LULA’s Brazilian Government discriminates mestizos

04/28/2005

The Special Secretariat of Policies for the Promotion of Racial Equality – SEPPIR is the office of the President Luís Inácio LULA da Silva government that deals with racial and ethnic matters in Brazil. The SEPPIR has promoted conferences in cities and states. The conferences must elect one thousand delegates for the 1^st National Conference for Racial Equality Promotion (June 30th – July 2nd). The Brazilian government defends that Mestizos (‘Mestiços’, or ‘Pardos’, mixed people. that forms more than 38 percent of the Brazilian population) can not represent their selves. For LULA’s government Mestizos are Blacks and they must be represented by Black movement members. Mestizos organizations are denouncing this politics. They defend their proper identity and call that many Mestizos don’t have Black ancestors, as in the North of Brazil where the majority of the population is composed by Mestizos of Native Brazilian and White ascendance. The Mestizos representatives denounce discrimination acts like their systematic exclusion of the organization of the town and state conferences and of the debate boards, and the use of police force to intimidate ‘Pardos’ representatives. They denounce yet the weak control of the credentials and resultant facility to frauds. In the opening ceremony of the State Conference, in Manaus, Amazonas, on 04/27, the Minister Matilde Ribeiro, linked to Black Brazilian movement, looked out the protest of the Mestizos manifestants that claim “We exist!” The Minister reply with empathy that desire dialogue with the Mestizo movement, but do not established any date. The President LULA’s government is promoting a politic against the recognition of the interracial fusions and is denying the miscegenation importance in the Brazilian people formation. The representation of the Brazilian Caritas [Cáritas Brasileira], in Manaus, strangely is supporting this distortion that mistakenly interprets the ethno-racial concept of the racial fusion between ‘mamelucos’, ‘cabocos’ (Native + White), ‘cafuzos’ (Native + Black) and others mixed people formations, a leading reality in Brazil, specially in North of the country, where the population is noticeably formed by Mestizos.