We should present our condolences to each other. They do not resuscitate the dead, but they strengthen relationships among the living.—Article 10 of the Charter of Kurukan-Fuga (Constitution of the Mali Empire, circa 13th century AD)
A short list of massacres committed by Brazilian police in Rio de Janeiro favelas...
Flashbacks, possibly nightmares, haunt the ghost of an old empire.
In December 2023, 57 years after the sun and Union Jack descended over British Guiana, Britain’s HMS Trent, a Royal Navy patrol vessel, was spotted sailing into a Guyanese harbor. “Nothing that we did in the past or we will...
Private interests and foreign influence helped to pave the path toward Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964-1985). The armed forces is not an institution separate from society...It’s a reflection of that violent and authoritarian society. However, they are more dangerous because they have the prerogative to legally use firearms.
—Priscila Brandão
An...
“In a serious country we wouldn’t have an investigation dragging on for four years,”— Marinete da Silva, mother of slain Rio de Janeiro city councilwoman Marielle Franco.
RIO DE JANEIRO – Four-plus years after the assassination of Rio de Janeiro councilwoman Marielle Franco (38), social media giant Facebook has yet...
BRAZIL—Over the past few days and weeks, rumors of war, as if global conflict were an inevitable contagion bound to reach Indoamerica (South or Latin America), swirled at an uncanny, feverish pitch. The case for armed conflict has subsided only slightly.
An unspoiled, beautiful region known as Essequibo has taken...
Ten U.S. presidents, 20 CIA directors, and 56 years of covert action screwed over Brazil’s poor and paved the way for the election of Jair Bolsonaro
Covid-19, murder, evangelical Christianity, crime, environmental destruction, drugs, shantytowns, inequality, corruption, doesn’t matter what you pick, Brazil is a world leader in them all—and...
The large-scale operation in Rio de Janeiro carried out on October 28, which has already left at least 121 people dead and once again laid bare the logic of war applied to poverty, should not be understood solely as a local public-security issue.
It is part of a global control...
(2023)Black-geared men, what’s your mission?Enter the favela and leave bodies on the groundBlack-geared men, what do you do?We do things that shock Satan…..Black-geared men, to bring this to an endWe’re BOPE and we’re trained to killAnd I’ll killI’ll destroyDestructionThat’s our mission—Regimented cadence performed by Rio de Janeiro’s Special Operations...
“It’s also in your hands to prevent the return of corruption and robbery to take hold of the country…It’s you who can prevent the release of a prisoner convicted of corruption”
—Geraldo Alckmin speaking during his 2018 presidential campaign. Four years on, the former governor of São Paulo is...
With little variation, as it was 60 years ago, Brazil’s military and political elite, as well as its big business sector—namely agribusiness—are not fond of what could remotely be perceived as progressive, left-wing politics.
God forbid their country, harboring Portuguese colonial heritage in every nook and cranny, despite failing to...
