Section:GDN 1N PaGe:39 Edition Date:190906 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 5/9/2019 16:24 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
Friday 6 September 2019 The Guardian •
World^39
Burning of Amazon forest
is ‘a true apocalypse’, warns
Brazilian archbishop
Harriet Sherwood
Jonathan Watts
The fi res in the Amazon are a “true
apocalypse”, according to a Brazil-
ian archbishop, who expects next
month’s papal synod at the Vatican to
strongly denounce the destruction of
the rainforest.
The comments by Archbishop
Erwin Kräutler will put fresh pres-
sure on the Brazilian president, Jair
Bolsonaro, following criticism from
G7 leaders last month over the surge
in deforestation in the world’s biggest
terrestrial carbon sink.
The archbishop’s words also high-
light a widening division between the
Catholic church and the Pentecostal
movement. Pope Francis has champi-
oned a more harmonious relationship
with the natural world for the sake of
future generations, in contrast to the
fast-growing new-world Pentecostal-
ists, who form an important base of
support for the intensifi ed resource
exploitation advocated by Bolsonaro
and Donald Trump.
The gathering of bishops would con-
demn all forms of Amazon destruction
and advocate a new view of ecology
based on Christian faith in God as the
creator of a “common home”, said
Kräutler – one of 18 members of the
preparatory council appointed by the
Pope ahead of the synod on the Ama-
zon – in an email to the Guardian.
After the meeting, the Pope is
expected to reinforce this message
with an “apostolic exhortation”. It is
likely to build on his infl uential 180-
page encyclical on climate change,
Laudato si’ , published four years ago,
which called for concrete steps to
tackle the environmental crisis.
Preparations for an Amazon synod
have been under way since 2016, but
the issue has become more urgent in
recent months due to fi res, threats and
a hostile government, Kräutler said.
“There have always been fi res in
the Amazon. When they are smaller,
nature rebuilds itself within a few
years. But what you are seeing now is a
true apocalypse,” said the archbishop,
who has spent 54 years in the region.
“The fi res this year surpass any-
thing you can imagine. Undoubtedly,
it is the consequence of comments by
[Bolsonaro] about the opening of the
Amazon to national and multinational
companies. He understands ‘opening
the Amazon’ as a licen ce to clear a rain-
forest and gain space for cattle to graze
and plant monocultures such as soy-
beans and sugar cane.”
This week, Catholic clergy in the
Amazon released an open letter con-
demning violence and intimidationthey say they are experiencing as a
result of eff orts to protect the forest
and indigenous people from miners
and farmers.
“We are deeply disappointed that
today, instead of being supported and
encouraged, our leaders are criminal-
ised as enemies of the fatherland,” they
wrote. “Together with Pope Francis,
we are uncompromisingly defending
the Amazon and demanding urgent
measures from governments in the
face of irrational aggression against
nature and the destruction of the for-
est that kills ancient fl ora and fauna
with criminal fi res.”
Kräutler said the letter was nec-
essary because the government has
spread false rumours that the Catho-
lic church was undermining Brazilian
sovereignty. Priests and nuns have along history of working with poor com-
munities in the Amazon, which has
often put them at odds with powerful
business interests and the authorities.
Tensions have risen further
since Bolsonaro became president.
Although nominally a Catholic, he
was baptised a few years ago by evan-
gelical pastors. His rise to power has
depended heavily on support from the
Pentecostal movement, which is grow-
ing faster than the Catholic church.
He has weakened government pro-
tections of the rainforest, verbally
attacked indigenous groups, accused
environmental organisations of start-
ing fi res, and cut ties with foreign
donors to the Amazon Fund. In July –
when deforestation alerts spiked 278%
compared with the same month last
year – he fi red the head of the space
agency that provided the data.
On Saturday, Bolsonaro confi rmed
that he wanted intelligence surveil-
lance at the Amazon synod. “There
is a lot of political infl uence there,” he
reportedly told journalists.
Instrumentum Laboris, a prepara-
tory document for the synod, laments
the crisis in the Amazon, which it
attributes to “secularisation, the
throwaway culture and the idolatry
of money”.
“Today the Amazon is wounded,
its beauty deformed, a place of pain
and violence,” it says. “The manifold
destruction of human and environ-
mental life, the diseases and pollution
of rivers and lands, the felling and
burning of trees, the massive loss of
biodiversity, the disappearance of spe-
cies (more than one million of the 8m
animals and plants are at risk), consti-
tute a brutal reality that challenges us
all. Violence, chaos and corruption are
rampant. The territory has become a
space of discord and of extermination
of peoples, cultures and generations.”▲ The Pope , heading to Mozambique,
is expected to join criticism of BrazilBolsonaro
taunts UN’s
Bachelet over
father’s torture
under Pinochet
Dom Phillips
Rio de JaneiroThe Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro,
has taunted Michelle Bachelet , the UN
human rights chief, over the Chilean
dictatorship that tortured her and
her parents, after she criticised rising
police killings and a “shrinking” space
for democracy in Brazil.
“She is defending the human rights
of vagabonds,” Bolsonaro said yester-
day. “ Senhora Michelle Bachelet, if
Pinochet’s people had not defeated
the left in ’73 – among them your father- Chile would be a Cuba today.”
Bachelet’s father, Alberto , an air
force general, was jailed and tortured
for opposing the 1973 coup led by
Augusto Pinochet, and died of a heart
attack in prison. In 2014 , two retired
military offi cers were jailed for tor-
turing him. Bachelet and her mother,
Ángela Jeria, were also imprisoned.
Bolsonaro has often praised Bra-
zil’s 21-year military dictatorship and
expressed admiration for rulers such
as Pinochet, whose regime killed more
than 3,000 people between 1973 and
- His comments came after Bache-
let , the UN high commissioner for
human rights, criticised police kill-
ings in Brazil’s two biggest cities.
In the fi rst half of this year, 426 peo-
ple were killed by police in São Paulo
state , while in Rio de Janeiro state, 881
were killed by police. The fi gures mean
Rio’s police killings rose by 15% , even
as total homicides in the state dropped
by 23% , the G1 website reported.
Last month, Bolsonaro said he
hoped proposed laws making it easier
for police to kill would mean criminals
“die in the street like cockroaches”.
“We have seen large increases in
police violence in 2019 amid a public
discourse legitimising summary exe-
cutions,” Bachelet said. Denials of state
crimes could “entrench impunity and
reinforce the message that state agents
are above the law ”, she said, adding
that black people and favela residents
were disproportionately aff ected. She
also raised concerns over the “shrink-
ing of civil and democratic space” in
Brazil and said at least eight defenders
of human rights had been killed from
January to June, “mainly over land dis-
putes”. She said a third of Amazon fi res
were in protected areas.
On Facebook , Bolsonaro said Bache-
let was following France’s president,
Emmanuel Macron, who he accused
of meddl ing in internal aff airs after he
spoke out over the Amazon fi res.
Chile’s conservative president,
Sebastián Piñera distanced himself
from Bolsonaro’s comments. “I don’t
share at all the reference president
Bolsonaro made to a former Chilean
president –especially on a subject as
painful as the death of her father,” he
told reporters.
Additional reporting
Jorge Poblete Santiago▼ A meeting of the Papal synod
next month is expected to strongly
denounce the fi res in the Amazon
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