In two regions of the country, in July, mass actions of food confiscation have occurred, the so-called ‘food looting’ against starvation and misery. The actions happened in Rio de Janeiro,RJ, and in Pelotas, RS. Food had been intended for the abandoned families by their respective governments.
In Pelotas, on July 19th, tens of proletarian families organized themselves and confiscated more than 100 basic baskets and 200 liters of milk from the local Town Hall. The action occurred in Vila das Corujas and the food was distributed on time, especially for those who had not received the emergency-aid because of the government delay.
One of the triggers for the action, besides the hunger and misery imposed to the families by the crisis of the bureaucratic capitalism, was the delay and abandon of the Municipality. The food belonged, more specifically, to the Social Assistance Secretary of the Town Hall. In a video that circulates in the web, one of the residents denounces that more than 60 families that starve were not included in the municipality register and those included have not received anything yet.
According to the social assistants, who had been surprised by the action, the residents forced them to deliver the food immediately to the workers. Some local people entered the truck and distributed the food to the others, even to those who received the government aid (a measly R$600,00) that suffering from hunger as well, joined the rest and collected the food.
Rice confiscated by workers
In Niteroi, RJ, dozens of families confiscated a load of rice that had been abandoned on the highway after an accident, on July,16th, 2020. The just action of the families, aggravated by poverty and abandon, happened at BR-101, between Niteroi and São Gonçalo, RJ.
Dozens of residents of the nearby residents went to the avenue to collect the sacks of rice that fell from the trucks after the accident. The police tried to repress the masses who carried the abandoned cargo. The person responsable by the rice, against cowardly police repression, authorized the population to take the cargo.
Truck with meat is looted
Refrigerated truck that was abandoned in the community Kelson’s, Complexo da Penha, northern Rio de Janeiro, had the cargo confiscated by hundreds of hungry residents. In an Internet video, the crowd advances over the truck stocked with meat and collects the goods for consumptiom. Military policemen went to the place and shoot into the air to try to disperse the crowd.
Food confiscation has happened more frequently, showing how the bureaucratic capitalism economic crisis, aggravated by the Covid-19 health crisis, has submitted the people to increasingly unworthy living conditions.
The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) has released recently data from the National Survey by Continuous Household Sample (PNDA Contínua), displaying that more than half the working-age Brazilian population is unemployed (50,5%). In a situation of aggravating privatization of basic rights such as food, the confiscations are a means found by people’s classes to ease the famine.
The price of the basic basket has increased in 15 of the 17 capitals of the country that participated in the Research of the Inter-Union Department of Statistics and Socio-Ecoomics Studies (Dieese)- National Basic Food and Food Survey, conducted from March 1st to March 18th,2020. The capital with the most expensive basic food was Rio de Janeiro (R$533,65) then São Paulo (R$518,50) and Florianópolis (R$517,13). Dieese estimates that, on March 2020, the minimum wage should be 4,29 times bigger than the present R$1045,00.
According to the survey, only 19% of the population has a formal job contract. Tha National Survey by Continuous Household Sample 2020 indicates that, in the quarter of December 2019 to February 2020, there were approximately 12,2 million unemployed persons in Brasil ( without including the million of the under-occupied and discouraged). Accordint to the Ministry of Health, 15 persons in Brasil die of malnutrition per day.
In accordance with the report of the United Nations Organization for Food and Agriculture (FAO), between 2017 and 2019 the number of people in Brasil in food insecurity situation arrived to 43,1 million, that is, living with access to food constantly threatened, usually for financial reasons. In the period between 2014 and 2016 the number was 37,5 million people.
