Brazilian liberation theologian Frei Betto: Big landowners plunge into the business with the new “gold”
São Paulo. Considering hunger in the world, the well-known Brazilian Dominican friar and liberation theologian Frei Betto condemned the production of agro-fuels as irresponsible and inhuman. In a press release entitled “Fuels of Death” and published by the Brazilian Catholic Press Agency adital Frei Betto wrote in São Paulo, that the boom with products called Ecosprit already provoked a significant increase of food prices, especially in Europe, China, India and the USA. In Brazil, which heavily promotes the production of ethanol from sugarcane, the people had to spend three times as much on food in the first half of this year as in the same period last year. The Brazilian big landowners, so Frei Betto, had already fallen for the new “gold” named sugarcane and abandoned the cultivation of traditional agricultural products. This does affect food prices, however, just like in the USA. There are about 800 million cars in the world – whereas the same number of people is suffering from chronic malnutrition. It is disturbing that none of the governments that are very much inspired by the agrarian fuels puts a question mark behind individual traffic. “Just as if the profits of the automobile industry were indisputable and taboo.”
The theologian, best-selling author and newspaper columnist reminds of the fact that the sugarcane cultivation in Brazil has been based on extreme exploitation, environmental destruction and draining of public funds since the colonial times. The government of Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva punished large farms because of slave work this year. However, this phenomenon can frequently be found.
In 1850 a slave sweated away on the sugarcane plantations for fifteen to twenty years – today this is only an average of twelve years due to the excessive work load. According to Frei Betto the sugarcane cultivation boom moreover causes an enormous inland migration, the growth of slums, the increase of murders and drug trafficking as well as child prostitution. The soy cultivation in the southeast of Brazil is reduced by ethanol production, and it results in a strong expansion of the soy plantations in the Amazonians. However, this means inconsiderate destruction of the jungle.
Frei Betto demands from the Lula government to worry about the starving of the tropical country instead of making the sugarcane entrepreneurs rich.
Source: Reinhard Behrend, Rettet den Regenwald e. V. (Save the Rain Forest), www.regenwald.org
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