Faced with the barbaric situation suffered by the people of Manaus and Amazonas due to the systematic policies of emptying and privatization of the public health system, the chaotic social situation with the Covid-19 pandemic, high unemployment, low wages and growing poverty, it is urgent to mobilize a campaign of solidarity and support for the working people who resist and fight for their lives.
The global pandemic shows how terrible a system that privileges the benefit to 1% of the population over the lives of the 99% is. Capitalism also shows that there are lives that are worth less than others and, in the Amazon, this translates into the lack of minimum conditions to respond to the health crisis to the point of shortage of oxygen in hospitals, causing the deliberate death of hundreds of people.
Governor Wilson Lima and Mayor David Almeida are directly responsible for the deaths, most of them at the gates of crowded hospitals, unable to meet this demand. Minister Pazuello and President Bolsonaro are also responsible since they publicly deny the danger of Covid-19 in our lives and favor capitalist businesses, with corporate lobbying to ensure their business.
It is urgent to stop these death policies and defend the lives of the people of the Amazon and Manaus. From Alternativa Socialista/PSOL we stand in solidarity with these people who resist and fight and we will help in this campaign of support in these difficult times
Alternativa Socialist/PSOL, February 3rd, 2021.
We share here the program of the social, union and political organizations of Manaus that are part of the Frente Cabana en Defensa de la Vida.
EMERGENCY PROGRAMS OF PARTIES, UNIONS AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS TO FACE COVID-19 IN THE AMAZON
FRENTE CABANA EN DEFENSA DE LA VIDA: Vaccines for everyone and basic rent now!
This emergency program is born from the reflection and critical reading of left-wing parties, unions, social movements, intellectuals and artists of the Amazon. We are women and men of the people who suffer the loss of family, friends, income and jobs. We want to overcome the pandemic with scientifically proven measures.
The purpose of this Emergency Program, in addition to a political response to the situation for those who live from their work, is to demand from Governor Wilson Lima, Mayor David Almeida and President Jair Bolsonaro the implementation of a de facto plan to fight the virus that has caused thousands of deaths and continues to leave an absurd number of infected people and people with the most varied consequences. There can no longer be room for denialism, nor for improvisation, much less for the theft of public resources.
These are our proposals:
- Vaccination now for everyone! The governments of Bolsonaro, Wilson Lima and David Almeida must present immediately a Vaccination Program, through the SUS, for everyone.
- The return of the emergency subsidy of the Federal Government. Aid for small businesses of up to 20 workers. The states and municipalities must pass a policy of basic rent for the population without jobs and income.
- The general suspension of commerce, industries, services and public administration, except for the essential sectors. If possible, the factories should re-orient their production towards the PPE and medical equipment, destined to fight against the pandemic.
- The defense of the SUS of the State. Goods and services under the control of State with direct popular participation. Throughout the pandemic, the ENTIRE public and private hospital network has to be put at the service of the population without cost and under the control of the technicians of the SUS.
- Exemptions of the water, electricity and IPTU fees. Suspension of charges and cuts in these services for 120 days.
- Massive testing. Massive testing of the population so the government has a epidemiologic control and can plan actions to fight the virus. For that, the research institutions of the region must be involved: UEA, UFAM, INPA, FIOCRUZ and CBA.
- Rupture of the patents of vaccines to ensure the protections of LIVES and not of BENEFITS.
- Working conditions of the health professionals. The governments must provide all the working conditions for the professionals to carry out their activities safely. There must be no lay-offs, nor delays in the salaries or in the bonuses of the first line. Both the structural conditions and the routine ones and the supply of enough quality PPE’s.
- Ensuring the working safety of everyone, avoiding lay-offs and salary cuts during the pandemic.
- Ensuring all the workers with comorbidities and workers older than 60 the right to not being forced to work on-site.
- The immediate withdrawal of workers with comorbidities, keeping their salaries in full and forbidding cuts and lay-offs.
- We demand the govern install a Crisis Committee with the participation of the organized civil society (OAB, CNBB, Union Centers, Social Movements and scientific entities) to coordinate the Fighting Actions against the pandemic.
- The annulment of reforms and privatizations to the public service.
- No to the administrative reform that intends to destroy the universal foundations of the public service, including the reduction of healthcare capacity. Down with the spending ceiling policy!
- The postponement of the ENEM. There are no adequate health conditions for the testing in the Amazon, which endangers the lives of students and their families. Taking into account that the access to education during the pandemic was also unequal among students of the public network and private network.
- No return to school in the Amazon until a massive vaccination is carried out.
- The fight against anti-vaccines campaigns: the fight against fake news and the production of warning material on the importance of vaccination. We do not accept the “premature treatment against covid-19” proposed by the Ministry of Health with Chloroquine and Ivermectin, since the studies of the World Health Organization have proven the ineffectiveness of this treatment.
- Stopping the genocide policy, consciously implemented by Bolsonaro, which has taken the lives of more than 200,000 Brazilians. For the “Fora Bolsonaro y Mourão”, as a necessary condition for having an effective plan to fight the pandemic.
