Since the 5th of October, around 300 Brazilian soldiers and police have laid siege to and blockaded an alleged ‘Maoist’ camp of around 600 families in Camp Tiago dos Santos, in the vicinity of Porto Velho, with no one being allowed in or out.
For just under two weeks now, residents of the besieged camp have been deprived of any supplies, including food and other necessities for the maintenance of 600 families. The supply situation has gotten so bad that women from inside the camp have released videos begging for help as they are running out of milk to keep their babies alive.
The camp was originally organised by the League of Poor Peasants (LCP) and was attacked by the Brazilian state based on an allegation, without any evidence to back it up, that people in the camp had been responsible for the killing of a police officer. The LCP responded to the baseless allegations saying that the murder had nothing to do with the camp or the LCP generally, suggesting that the it was committed by one of Brazil’s many gangs.
The threat that the siege could become a massacre is very real, Brazilian workers and peasants are no strangers to the violence of the state with this siege of innocent people being the latest episode in a long series of oppression and exploitation by the national bourgeoisie and international capitalism.
Daniel Forrest
