{"id":1788,"date":"2011-09-20T09:30:25","date_gmt":"2011-09-20T12:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=1788"},"modified":"2015-08-14T19:13:31","modified_gmt":"2015-08-14T22:13:31","slug":"dona-zelia-after-the-social-clean-up-it-ended-up-looking-like-a-miami","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=1788","title":{"rendered":"Dona Z\u00e9lia, after the social clean-up: \u201cIt ended up looking like a Miami\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u201cThis is what you call a social clean-up. 68 families have been moved, the first and largest part of the community, so that they can build a pretty garden at the entrance of the condominium. It has ended up looking like Miami. When residents opened their eyes it was already too late. And now, once again, for no (good) reason, they are going to get rid of the rest.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

This outburst comes from Maria Z\u00e9lia Carneiro Dazzi, President of the Association of Residents and Fishermen of the Vila Arroio Pavuna Community, in Rio’s West Zone. Descendent of the first inhabitants of the community, Dona Zelia has lived through the history of evictions that mark \u00a0the advance of real-estate interests (westward) across the city.<\/p>\n

The fishing community was first settled in 1910, on the banks of the Rodrigo de Freitas lake in Rio’s South Zone. In 1938 the community was transferred for the first time to the edges of the Jacarepagu\u00e1 Lagoon (far to the west). In 2006 the building of a luxury condominium in the neighbourhood meant that houses and the community were uprooted once again.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \u201cThe area of the condominium and everywhere around used to be a huge forest. You would go out with a piece of bread in your hand because there were so many animals: snakes, capivaras, and rabbits. There used to be beautiful blue butterflies. All of the noctural birds perished. There were Car\u00e3o birds, the one that looks like a chicken and sings beautifully. At that time (the time of the building of the condominium) the animals were able to escape to land nearby. But this time no, all of them perished, poor things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dona Z\u00e9lia is referring to the new building work where lorries and tractors are preparing to build an overpass as part of the TransCarioca, the motorway between the Gale\u00e3o airport and Barra da Tijuca, which is one of the infrastructure works for the World Cup and The Olympics. To complete the work, the council intends to remove the rest of the 28 families who live there, getting rid of a century-old community.<\/p>\n

Dona Zelia says that she only found out that she would lose her house when TV reporters came to the neighbourhood the day after it was announced on the daily news.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe truth is that we don\u2019t understand what is going on. The blueprints for what will happen to the community are different every time, always containing mistakes. We understand they will need to evict the families from the houses at the front (where roadworks must take place) but there is no need to remove all of them,\u201d she points out.<\/p>\n

Organised by the activist Dona Z\u00e9lia herself, residents have decided to not allow the City to evaluate the value of their houses for the purpose of eviction (as that implies consent). They have made the most of the fact that there is a gate isolating the community. They have appealed to the State’s Public Defence Unit. So far, residents have not had access to the plans of the project and complain about lack of information.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy house is not for sale. Therefore I have no obligation to let people in,\u201d says Dona Z\u00e9lia.<\/p>\n

The marks of black paint that the Municipal Secretary of Housing painted at the entrance of the neighbourhood, supposedly to show which houses will be demolished, were painted over by the residents with white paint.
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a Nazi practice; we are not going to accept it,\u201d says Dona Z\u00e9lia.<\/p>\n

She continues planning for the future. She completed a course to facilitate community projects at\u00a0Fiocruz<\/a> and would like to promote ecological tourism around the Lagoon area, which today is severely polluted. The fight to save the community has meant that she has not been looking after her own health. She took a bad turn and for a short time stopped being able to feel the left side of her body. She also fell over on the street and injured her knee but she didn\u2019t have time to get medical attention. As well as leading against the threat of eviction, she has to look after her husband who is suffering from recently diagnosed cancer.<\/p>\n

Despite all of this, Dona Z\u00e9lia is still determined as she walks through the community, pointing out a century old tree and lamenting the loss of another that used to be near it. It was at this moment that she came out with the most memorable phrase of the interview.<\/p>\n

“This is what you call a social clean-up. 68 families have been moved; the first and largest part of the community, so that they can build a pretty garden at the entrance of the condominium. It has ended up looking like Miami. When the residents opened their eyes it was already too late.\u00a0And now, once again, for no (good) reason, they are going to get rid of the rest.<\/em>\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Delta Construction, owned by Fernando Cavendish, close friend of Governor Sergio Cabral, is responsible for the work that is going to remove the community.<\/p>\n

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Jacarepagu\u00e1 Lagoon, which today is severely polluted: Dona Z\u00e9lia would like to promote ecological tourism in the area.<\/p>\n

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The border between Dona Z\u00e9lia\u2019s land and the landfill work which is being done before the overpass is built.<\/p>\n

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Gate which prevents the City from accessing houses in the community.<\/p>\n

Translated and reprinted with permission. Click\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0for the original article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThis is what you call a social clean-up. 68 families have been moved, the first and largest part of the community, so that they can build a pretty garden at the entrance of the condominium. […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1840,"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":[1736,1284,1330,336],"tags":[224,225,226,179,11,75,129,5,158,21],"writer":[228],"translator":[217],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1788","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-1736","8":"category-interviews-profiles","9":"category-translation","10":"category-violations","11":"tag-arroio-pavuna","12":"tag-barra-da-tijuca","13":"tag-consequences-of-eviction-health","14":"tag-evictee-profile","15":"tag-forced-evictions","16":"tag-lagoa-de-jacarepagua","17":"tag-leadership","18":"tag-olympics","19":"tag-smh","20":"tag-west-zone","21":"writer-manuela-azenha","22":"translator-katy-bailes"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1788","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\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1788"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=1788"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=1788"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=1788"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=1788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}