnap of Ceslo Daniel, on January 19, when a leader of Brazil’s land reform movement, Jose Rainha Junior, was shot and injured as he escaped an ambush in the west of Sao Paulo state.

This chain of attacks have led to even the Amnesty International coming out with a demand to investigate the "pattern of attacks against politicians from the PT (Workers Party)." In a statement issued on January 21 it has asked the federal government "to fully investigate the possible political motivations for these crimes."

Workers Party presidential candidate Lula has also received threatening e-mails. One message warned "Lula is not going to assume presidency for two reasons. One, we don't like the Workers Party and two, Lula isn't bulletproof."

Sao Paulo, the most important state in deciding the fate of the coming October 2002 presidential polls, has witnessed the gaining strength of the leftist forces particularly the Workers Party. Many of its candidates have won the mayorships of the industrial suburbs of Sao Paulo city, which is the biggest city in Brazil and the third largest city in the world. Because of the mandatory revenue allocation to states and municipalities provided for in the 1988 constitution, Brazilian governors and mayors have exercised considerable power since 1989.

Another factor raising the importance of Sao Paulo in the coming polls is the fact that the presidential candidate of the ruling Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) Jose Serra is currently a senator from Sao Paulo.

The International Herald Tribune in a report on January 23, 2002 rightly states that these killings have "touched off fears of a re-emergence of the death squads that routinely killed government opponents during the military dictatorship that ended in 1985". With not a single case of these killings solved by the police, these fears have only been reinforced.