The People’s Tribunal – Imperialism in the dock symbolically condemned imperialism this Friday, November 15 for four major crimes against the peoples of the world. The activity was organized autonomously by the social movements attending on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in the capital of Rio de Janeiro.
The crimes recognized by the court were the genocide of peoples, based on the massacre carried out by the State of Israel and its allies against the Palestinian people; the generation of poverty, based on austerity policies and free trade agreements, such as the agreement negotiated between Mercosur and the European Union; economic warfare and the violation of the sovereignty and self-determination of peoples, exemplified by the illegal blockade by the United States against the Cuban people and the harassment of Haiti by imperialist nations; and finally, structural and environmental racism, highlighted in the various cases of murder of Black youth in Rio de Janeiro and the collapse of the dam in Mariana (MG) in 2015, with effects that are still being felt today.
At the opening, Judge Simone Nacif, a member of the Brazilian Association of Jurists for Democracy (ABJD), explained the purpose of the activity. “The aim of this tribunal is to denounce the crimes practiced by imperialism. It’s a space to denounce imperialist practices that affect peoples and nature. The war economy, unilateral sanctions and the destruction of democracies. Capitalism, which expresses itself through imperialism, is a system doomed to die,” she said.
Then it was the turn of the prosecutors, who asked the jury to condemn capitalism and imperialism. “The first thing I’m going to ask of you and the jury is to forget the principle of the presumption of innocence in the case of imperialism. We are asking for the unanimous condemnation, without palliatives, of imperialism which, since its birth, has only generated suffering for the peoples of the world,” said prosecutor Dayron Roque Lazo, a member of the Martin Luther King Center in Cuba.
“We demand reparations for the damage done by imperialism. We demand reparations for the Black people of this country, we demand reparations for every landless family, for every homeless family, for every woman whose rights have been violated, for the children whose childhoods have been taken away, for Palestinian children and women, for all those who live on the periphery of the world, subjected to poverty and misery. The problem of the world is not poverty, but wealth concentrated in the hands of a few,” said the other accuser, Sandra Quintela, a member of Jubileo Sur / Americas.
Free Palestine from the river to the sea
The next step was to hear the witnesses to each of the crimes of imperialism. The first to speak was Palestinian activist and director of the Palestinian Institute for Public Democracy (PIPD), Rula Shaheed, who moved the entire audience at the Fundição Progresso when she recounted the horrors experienced by her people, subjected to the violence of the colonial state of Israel.
Read: Israel convicted of genocide at People’s Tribunal in Rio de Janeiro
“It’s very important for me that everyone here listens, because I have a great responsibility to share with you the many horrors that my people are facing today,” Shaheed said at the start of her speech, when she also asked the audience to observe a minute’s silence in respect for the more than 50,000 fatalities caused by Israel.
“We are the Palestinian people who for the past 76 years have suffered from continuous colonial actions, which manifest themselves in the denial of the right to return of refugees, the imposition of checkpoints, the seizure of land and collective punishment by violent means, military bombings, assassinations, forced displacements, house demolitions and arrests,” continued the activist, who gave figures of the horrors practiced by Israeli forces in Palestinian territory.
According to her, more than 17,000 children have been murdered and, together with women, they represent more than 50% of the fatal victims of the massacre, demonstrating that it is not about the right to defend oneself.
“Israel has no right to defend itself because, historically, it is the oppressive, colonial and genocidal state,” she said. “This is not the world we want. We don’t want our future generation to look at this and ask us: what were you doing when you saw all these atrocities happening in front of your eyes?” she said, moved.
No free trade!
Then it was the turn of French peasant Morgan Ody, a member of the Confederation Paysanne, and Brazilian activist Raiara Pires, from the Movement for Popular Sovereignty in Mining (MAM), who testified against the agreement between the European Union and Mercosur, which is being negotiated by the two blocs.
“This agreement could lead to a decline in community-based agricultural production, which is why we need to stop this agreement for the sake of our countries,” said the French worker.
“This treaty, even though it is under negotiation, is already a violation of rights,” said the Brazilian worker. “Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization provides for the right to free, prior and informed consultation. However, so far, no quilombola peoples, no Indigenous peoples, no people from the outskirts of the city have been consulted,” she denounced.
“It’s important to keep fighting, and to say that the defeat of this agreement demands an alliance of international solidarity. We know that the impacts are devastating and that the 1% that defends this agreement is the same 1% that finances genocide in Palestine, the same 1% that is enforcing the economic blockade against Cuba. So let the 99% make their voices heard,” said Pires.
End the economic blockade of Cuba and the occupation of Haiti
Cuban pediatrician Aleida Guevara, daughter of former Cuban minister Ernesto Che Guevera, spoke about the perverse effects of the economic and financial blockade on Cuba and its people. “The material cost of the blockade is more than a billion dollars, but the human cost cannot be calculated,” said Guevara.
“Every year, Cuba presents a report to the United Nations Assembly on the effects of the blockade on its population and the need to eliminate it. Since 1992, year after year, there has been an almost unanimous vote condemning the blockade, but to this day, it persists. Cuba demands an immediate end to the blockade, and you will always find us with the firm determination to defend our sovereign right to build our own independent, socialist future, free from foreign interference, committed to peace, sustainable development, social justice and solidarity. For all these reasons, Cuba has the right to live without a blockade,” Guevara declared.
The coordinator of the Haitian Democratic Committee, Henry Boisrolin, said that the country suffers for having stood up to imperialism by producing a revolutionary anti-slavery movement, having been the first country in Latin America and the Caribbean to declare its independence from French colonialism.
“The Haitian people are living through a silent genocide, but just as criminal as the rest,” he said, criticizing the military missions in the country, which have further aggravated the situation of rights violations in the Caribbean nation. “The most shameful intervention in our country was MINUSTAH, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti. And unfortunately, Brazil took command of this action, which massacred, raped 12-year-old children, committed crimes,” she denounced.
Structural and environmental racism
Marcelo Dias, a lawyer from Rio de Janeiro and a member of the Front of Black Jurists, testified about the genocide of Black youth in Rio de Janeiro, and Vanilda de Castro, from the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB), about the environmental racism practiced by the mining companies responsible for the crime of the Fundão dam collapse in Mariana (MG), which affected the entire Doce River basin.
“The state of Rio de Janeiro, the state of São Paulo, the state of Bahia, see Black youth as enemies who need to be killed. That’s why the organizations of the Black movement are standing up against the genocide of our people, against the extermination of Black youth, and for reparations for the Black people of this country,” said Dias.
Vanilda de Castro criticized the recent decision by the Minas Gerais courts to acquit mining companies Samarco, Vale and BHPBilliton for the deaths of 19 people in the tragedy. “This week we heard that the Ponte Nova court acquitted the companies for lack of evidence. What more proof do they want? How many dead? And deaths that are still happening today, not just in the collapse. What kind of justice is this, that only listens to one side, and always the side of the strongest, the one with the most money?” he said. “We have to continue the fight and never give up,” she concluded.
The sentence
The final decision was pronounced by the chair of the symbolic jury, the international coordinator of the World March of Women, Yildiz Temürtürkan, from Turkey. “We are the members of the jury, from different countries around the world. And together we listened to the testimonies of the exploited and oppressed peoples and came to a unanimous decision to find imperialism guilty of committing continuous and systematic crimes against humanity, against peoples and against nature,” she said.
Finally, Judge Simone Nacif read out a long sentence. “Having considered the sovereign decision of the jury, I grant the petition and declare illegitimate the false solutions presented by the capitalist system and condemn imperialism for the crimes of genocide of peoples in Palestine, inducing poverty through free trade agreements, economic warfare and violation of sovereignty and self-determination of peoples in Cuba and Haiti, and structural and environmental racism in Brazil, against Black youth, and against the environment,” she said, issuing a call to struggle.
“Therefore, I call on all peoples, the organized working class, social movements, indigenous people, Black people, the LGBTQIA+ community, the inhabitants of the Global South, all subalternized peoples to remain permanently in struggle against imperialism and its destructive effects on our lives, demanding reparations until the neoliberal system is extinguished and we build a society based on solidarity. Let’s take firm steps towards the socialist horizon,” she concluded, bringing the trial to a close.
This article by Leonardo Fernandes was published in Portuguese by Brasil de Fato.
