MAB meets with the Attorney General’s Office

The Movement of People Affected by Dams – MAB – met this morning (January 31) with the Federal General Attorney Raquel Dodge in Brasilia to discuss the experience of the movement in organizing work and claiming the rights of those affected. MAB’s objective with this meeting is to work to prevent that impunity does prevail in Brumadinho as it happened in the case of Samarco’s crime in Mariana.

On Thursday morning (31), the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB) met with Raquel Dodge, the General Attorney, in Brasilia. The request came from the attorney general’s office in order to discuss the experience of the movement in the work of organizing and claiming the rights of those affected, especially regarding the Fundão dam, which affected the Doce River and the state of Espirito Santo, on November 5^th, 2015. A delegation of men and women coordinators of the movement, composed of people affected by the rupture of the Vale dams in Brumadinho and of the Samarco dam (Vale / BHP) in Mariana, participated in the meeting with the objective of not reproducing the mistakes made in the reparation process and the emergencial response in Mariana, as well as denouncing and proposing measures aimed at overcoming the mistakes made so far in the Brumadinho massacre.

The denounces and proposals are:

a) the removal of the criminal company from the victims and from the crime scene, ensuring that Vale is solely and exclusively responsible for providing resources for reparation actions, which must be coordinated by the organized affected population and by the competent institutions;

b) the guarantee of participation and protagonism of those affected in any decision or agreement, since they must be the main subjects of the whole process of reparation;

c) the guarantee of follow-up and involvement of the organized civil society in the reparation decisions and actions.

In the Doce River basin, these are errors that were systematically committed. From the beginning, Vale and BHP controlled the rhythm, the decisions, the formulation of the agreement (without the affected population), the creation of the RENOVA Foundation (whose board is commanded by the mining companies), the registration and the information of all those affected, the determination and the information of the compensation amounts and actions.

These are fundamental errors, which created a situation where the Doce River Crime continues unpunished and where the affected population remains helpless, desperate, with no guaranteed basic rights, and there are still tens of thousands of victims who are not even recognized, and suffer daily from violations of rights. This impunity can not exist in the case of Brumadinho in the Paraopeba and São Francisco Rivers. MAB will continue to fight to ensure this, this meeting is just one more step to make sure that the voice of the affected is heard.