{"id":1233,"date":"2011-05-25T23:58:40","date_gmt":"2011-05-26T02:58:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=1233"},"modified":"2023-11-10T08:12:31","modified_gmt":"2023-11-10T11:12:31","slug":"forced-evictions-in-guaratiba-the-removal-process-part-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=1233","title":{"rendered":"Forced Evictions in Guaratiba: The Removal Process (Part 1\/3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas\"\"<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This is Part 1<\/strong> of a three-part series<\/a> about one community\u2019s struggle with forced evictions. The series looks at the realities of Rio de Janeiro City government\u2019s removal process, life for residents moved to public housing units, and life for residents who resist.<\/em><\/p>\n

It was the week before Christmas 2010. City government officials including Regional Vice-Mayor of Rio\u2019s West Zone, Edimar Teixeira, and representatives from the Secretary of Housing, called a meeting with residents along Avenida das Am\u00e9ricas in Guaratiba to discuss issues involved in the community\u2019s relocation. They planned to move residents to make way for the widening of this road. (See our February posts<\/a> for background information on this community\u2019s struggle.) The meeting was scheduled for the following afternoon on a construction site within the community.<\/p>\n

But when representatives from the 200 families arrived for the schedule meeting, there were two large buses waiting for them. Officials told residents they would like to show them the apartments they were being offered in Cosmos, a region of the city approximately 5km away.<\/p>\n

Upon arrival, Teixeira began shouting over the crowd, pressuring and threatening residents into accepting the apartments. Teixeira and other City government workers told community members that regardless of their decision, demolition would begin in their community the next day. \u201cWe either had to take the key, or we wouldn\u2019t get anything\u2026 people were afraid of becoming homeless,\u201d says one resident, Fernando. \u201cWe were totally lost, because the Vice Mayor didn\u2019t speak with us directly. We couldn\u2019t even hear,\u201d claims Denilsa, \u201cThere were a lot of papers; we don\u2019t even know what we signed. They were pressuring us and saying that tractors were going to knock down everything. Where was I going to live, under some bridge?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Rubble from partially destroyed home<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A sense of panic spread across the community, and 190 out of 200 families accepted immediately. Residents were given two days to move. Though City government sent some moving trucks, there weren\u2019t enough for everyone, and many residents had to pay for their own. Some residents, like Denilsa, paid for their own because of the horrible conditions of the few government trucks available. \u201cIt was difficult because I had to pay out of my own pocket to move here. The workers from the government trucks were destroying people\u2019s belongings\u2026 They would throw three, four families\u2019 possessions into the same truck. A lot of people lost clothes and never found them,\u201d affirms Denilsa.<\/p>\n

Neighbors whose homes weren\u2019t at risk for removal (because they do not occupy the area targeted for the road) witnessed the tragedy and helped as much as they could. Residents tried to save as many precious items from their homes as possible, even valuable construction material.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was chaos. People were rushing to save pieces of their labor, taking windows, doors, wood, as much as possible,\u201d says neighbor Maresmol. \u201cI was desperately trying to help my sisters from my church: \u2018Maresmol, do you have any boxes? Get some boxes for me. Just leave my dog here. We\u2019ve got to leave now! Can my daughter sleep at your house tonight?\u2019 It was crazy here. At that time, you would see people with closets on their heads, trying to sell their furniture for R$50, refrigerator for only R$50 because it wasn\u2019t going to fit in their new apartment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Contributing to the feelings of chaos were ominous tractors sent by City government to be present during the move. Denilsa tells, \u201cThe machines were going back and forth the whole time, here and there, and you were just waiting for it, waiting for them to go to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click for Part 2<\/a> and Part 3<\/a> of this series.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas This is Part 1 of a three-part series about one community\u2019s struggle with forced evictions. The series looks at the realities of Rio de Janeiro City government\u2019s removal process, life for […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1215,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1293,1736,335,336],"tags":[126,11,60,3650,21],"writer":[44],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1233","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-evictionswatch","8":"category-1736","9":"category-policies","10":"category-violations","11":"tag-cosmos","12":"tag-forced-evictions","13":"tag-guaratiba","14":"tag-series-forced-evictions-in-guaratiba","15":"tag-west-zone","16":"writer-mary-allison-joseph"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1233"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=1233"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=1233"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=1233"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=1233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}