SUAPE É NOTICIA NA HOLANDA (1)

Artigo publicado no jornal holandês de Volkskrant pela correspondente na América latina Jornalista Marjolein Van de Water e traduzido para o inglês.

From our correspondent MARJOLEIN VAN DE WATER − 28/11/13

Due to the dredging work of Van Oord the port of Ipojuca in Brazil is becoming interesting for investors. That suits governor Eduardo Campos very well in his bid for the presidency. But fishermen and residents are screwed.

IPOJUCA – When six private security men and a demolition car stopped in front of his house, Josef Ferreira (65) sat down on the ground in front of the door in a last effort to save his house. ‘They threatened me with their weapons, dragged me away and brought me to the police station’, says Ferreira. When he returned later that day, his house had been razed to the ground. ‘All my stuff was under demolition rubble.’

Ferreira and eleven thousand others have to make way for the development of the port and industrial area of Suape, part of the Ipojuca municipality in the northeast of Brazil. The Dutch dredging company Van Oord is involved in the expansion of the port since the nineties and obtains support for this from the Dutch State in the form of export credit insurances. The development of the port area is accompanied by illegal evictions, intimidations, the destruction of mangrove forests and an increase in shark attacks.

Since 1992, the beginning of the large scale development of the port, 60 shark attacks have been registered in the region, with twenty casualties. In comparison: all over Brazil on average four attacks occur annually.

Biologists state that the disappeared mangrove forests are a major cause for the shark attacks. Mangroves are rich in shrimp, crabs and lobsters and an important breeding ground for fishes and sharks. The animals are disoriented and look for new sources of food, according to the biologists. Another explanation is the disappearance of the reef, a natural barrier to sharks. With the deepening of the access channel Van Oord blasted again a part of the reef with explosives.

‘These explosions chased lobsters and fish away’, says fisherman Enaldo Rodrigues (42). ‘In addition Van Oord destroyed all mangrove forests, with disastrous consequences for the fish stocks.’ Rodrigues’ fishing boat ferociously swings back and forth in the huge waves. ‘In the past I sometimes caught 150 kilos per day’, according to Rodrigues while he holds the wheel straight with his bare foot. ‘Now I even cannot land such a catch over a month’.

‘Many people have to give way to this port and the dredging works negatively impact on the fish stocks temporarily’, admits Jurgen Nieuwenhoven, manager of Van Oord in Brazil. ‘But our client Suape gives compensation to fishermen and takes care of alternative housing for the dispossessed. I have the impression that this is done in a correct manner’.

Sewage smell
Josef Ferreira does not share that impression. Suape offered him € 7,000 for his house on the island of Tatuoca, in the middle of the port area. He lived there for 40 years but does not receive an offer for replacement housing. ‘I do not exactly understand why’, says Ferreira who after the dispossession started to live with his handicapped wife in a slum area, on the edge of Ipojuca. ‘They do not consider me an original resident, I believe’.

In the small alley where Ferreira now lives hangs a penetration sewage smell. The walls of the house are moldy, the moisture runs down along the roof. His wife is lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. Gently her skinny hands are caressing her crippled legs. ‘I always was poor’, say the former fisherman. ‘But on the island life was quiet, we had fruit trees and a small field. We were quite happy.’

Some kilometers away lives Maria José da Silva (27). ‘They used force to expell us from our house’, says the woman who until two years ago lived in the same island. Her six children sit in the living room and stare at a vague image on an old TV-set. After the eviction the family moved in with Da Silva’s mother, in a house of 30 square meters.

‘We do not get replacement living space because the house in which we lived was not owned by us’, tells the young mother, who married an inhabitant of the island at the age of 13. ‘We rented it and therefore are not entitled to anything’, she says while she binds the wild curls of daughter Ana in a tight tail on top of her head. She tries to still get a house via the courts, but has little hope. ‘The judges find us not that important’.

Heitor Scalambrini confirms that. He is professor at the Federal University of Pernambuco and coordinates the Forum Suape, a coalition of environmental organizations and social movements. ‘It is naïve of Van Oord to trust the legal system and the good intentions of the port authorities’, thinks Scalambrini. ‘The port is a prestige object of state governore Eduardo Campos. Those who want to obtain justice in courts run against walls, abuses disappear under the carpet’.

A vast majority of the people of Pernambuco favors the expansion of port and industrial area. It results in tens of thousands of jobs and is currently already good for 10 per cent of the income of the state. More than hundred companies registered themselves there, and 45 more are coming. Thanks to his port Eduardo Campos, who runs against Dilma Rousseff in the presidential election of next year, is the most popular governor in Brazil.

According to minister Márcio Stefanni there are no wrong doings. Stefanni is minister of economic development of Pernambuco and also director of Suape, that is fully government owned. ‘The residents of the port area once upon a time squatted the land and therefore do not have titles’, said the minister. ‘Nevertheless we build replacement houses and give them a compensation for the loss of their house. We determine the price. If they do not agree, they can go to court’.

Reforestation
The mangrove that disappears due to the development of the port is compensated elsewhere, thus assures Stefanni. Nieuwenhoven confirms that: ‘We have had to execute part of the reforestation ourselves’, according to the manager of Van Oord. ‘I was positively surprised how strict the control was of the environmental authorities.’ The fishermen are still far from benefiting from this. It takes years for the young trees to fulfill the same function as the destroyed mangrove.

Fisherman Rodrigues steers his small boat through the port, and waves at the staff of a more than 300 meters long oil tanker of state oil company Petrobras. ‘Most employees come from outside, we do not have the correct education’, according to Rodrigues, himself semi-literate. ‘I am not opposed to the port, but it should benefit everyone’, he says.

Minister and port director Stefanni admits the situation of the fishermen being ‘sensitive’. But according to him the downsides of Suape do not outweigh the advantages. ‘This delivers enormous economic growth for the whole state. Also fishermen will benefit, their children can later go to work in the factories. We all have to modernise’, he says. ‘We no longer live in the 17th century.’