The Washington Post - 05.11.2019

A14 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5 , 2019

would not seek self-publicity.” “The speaker is not the ruler of the House of Commons but its servant,” Eleanor Laing, a Conser- vative candidate, said to hurrahs. “The speaker should be a digni- fied and quiet voice,” said Edward Leigh, another Tory contender. “I want to return to the rule book,” said Chris Bryant, suggest- ing that Bercow had thrown it out. Bryant observed, “Politics can be cruel, and politics has felt especially cruel in the last few years.” Hoyle told the London Times a few days ago that if elected “his first act would be to call in the party leaders for a summit aimed at taking the ‘nastiness’ out of politics and putting an end to the Commons ‘bear pit.’ ” [email protected]

speakership were dashed, said danger lurks not only outside the Palace of Westminster but also within the crumbling World Heri- tage site. “Bullying and harass- ment still permeate Parliament,” she said. Each candidate was given a few minutes to make a speech. None praised Bercow, whom Prime Minister Boris Johnson once ac- cused of performing more as a “player” in parliamentary con- tests than an “umpire.” On Monday, Johnson praised Hoyle’s “signature kindness and reasonableness.” The seven contenders for speaker all promised to turn the page, to move things along more briskly, to be more fair and to recede into the background. “I would be a speaker who speaks less,” Hillier pledged. “I

that serving in Parliament had become far less appealing in 2019 — with members subjected to torrents of abuse on social media and the streets. At least 60 lawmakers have announced they are retiring early, driven out by the constant name- calling, tweeted outrage and death threats. “These are difficult, even dan- gerous times for our parliamentary democracy,” said Harriet Har- man, a losing contender from the Labour Party. “Too often this chamber de- scends into shouting and abuse; relations between this house and the government are broken; many of us work under a hail of threats of violence — to us, to our families, to our staff,” she said. Meg Hillier, another Labour lawmaker whose hopes for the

Hoyle is no sharp-tongued Ber- cow, but the chamber didn’t seem to mind, erupting in a roaring ascension of “Aye!” at his selec- tion. Perhaps a little dose of dull might be just what the chamber needs at this turbulent hour. Hoyle is likely to play a pivotal role in setting the parameters of the Brexit debate when a new Parliament gets to work next month after the snap election. Hoyle was elected from a field of seven candidates. What the contenders said Mon- day in the chamber was revealing. They all promised to make the House of Commons a less toxic space. Several suggested that they would provide mental health ser- vices for members and staff — and more police escorts. And they all acknowledged

master of the polysyllabic put- down, retired as speaker last week after a decade overseeing debate in the chamber. The new speaker is Lindsay Hoyle, a long-serving Labour Par- ty lawmaker and a former deputy speaker. Hoyle is likely to be a rule- taker, not a rule-breaker. He speaks with a broad Lancashire accent, making it a little hard for an American to get every word. He has a pet tortoise — and a pet Rottweiler. Upon his election, Hoyle indi- cated that one of his first orders of the day was to restore Parlia- ment’s stature. “We’ve got to make sure that the tarnish is polished away, that the respect and tolerance that we expect from everyone who works in here will be shown,” he said.

BY WILLIAM BOOTH

london — The frustrated, divid-
ed British Parliament elected a
new speaker of the House of
Commons on Monday. He prom-
ised to bring back a measure of
civility, even kindness, to the ex-
hausted chamber — to tone
things down, to dial it way back
and to “make sure we all feel safe.”
To which a frustrated, divided
Britain might well sigh, “Good
luck with that, mate!”
The current Parliament, para-
lyzed by Brexit, is being dissolved.
Six weeks of tough campaigning
loom before a Dec. 12 general
election. And the future of Brexit
— the source of so much of the
rancor — remains as foggy as
ever.
John Bercow, the carnival
barker of “Order! Order!” and the

Britain’s new House of Commons speaker promises more civility, calmness

BY TERRENCE MCCOY

rio de janeiro — Paulo Paulino
Guajajara knew that a violent
death could come his way.
Three of his fellow “guardians of
the forest” — a squad of armed
indigenous sentinels — had al-
ready been killed by land grabbers
trying to knock down and develop
one of the last remaining shards of
the Amazon rainforest in Mara-
nhao state. Paulino would talk
about this fear frequently, then
swallow it down and head out on
another patrol.
On Friday, his worries were real-
ized. State authorities say Paulino
and another guardian from the
Guajajara tribe were out fetching
water when at least five armed men
surrounded them and opened fire.
Paulino, 26, was shot in the neck.
He died in the forest.
As deforestation in the Amazon
surges under Brazilian President
Jair Bolsonaro, threatening thou-
sands of indigenous people, Pauli-
no’s death has drawn media atten-
tion and promises by officials to
act.
The governor of Maranhao an-
nounced the creation of a task force
to protect indigenous life, and Jus-
tice Minister Sérgio Moro vowed
“to bring those responsible for this
serious crime to justice.”

The contest for land along the Amazon frontier, which pits ranch- ers, land grabbers and the indigenous against one another, has al- ways been bloody. But as enforcement of environmental regula- tions slackens and deforestation rises under Bolsonaro, there’s fear that the recent deaths of the forest guardians might be only the begin- ning. In the first eight months of Bol- sonaro’s tenure this year, authori-

ties issued the fewest fines for deforestation infractions in at least two decades, Human Rights Watch reported. Deforestation over that period was more than double that of the previous year. An expanse larger than Delaware has been lost this year alone. The retreat of the federal state and the encroachment of develop- ers have placed more pressure on nontraditional defenders of the forest — small-time farmers, cops,

indigenous tribes — viewed by many conservationists as crucial to maintaining its structural integri- ty. But their work is increasingly subject to threats and violence. More than 300 people have been killed in the past decade while trying to protect the land, according to the nongovernmental Pastoral Land Commission — and that fig- ure, analysts say, is probably an undercount. In a frontier as vast as the Amazon, where police have few resources and where many killings happen in remote areas, many deaths receive little notice. “Some of the investigations were so bad and didn’t do basic things like an autopsy,” said César Muñoz, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch who looked at doz- ens of killings with suspected links to land disputes. “The challenge is that because the investigations are really bad, some of the killings that happened should have been count- ed but weren’t.” All of the themes that define the broader forest dynamic — lax law enforcement, violence and impu- nity — have been playing out in Maranhao state. Muñoz visited the state last year to learn about the guardians of the forest, a band of 180 men patrolling the Arariboia indigenous territory. He found that

the threat of violence was perva- sive. Three guardians had been killed, and many more were being threatened. “It was very common that indigenous leaders were being threatened by loggers,” he said. “It happened everywhere we looked, and we didn’t find a single case where the authorities had pressed charg- es for the threats.” Some of the people facing those threats were Paulino’s family members. “I’ve had a personal relationship with the family since I was a kid,” said Gil Rodrigues, an official with the Indian Mission Council, affili- ated with the Catholic Church. They considered themselves war- dens of what they called the “cora- ção da mata,” the heart of the forest. Paulino was inculcated with those principles from a young age, Rodrigues said. He was a “young- ster worried about preserving ev- erything for the future genera- tions.” He joined the guardians — slid- ing on a black vest, and wielding a long rifle and long knife — and started patrolling the forest. “An island in a sea of deforestation” was how Sarah Shenker, a Brazil researcher for the indigenous-advocacy organization Sur- vival International, described their

patch. As she visited Maranhao several times in the past three years, she came to know Paulino well. The last time she saw him was in April, as the dry season was begin- ning — and as Amnesty Interna- tional was warning that “blood will be shed” if the government didn’t step in to protect the indigenous. “I wouldn’t say that he was fear- less,” Shenker said. “He, like all humans, had his fears, and one of his biggest fears was being killed. He said he could be killed at any minute — and used to say that all of the time.” During that April trip, Shenker traveled with the guardians deep into the forest to root out illegal logging. They found a logging camp, recently abandoned. The guardians set it ablaze. Shenker remembered Paulino looking into the flames. “It made him so angry, that here was this illegal logging camp, and there was trash everywhere, and they were going to profit from this while his people were going to suf- fer,” she said. He talked about his fears. “I’m doing this and I’m putting my life at risk,” he said. “But I see no other way.” Then he got back to his patrol. [email protected]

As tensions rise over logging in Brazil’s Amazon, a forest ‘guardian’ is killed

UESLEI MARCELINO/REUTERS Paulo Paulino Guajajara worked to thwart illegal logging in his indigenous tribe’s territory. He was fatally shot last week.

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