In Brazil "a Mockery"

from Megan Sharp The following article appeared in 'The Guardian' of 1.12.67. " Rome, November 30... A Brazilian Roman Catholic bishop says that the United States' Alliance for Progress programme is an implicit form of blackmail against the poor of South America. Bishop Helder Pessoa Camara, of Olinda and Recife, in Northern Brazil, says in an interview given to "l'Espresso" magazine that Americans continue to buy their raw materials cheaply in South America and then sell the finished product at a great profit. Americans were taking over his country's best factories, and the Alliance for Progress was not properly called "aid", but the colonisation of South America. The Brazilian Government is trying to improve conditions in the North-east, the bishop says, but the results have been a mockery with the rich getting richer and the poor poorer. "I tell the rich landowners, that if the Church does not open your eyes, if you do not decide to make reforms then the Communists will open your eyes for you. There will be revolution, and anarchy, and you will lose not only your rings and bracelets but your hands and arms as well" the bishop is quoted as saying. Labourers in the sugar cane plantations who try to follow the lessons for the bishop's radio school, usually from transistor radios, or those who have contact with labour unions, are immediately dismissed. Brazilian students may be from well-to-do families but they know the realities of their country. "They tell me I do not have the right to be naive and preach non-violence because I know better than they that without violence nothing will be done in this country."