Tuesday 26th November 2019. Four volunteer firefighters (brigadistas) accused of arson were arrested and imprisoned, early in the morning and by surprise. The Civil Police, without duly showing warrant and heavily armed with automatic rifles, entered and seized documentation, computers and even money at the headquarters of Projeto Saúde e Alegría (PSA), a highly respected NGO, which has been working for decades to improve health and social communities in the area of Santarém, in the Amazonian state of Pará.
If we were not in Brazil and currently living a dirty war between the government and NGOs, we would not believe what we were seeing. Given events that happened yesterday, the reaction of the Brazilian authorities to the international scandal unleashed by the massive fires in the Amazon last summer takes a sinister turn.
First, last July, Bolsonaro denied the scale of the catastrophe and questioned the scientific data provided. Afterwards, he accused the international community of wanting to undermine Brazilian sovereignty, regarding it as a virgin (sic) and wanting to appropriate the immense Amazon territory. And finally, he had to admit that the fires got out of hand and he began to work when it was already too late and the army was badly prepared to act as a firefighter.
