Last week, I went to a demonstration in downtown Rio where favela residents were protesting against the city’s decision to remove several of their homes and neighborhoods.
About two hundred men, women, and children —representatives from several communities — gathered in front of City Hall with t-shirts, signs, protest songs, and elected speakers who took their turn in front of the megaphone.
Why? The City Department of Housing has officially announced that 119 entire favela communities, totaling at least 12,196 homes, will be removed by 2012. The city cites reasons of “risk” to justify their removal. According to the officials, “risk” means that these communities exist in places prone to flooding, landslides, or overall need for environmental protection.
However, not all of the communities threatened with removal are at risk. One such community is Vila Autódromo, whose only crime is existing in the very location where the city plans to build the Olympic Training and Media Centers. People do not want to go!
The argument is sound. If there is no environmental risk and if the community is safe and law abiding, the residents feel as if the city is simply cleaning up their city to make way for international tourists who are expected to flock in record numbers for the Olympic Games and World Cup. Residents feel like the city is once again trying to displace and exploit the voiceless poor because their houses aren’t pretty. Instead of helping them upgrade, the city wants them gone.
After years, and in some cases decades, of residence in these locations, where are they expected to go? One protest sign asked just that. Other signs read:
“There is so much vacant space is Rio, why displace us?”
“We’re asking for respect!”
“Say no to removal, Cariocas against social segregation!”
“Removal is a social crime!”
“We’re Rio’s chance to show that we have serious policy — Urbanization”
“Why do our news media give voice to the City and not the Community?”
Despite the peaceful and very orderly protest, City Hall closed its gates which, apparently, are always open to the public. In fact, I had walked through those very gates on my way to the protest just a few hours earlier.
In the end, a small handful of community leaders and journalists whose names were on a list were allowed past the gates of city hall to talk with the city officials. I personally hope for successful negotiations.
Jamie Worms is currently a volunteer with Catalytic Communities and Calle. To learn more about favelas and life in Rio de Janeiro, check out some of Jamie’s past posts.
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Isn’t interesting that the Government can find an excuse to do what it wants without any regard to the citizens it’s effecting and call it “good government”. Displacing the socially unwanted is tantamount to what the Europeans did by putting the Jews in the ghetto’s and then killing them anyway.