Brazil: angry protests hit state murder in London

Some 1,500 working people and youth demonstrated Monday in Jean’s hometown of Gonzaga, a rural center in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais with a population of less than 6,000, most of them impoverished small farmers.

The protest came after the opening of a police inquest in London revealed that the Brazilian immigrant had been shot eight times at point-blank range—seven bullets to the head and one to the shoulder—as he lay pinned down by undercover cops on the floor of the subway car. Earlier reports based on witness accounts were that he had been shot five times.

Police first claimed that the savage killing was part of an “anti-terrorist operation” following failed attempts to detonate explosives in London’s transportation system a day earlier, an apparent bid to repeat the deadly transit bombings of July 7. The authorities were subsequently forced to acknowledge that Jean had no connection whatsoever to the attacks, and that they had killed an innocent man.

In the aftermath of the shooting, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other officials have issued formal apologies and promises of financial compensation for the murdered worker’s family, while stressing that the British police’s “shoot to kill” policy would continue. Blair’s plea for sympathy for the “difficult circumstances” faced by the police is virtually an assurance that this will not be the last such cold-blooded state murder.

Calling the killing an “assassination,” Gonzaga’s mayor, Julio de Souza, dismissed the British government’s expressions of regret. “It’s easy for Blair to apologize, but it doesn’t mean very much,” he said. “What happened to English justice and England, a place where police patrol unarmed?”

Demonstrators carried the Brazilian flag as well as hand-printed placards denouncing the British police as “the real terrorists” and demanding that Jean’s body be returned immediately. Other signs read, “Jean’s dream was ended by British brutality” and “The British shoot first and ask questions later.” The British authorities have delayed the return of the Brazilian worker’s remains, claiming that they are a key piece of evidence in their inquiry into the shooting.

Family members said that London’s withholding of the body has only deepened their grief. Jean’s mother Maria Menezes said she does not know how many more days she will be forced to wait to bury her son. “I am totally furious with the police,” she said. “How can they kill workers? Nothing will cure this pain.”

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http://wsws.org/articles/2005/jul2005/braz-j27.shtml