This 14 March 2019 marks a year since the brutal and planned political assassination of Marielle Franco and her driver Anderson Gomes.
Marielle, a woman, black, LGBT, and a city councillor for the PSOL, arrived in parliament thanks to the people of the favelas, where she lived and who she represented. That’s why she was murdered, it was a political crime. She was killed because she was the voice of an exploited, segregated and marginalized people. She was the representative of a cruelly unequal Brazil that, from Rio de Janeiro, has spread all over the country. From Brazil where there is a war against the poor. Of the more than 60,000 homicides last year, more than 70% were of black people and more than half were young people. This country has the fifth highest rate of feminicide in the world and in 2018, 70% of the women murdered were black. Every 17 minutes a woman is assaulted in Brazil and this year alone (2019) 126 feminicides have occurred in 34 days.
Political violence in Brazil is an expression of the change of regime we are experiencing and of a very fragile democracy. There are very strong indications that Marielle was murdered by militias, paramilitary organizations composed of active police officers and former police officers who control a large part of Rio de Janeiro’s neighborhoods. These criminal organizations have tentacles throughout the state apparatus. They associate themselves with governments, they elect parliamentarians and have great economic power. One of President Bolsonaro’s sons paid homage to militiamen in parliament and had direct relatives of one of these militiamen who is on the run in his office .
Her body has been executed, but Marielle’s legacy lives on. Our comrade has becom a symbol of resistance against the inequalities and oppressions present in Brazilian society. Her death had the opposite effect to that intended by her executioners. Today there are thousands of black women among the immigrants and refugees who seek better living conditions, among the women who fight against violence and machismo, among the anti-racist struggles of all countries, among the indigenous and quilombolas who fight for the good life.
We want justice for Marielle! The investigation and the solution of her death will be the work of solidarity of those who reject injustice and seek a decent life. The Brazilian people need all possible support in this battle against authoritarianism, and on this March 14 we demand accountability from those who killed and had Marielle killed.
We stay hand in hand!
Black lives matter!
Marielle lives!
Adopted unanimously by the International Committee
of the Fourth International
Amsterdam
6 March 2019