26 October 22
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For the record, let’s talk about negotiating with Putin, directly or otherwise. It is conceivable that if the Biden administration had engaged in direct talks with Putin and his subordinates in the weeks leading up to the February 24, 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russian military forces the invasion might have been avoided or at least forestalled. It’s conceivable. But even assuming purely hypothetically such an opportunity existed and was missed, it would in no way justify the subsequent, ongoing campaign of genocide Putin has directed against the Ukrainian people. That’s on Putin, that’s on Russia, for all time and the world must never let the Russians forget it.
On a separate but equal track bear in mind that one thing we are learning about Putin is that he is totally ruthless and completely without any sense of humanity. The dead bear witness. If someone negotiates an agreement with Putin, any agreement, absolutely nothing guarantees that he will honor his own agreement. He can manufacture a rationale for ignoring any agreement he may have entered into at any moment he chooses. Everything Putin has shown us up until now clearly indicates he cannot be trusted.
What we want as Neville Chamberlain so eloquently put is, “Peace in our time.” It was what Chamberlain and most of the world wanted in 1938. It was not however what Hitler and the Nazis wanted. As a result the best efforts to head off World War II — through negotiation — failed. Not because peace could not be negotiated, but because the negotiation (The Munich Agreement) ultimately would not be honored. Putin has shown you who he is. By all means, believe him.
In addition, the entire notion that negotiation hasn’t been given a chance is laughable on its face. There isn’t a nation-state leader on earth who wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to say that they had negotiated an end to the war in Europe. Negotiation has been tried and in fact, is being tried all the time. French President Emmanuel Macron seemingly talks to Putin every week. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, talks to Putin all the time and has actually made a little progress managing to facilitate the export of some Ukrainian grain products to Africa and the Middle East, easing global food shortage fears somewhat. But the ships get through when Putin says they get through and he makes it very clear the ships can stop on his command as well. That’s no way to assure global food security.
Further to the entire premise that the US should negotiate directly with Russia to find a solution to the war in Ukraine, that is consummate imperialist thinking. The notion that “great powers” have the right to negotiate or administrate the fate of “lesser powers” is anti-democratic and totally imperialist. That’s right out of the Henry Kissinger playbook. It’s the origin of some of the most horrific events in human history. Sovereignty matters, always. Really.
The painful truth is that Putin is playing a zero-sum-game. He is way, way past the point of no-return. Peace can be achieved in Europe but not with the Russian military in Ukraine and not with Putin holding power in Russia.
There are times when civilized men are called upon to do extraordinary things to preserve civilization. We have arrived at such a moment in time.
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Marc Ash is the founder and former Executive Director of Truthout, and is now founder and Editor of Reader Supported News. On Twitter: @MarcAshRSN
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
Black Californians were disproportionately stopped for minor infractions in LA, San Diego, Sacramento and Riverside. (photo: Chris Carlson/AP)
A new report says sheriffs’ patrols spend more time conducting racially biased stops than they do responding to calls for help
Records from the county sheriff’s departments of Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento and Riverside show that Black Californians were disproportionately stopped across those regions in 2019, especially for minor infractions.
The state data, which was obtained by advocacy groups Catalyst California and the ACLU of Southern California through a state law to track racial profiling and released on Tuesday, also suggest that sheriff patrols spend significantly more time conducting these proactive stops than they do responding to calls for help.
The racial disparities appeared most severe in Sacramento, the state capital, where sheriff’s deputies pulled over Black drivers at a rate 4.7 times more than they stopped white drivers. In overall stops, which include pedestrians, Black residents were stopped at 4.1 times the rate of white people.
In San Diego, Black residents were 2.2 times more likely than white residents to be stopped by deputies; in Los Angeles, Black people were 1.9 times more likely; and in Riverside, which is east of LA, they were 1.5 times as likely.
The data suggests that Latino residents were stopped at relatively similar or lower levels than white people, though previous research indicated that stops of Latino people have been under-reported.
The inequities appear more pronounced when they concern stops for equipment violations and administrative issues, such as broken tail-lights or outdated registration. The LA sheriff’s department, for example, stopped Black drivers 3.3 times more often than white drivers for equipment issues, according to the report.
The authors of the report, called Reimagining Community Safety in California, also estimated the time sheriff’s deputies spent on stops. The patrol units in three counties appeared to spend most of their time on stops that officers initiated compared with stops or contacts with the public in response to calls for help, such as 911 emergencies: LA sheriffs spent 89% of patrol hours on officer-initiated stops and 11% on calls for service; Riverside spent 88% on stops and 12% on service calls; and San Diego spent 82% on stops and 18% on calls. The patrol time in Sacramento was more evenly split, with 42% of patrol hours spent on stops and 58% on calls.
The authors estimated that the LA sheriff’s patrol unit, which has a roughly $1.1bn budget, spent $981m on stops and $124m on service calls.
In addition to exposing racial disparities in who gets stopped, the data, the authors say, also suggests that some departments prioritize stops that don’t support public safety.
Stops for minor violations are often used as a pretext to investigate other matters or conduct searches that can have devastating consequences, they note.
Such stops, the researchers say, can cause immense harm, including subjecting people to costly tickets that become insurmountable debts; arrest; and in some cases physical or lethal force. A recent analysis showed police in the US kill more than 100 people during traffic stops each year.
“The vast amount of time that law enforcement is out on patrol is counterproductive to community safety,” said Chauncee Smith, co-author of the report and Catalyst California’s senior manager of reimagine justice and safety. “It amounts to millions of dollars of public resources wasted on these racially biased practices.”
Eva Bitrán, ACLU of Southern California staff attorney, said the data again raises questions about law enforcement’s priorities. “Law enforcement’s narrative is that cops are out keeping people safe, ‘catching dangerous criminals’ and ‘investigating serious crime’. But they’re spending 80-90% of their time on officer-initiated stops, not calls for safety. And then a huge chunk of that is for traffic enforcement for minor violations,” she said.
The findings echo those of other recent reports showing that Black drivers are disproportionately stopped and searched across California. A recent San Francisco Chronicle investigation found disparities in police stops worsened from 2019 to 2020 in some regions.
Citing research showing that higher rates of traffic stops don’t correspond to reduced car crash deaths, the authors argue that governments should limit stops for minor violations and other “pretextual stops”; remove armed officers from traffic enforcement; and reinvest police funds in community health and safety programs and violence intervention.
A San Diego sheriff’s spokesperson did not directly comment on the data in the report, but said in an email on Tuesday that the department is “dedicated to building a culture of trust with the diverse communities we serve”, adding: “We do not condone nor accept any racial profiling. We routinely review our policies and procedures. We also engage in listening, building and maintaining collaborative relationships to develop best practices that will provide the highest level of service to all members of the community.”
A spokesperson for the LA sheriff’s office said in an email that the department was unfamiliar with the report, but added, “We believe the opinions expressed in this report are contradictory to reality.”
The Sacramento and Riverside sheriff’s departments did not respond to inquiries on Tuesday.
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COVID shot. (photo: Daniel Leal/AFP/Getty Images)
Americans aren’t getting the new bivalent COVID shot. What does that mean for the looming winter wave?
So far, reality isn’t living up to that hope. Since the new booster became available in early September, fewer than 20 million Americans have gotten the shot, according to the CDC—just 8.5 percent of those who are eligible. The White House COVID-19 response coordinator, Ashish Jha, said at a press conference earlier this month that he expects booster uptake to increase in October as the temperatures drop and people start taking winter diseases more seriously. That doesn’t seem to be happening yet. America’s booster campaign is going so badly that by late September, only half of Americans had heard even “some” information about the bivalent boosters, according to a recent survey. The low numbers are especially unfortunate because the remaining 91.5 percent of booster-eligible people have already shown that they’re open to vaccines by getting at least their first two shots—if not already at least one booster.
Now the bungled booster rollout could soon run headfirst into the winter wave. The virus is not yet surging in the United States—at least as far as we can tell—but as the weather cools down, cases have been on the rise in Western Europe, which has previously foreshadowed what happens in the U.S. At the same time, new Omicron offshoots such as BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 are gaining traction in the U.S., and others, including XBB, are creating problems in Singapore. Boosters are our best chance at protecting ourselves from getting swept up in whatever this virus throws at us next, but too few of us are getting them. What will happen if that doesn’t change?
The whole reason for new shots is that though the protection conferred by the original vaccines is tremendous, it has waned over time and with new variants. The latest booster, which is called “bivalent” because it targets both the original SARS-CoV-2 virus and BA.5, is meant to kick-start the production of more neutralizing antibodies, which in turn should prevent new infection in the short term, Katelyn Jetelina, a public-health expert who writes the newsletter Your Local Epidemiologist, told me. The other two goals for the vaccine are still being studied: The hope is that it will also broaden protection by teaching the immune system to recognize other aspects of the virus, and that it will make protection longer-lasting.
In theory, this souped-up booster would make a big difference heading into another wave. In September, a forecast presented by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which advises the CDC, showed that if people get the bivalent booster at the same rate as they do the flu vaccine—optimistic, given that about 50 percent of people have gotten the flu vaccine in recent years—roughly 25 million infections, 1 million hospitalizations, and 100,000 deaths could be averted by the end of March 2023.
But these numbers shouldn’t be taken as gospel, because protection across the population varies widely and modeling can’t account for all of the nuance that happens in real life. Gaming out exactly what our dreadful booster rates mean going forward is not a simple endeavor “given that the immune landscape is becoming more and more complex,” Jetelina told me. People received their first shots and boosters at different times, if they got them at all. And the same is true of infections over the past year, with the added wrinkle that those who fell sick all didn’t get the same type of Omicron. All of these factors play a role in how much America’s immunological guardrails will hold up in the coming months. “But it’s very clear that a high booster rate would certainly help this winter,” Jetelina said.
At this point in the pandemic, getting COVID is far less daunting for healthy people than it was a year or two ago (although the prospect of developing long COVID still looms). The biggest concerns are hospitalizations and deaths, which make low booster uptake among vulnerable groups such as the elderly and immunocompromised especially worrying. That said, everyone ages 5 and up who has received their primary vaccine is encouraged to get the new booster. It bears repeating that vaccination not only protects against severe illness and death but has the secondary effect of preventing transmission, thereby reducing the chances of infecting the vulnerable.
What will happen next is hard to predict, Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, told me, but now is a bad time for booster rates to be this low. Conditions are ripe for COVID’s spread. Protection is waning among the unboosted, immunity-dodging variants are emerging, and Americans just don’t seem to care about COVID anymore, Osterholm explained. The combination of these factors, he said, is “not a pretty picture.” By skipping boosters, people are missing out on the chance to offset these risks, though non-vaccine interventions such as masking and ventilation improvements can help too.
That’s not to say that the immunity conferred by vaccination and the initial boosters is moot. Earlier doses still offer “pretty substantial protection,” Saad Omer, a Yale epidemiologist, told me. Not only are eligible Americans slacking on booster uptake, but lately vaccine uptake among the unvaccinated hasn’t risen much either. Before the new bivalent shots came around, less than half of eligible Americans had gotten a booster. “That means we are, as a population, much more vulnerable going into this fall,” James Lawler, an infectious-diseases expert at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, told me.
If booster uptake—and vaccine uptake overall—remains low, expecting more illness, particularly among the vulnerable, would be reasonable, William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told me. Hospitalizations will rise more than they would otherwise, and with them the stress on the health-care system, which will also be grappling with the hundreds of thousands of people likely to be hospitalized for flu. While Omicron causes relatively minor symptoms, “it’s quite capable of producing severe disease,” Schaffner said. Since August, it has killed an average of 300 to 400 people each day.
All of this assumes that we won’t get a completely new variant, of course. So far, the BA.5 subvariant targeted by the bivalent booster is still dominating cases around the world. Newer ones, such as XBB, BQ.1.1, and BQ.1, are steadily gaining traction, but they’re still offshoots of Omicron. “We’re still very hopeful that the booster will be effective,” Jetelina said. But the odds of what she called an “Omicron-like event,” in which a completely new SARS-CoV-2 lineage—one that warrants a new Greek letter—emerges out of left field, are about 20 to 30 percent, she estimated. Even in this case, the bivalent nature of the booster would come in handy, helping protect against a wider crop of potential variants. The effectiveness of our shots against a brand-new variant depends on its mutations, and how much they overlap with those we’ve already seen, so “we’ll see,” Omer said.
Just as it isn’t too late to get boosted, there’s still time to improve uptake in advance of a wave. If you’re three to six months out from an infection or your last shot, the best thing you can do for your immune system right now is to get another dose, and do it soon. Though there’s no perfect and easy solution that can overcome widespread vaccine fatigue, that doesn’t mean trying isn’t worthwhile. “Right now, we don’t have a lot of people that feel the pandemic is that big of a problem,” and people are more likely to get vaccinated if they feel their health is challenged, Osterholm said.
There’s also plenty of room to crank the volume on the messaging in general: Not long ago, the initial vaccine campaign involved blasting social media with celebrity endorsers such as Dolly Parton and Olivia Rodrigo. Where is that now? Lots of pharmacies are swimming in vaccines, but making getting boosted even easier and more convenient can go a long way too. “We need to catch them where they come,” said Omer, who thinks boosters should be offered at workplaces, in churches and community centers, and at specialty clinics such as dialysis centers where patients are vulnerable by default.
After more than two years of covering and living through the pandemic, believe me: I get that people are over it. It’s easy not to care when the risks of COVID seem to be negligible. But while shedding masks is one thing, taking a blasé attitude toward boosters is another. Shots alone can’t solve all of our pandemic problems, but their unrivaled protective effects are fading. Without a re-up, when the winter wave reaches U.S. shores and more people start getting sick, the risks may no longer be so easy to ignore.
‘I was a top employee and I was just disregarded as a human being,’ said Brandon Calloway. (photo: Karla Coté/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock)
Workers across the US allege the company is fending off efforts to organize as election petition to be resubmitted in California
The unionization movement at Amazon, which has garnered worldwide attention, suffered a recent setback when it lost a vote at a warehouse outside of Albany, New York, amid numerous charges of unfair labor practices.
But Amazon workers plan to fight another union election at Amazon ONT8 warehouse in Moreno Valley, California. They plan to resubmit an election petition in the next few weeks, after an initial one was challenged.
In the meantime workers across the US allege that the giant company is conducting a harsh crackdown on unionization activities and they have responded with protests and strikes.
Brandon Calloway worked at Amazon ATL6 in East Point, Georgia, for eight to nine months before he and another coworker were terminated, which they allege was in retaliation for delivering a petition to management at the warehouse. They have filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) over the firings.
Supported by the worker advocacy group United for Respect, workers at the warehouse delivered a petition in September with more than 300 signatures to management calling for a $5 an hour wage increase, a minimum wage of $18 an hour. Calloway was fired two days later and joined a rally on 19 October with other Amazon workers to protest the firings.
Calloway, a single father with medical issues, claimed that $15 an hour for working at Amazon isn’t enough given the rising cost of living and the poor working conditions. Amazon raised its minimum wage to $15 an hour in 2018 after growing public pressure and criticism of low wages, especially compared to average wages in the warehouse industry. The company has also been widely criticized for high injury rates in its warehouses.
“My plan when I filled out the application and walked through the doors as an Amazon employee was for this to be the last job ever. I wanted to become somebody here,” said Calloway, who is also in school getting a degree in business management. “Now, I don’t really see too much of a plan as far as working here goes.”
He criticized the lack of accommodations for workers with health problems, childcare issues, and claimed the building break rooms have unaddressed insect infestations and that bathrooms are often out of order. As a single father, he struggled with being forced to work a flex hour past his shift, as his child’s daycare charges significant fees for every minute he is late to pick up his child.
“I have health issues and I have parenting responsibilities and school responsibilities. I was a top employee and I was just disregarded as a human being,” said Calloway.
Amazon workers in Joliet, Illinois, walked off the job on 12 October for Prime Day to push for higher wages and improvements to working conditions. Amazon workers at other warehouses in Georgia also held strikes to coincide with Prime Day.
In September 2022, Amazon workers outside of St Louis held a rally and delivered a petition outlining similar demands. Workers at an Amazon warehouse in Shakopee, Minnesota, have held at least two strikes earlier this year over poor working conditions. In Garner, North Carolina, Amazon workers have been pushing to organize a union with hopes to build enough support to file for a union election at their warehouse by next summer.
On 15 October, workers at Amazon’s air hub in San Bernardino, California, went on strike and filed an unfair labor practice charge alleging retaliation against workers who have been organizing at the facility to petition management to increase wages and improve working conditions. The strike is the second at the facility since August.
Anna Ortega has worked at the air hub for about a year. Initially, she was hesitant to get involved with the organizing efforts for fear of retaliation and because she was expecting to be promoted to a supervisor role.
Ortega got involved after seeing the impact of workers organizing at the facility and the unaddressed issues, including lagging pay increases and inadequate water breaks for workers who are exposed to extreme heat on the job.
She said workers recently received a $1-an-hour raise, which doesn’t account for inflation and has been canceled out by an increase in health insurance costs.
“It’s not enough to live comfortably in my city, in my state,” said Ortega. “And they’re sending in these really, really expensive consultants who are trying to undermine us and they’re trying to intimidate us.”
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy received $213m in compensation in 2021, 6.474 times the median Amazon worker’s pay. The company reported a net profit of around $33bn in 2021 and spent at least $4.3m on union avoidance consultants during 2021.
Sara Fee has worked at the Amazon air hub for over a year. “I watched them change some processes that made things harder for us, but it made things faster for them, and I watched more and more of my coworkers getting injured,” said Fee.
She explained seeing coworkers, especially younger workers, get injured at high rates on the job and not be treated fairly, inspired her to demand improvements to working conditions and wages.
“Every single person in that building is replaceable. And as soon as you’re seen as any kind of liability, you’re done, that’s it,” added Fee.
A spokesperson for Amazon claimed the company provides great pay and benefits and denied allegations of retaliation and safety criticisms. “We don’t believe there is any merit to these claims filed with the NLRB, and look forward to presenting the facts as that process moves forward,” they said in an email. “We value employee feedback and are always listening. We’re investing $1bn over the next year to permanently raise hourly pay for frontline employees and we’ll continue looking for ways to improve their experience.”
This screen grab shows the concert area following an airstrike targeting a Kachin gathering by the Myanmar junta in Hpakant township, northern Kachin state, Myanmar, Oct. 24, 2022, resulting in the death of a large number of civilians. (photo: rfa)
Rebel group says civilians among those killed in aerial attack on event marking founding of Kachin Independence Organisation.
Colonel Naw Bu told AFP news agency on Monday that “two Myanmar military jets attacked” the ceremony held by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in Kachin state at about 8:40pm (14:40 GMT) on Sunday.
“Around 50 people were killed including KIA members and civilians,” he said, adding that about 70 were wounded.
A KIA spokesman, speaking to The Associated Press by phone, put the death toll at more than 60 people, with about 100 wounded in the attack on the first day of the three-day celebration of the founding of the Kachin Independence Organisation, which included a concert.
The event was held at a base also used for military training by the KIA, the organisation’s armed wing.
The spokesman cited members of his group who were there as saying that military aircraft dropped four bombs on the celebration. Between 300 and 500 people were in attendance, and a Kachin singer and keyboard player were among the dead, said the spokesperson, who asked not to be identified because he feared punishment by the authorities, according to AP.
Those killed included Kachin officers and soldiers, musicians and jade-mining business owners and other civilians, he said. They also included at least 10 Kachin military and business VIPs sitting in front of the stage, and cooks working backstage, he said.
It was not possible to independently confirm details of the incident, but media sympathetic to the Kachin people posted videos showing what was said to be the attack’s aftermath, with splintered and flattened wooden structures.
There was no immediate comment from the army or government media in military-ruled Myanmar, which has been wracked for decades by rebellions by ethnic minorities seeking autonomy.
The United Nations office in Myanmar said in a statement that it was “deeply concerned and saddened” by reports of the air raids.
“What would appear to be excessive and disproportionate use of force by security forces against unarmed civilians is unacceptable and those responsible must be held to account,” it said.
Hana Young, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director, expressed fear that the air raids were “part of a pattern of unlawful aerial attacks by the military, which has killed and injured civilians in areas controlled by armed groups”.
Young added: “The military has shown ruthless disregard for civilian lives in its escalating campaign against opponents. It is difficult to believe the military did not know of a significant civilian presence at the site of this attack. The military must immediately grant access to medics and humanitarian assistance to those affected by these air strikes and other civilians in need.”
Myanmar has been in political turmoil since a February 2021 military takeover, which was met with peaceful nationwide protests. After the army and police killed demonstrators opposing military rule, civilians throughout the country formed armed units as part of a People’s Defence Force to fight military rule.
According to the rights group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which documents killings and human rights violations in Myanmar, at least 2,370 people have been killed and more than 15,900 arrested since the coup.
The KIA has fought regularly with the military for decades, and heavy fighting also erupted in the wake of last year’s military power grab.
Myanmar’s National Unity Government in exile, established by democratically elected politicians removed from office in the coup, condemned the reported attack.
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Venezuelan migrants are among those lining up to receive clothing, food and haircuts at the Church of the Holy Apostles in Manhattan earlier this month. (photo: José A. Alvarado Jr./NPR)
He's already traveled across the country twice, landing in Montana, where a friend got him a job in construction. And he's learned a few things about the immigration system along the way.
"I'm undocumented," he says in Spanish, "but I'm not illegal."
The 40-year-old Venezuelan crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally in September near Eagle Pass, Texas on foot and with few possessions: His passport, a cellphone and a change of clothes. He turned himself in to the United States Border Patrol, and was released into the U.S. a few days later.
Albornoz doesn't have a work permit. But he does have permission to be in the U.S. temporarily, which protects him from deportation.
This immigration purgatory – legally present, but unable to work lawfully – is where many Venezuelan migrants now find themselves. Hundreds of thousands have been released into the U.S. with a notice to appear in immigration court, or instructions to check in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement when they get to their destinations.
But the next steps are not so clear.
Migrants in New York are "desperate" to work
"They're not getting the things that they need, the information that they need," says Jay Alfaro, manager of social services and partnerships at the Church of the Holy Apostles in New York. "They don't know their rights, you know, they don't even know how to get around the city."
The church runs a soup kitchen a few blocks away from the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan. The line outside the church is already long at 10 a.m. on a sunny yet chilly October day. Since August, volunteers and church staff have been serving hundreds of Venezuelan migrants a week with food and clothing.
Alfaro says they all want to know the same thing.
"Their first question is, 'Where can I get work?' " she says. "Legally, you have to get a work permit. You know, this is New York City, so we know there's kind of workarounds for that. But I tell them, 'Listen, you got to be careful.' "
Until recently, migrants from Venezuela couldn't be expelled to Mexico under the pandemic border restrictions known as Title 42. So immigration authorities have been releasing tens of thousands of Venezuelans per month into the United States, where they can seek asylum.
Experts say that the current wave of Venezuelan migrants, unlike migrants from Central America or Mexico, generally don't have social networks in the U.S., friends or family who can help them find their footing in the U.S. upon arrival.
Immigration authorities have just launched a new program that will allow up to 24,000 Venezuelan migrants to live and work in the U.S. legally. But the only way to get in is to apply from abroad.
That means it won't help the more than 180,000 Venezuelans who've already been released into the U.S. in the past year. Since April, more than 20,000 migrants have sought shelter in New York alone, according to city officials.
Many of those migrants could qualify for work permits eventually – but only after they've officially applied for asylum. That's not a quick or easy process. In many cases, it takes years. And migrants say they can't afford to wait.
"My family lost their home," says Enderson Orlando, "and I'm desperate to find work here, and I haven't found anything."
Orlando flashed his phone and on the cracked screen appeared a video of flooding and destruction in his hometown of Las Tejerías, Venezuela. Devastating floods followed heavy rain there earlier this month.
Orlando, a scrawny 26-year-old, is one of hundreds of Venezuelan migrants – all men – staying at a shelter in an old armory building in Brooklyn. Dozens of men hang outside the armory at a busy intersection and crowd around reporters with curiosity.
Alexander Rosa Freites, 40, says he worked as a massage therapist back home in Coro, Venezuela, about six hours from Caracas. The father of five says he's struggling to find any work at all because he doesn't have the right documents.
"When you try to get work in construction, they ask you for OSHA certification," Freites says. "If you don't have that, you can't work. If you don't have a social security number, you can't work."
One Venezuelan migrant starts over in Montana
Two-thousand miles away in Montana, José Albornoz has found what all the migrants outside the shelter in New York want: Stable employment.
His original plan was to head to New York, and meet up with a friend from Venezuela. But when he got there, his friend had lined up construction jobs for both of them – in Montana. Albornoz says he felt ecstatic.
"Let's go, I'm ready," Albornoz told his friend. "I came here to work."
Albornoz is still trying to make sense of his new surroundings. He says life in the U.S. is radically different than in Venezuela. He's still adjusting to the idea of buying with credit instead of cash, for instance.
"When you arrive here, you're lost," he says. "You land in a completely unknown world."
Albornoz is making $20 an hour, he says – enough to support himself, and send some money back to his wife and three daughters in Venezuela.
But Albornoz has encountered some obstacles, too. He's still living in a hotel room, which he shares with his friend, because he needs a credit history in order to rent a place of his own. And he hasn't been able to open a bank account, because his Venezuelan passport is expired.
Venezuelans can't renew their passports in the U.S. because the two countries don't have a diplomatic relationship. The closest place Albornoz can renew his is in Mexico, he says. He knows it will be hard to renew his passport, but he quickly tells himself that it's something that he can overcome.
"There are many possibilities here. If you come here ready to work, you have plenty of opportunity to pick yourself up," Albornoz says.
In Venezuela, Albornoz owned a small company that makes bully sticks – a dog treat that's made from a certain part of the bull. He sold his bully sticks to an exporter, and he was surprised to find out how expensive they are in the U.S.
"I don't know if I was getting cheated in Venezuela or if customers are getting cheated here," he jokes, noting that bully sticks cost at least 25% more here than what he was selling them for in Venezuela.
Albornoz dreams of someday restarting his bully stick business in the U.S. He knows it will be a challenge. But it doesn't faze him.
"I'm willing to work really hard to earn a higher quality of life," he says.
Bitaté Uru-eu-wau-wau, right, with members of a patrol team on duty inside the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous Territory. (photo: Alex Pritz/O Território/Mongabay)
Decades on, she’s made good on that promise. Now 64 and known as Neidinha Suruí, she’s an activist and Indigenous rights campaigner. She coordinates the Kanindé Ethnoenvironmental Defense Association, and has gained recognition for her work in campaigning for the environment and human rights in the Amazon. Her struggle has not come without its costs, however, and both Neidinha and her family have had to pay a high price.
Her feeling of belonging and her activism are shared, mainly, between two Indigenous territories in the state of Rondônia: the Sete de Setembro Indigenous Territory and the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous Territory. In both, she witnessed scenes increasingly similar to those she used to see in the comic strips as a child, where Indigenous people would lose their lives defending the natural world, their people’s land, and their culture.
The Sete de Setembro Indigenous Territory is home to the Paiter Suruí people, and gained worldwide renown for the leadership of Neidinha’s husband, Almir Suruí. An Indigenous chief, or cacique, Almir uses technology and software in his efforts to protect his people’s territory, one of the most deforested in the whole of the Brazilian Amazon. That’s made him Almir the target of countless death threats in recent years.
Almir has five children, two with Neidinha, all of whom were born in the territory. Among them is Txai Suruí, the young activist who shot to international fame after giving a speech at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, last year. She spoke out against the violence committed against Indigenous peoples in Brazil, and since then has also been the target of persistent threats and intimidation.
The Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous Territory is where Neidinha spent her childhood, leaving for the first time at the age of 12 to study in the state capital, Porto Velho. Her sense of connection to her community has remained strong over the years, locked in the struggle against invaders who threaten her village to this day. Even though she isn’t a direct descendant of any of the nine Indigenous groups who live there, Neidinha identifies with the Indigenous identity and culture of the territory. Her father used to work on what was the Ricardo Franco rubber plantation, which has later incorporated into the boundaries of the Indigenous territory as part of the official demarcation process that was approved in 1991.
Neidinha’s father hailed from the rural interior of the northeastern state of Ceará. He was one of the many thousands of northeasterners attracted to the Amazon region by government recruitment drives for so-called rubber soldiers. The campaign promised a new life working on rubber plantations in the Amazon, one of a number of resources the government had seized on as it sought to firmly establish its occupation of the region. Neidinha’s father first moved to the state of Acre, where he met her mother. After Neidinha was born, the young family moved to Rondônia, where they settled among an Indigenous community, adopting their way of life and becoming part of the community.
It was while she was looking into her family’s past, that Neidinha recently discovered the rubber plantation in Acre where he father had worked before she was born was later made part of the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve. The reserve was founded in 1990, two years after the murder of the rubber tapper and trade union leader whose name it bears. “I want to go there and find out more about this period of my parents’ lives,” Neidinha says.
Indigenous resistance captured on film
As the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous Territory comes under relentless pressure from outsiders, a group of community leaders have started receiving training on how to deal with the threats. Their tools include drones, cameras and other digital technology tools to develop strategies for community coordination and the monitoring and protection of their territory.
Such efforts have been made possible by partnerships with different organizations that have also allowed the communities to spread awareness about the threats they face. One of these partnerships is supported by WWF-Brasil, ensuring the online surveillance of invaded areas that would otherwise be difficult to access safely by other means.
This type of networking has also given the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau community the opportunity to share with the world their story of the waves of violence faced by those living on the Indigenous territory. This struggle is depicted in the documentary The Territory (O Território), released in the U.S. and Europe in August and in Brazil on Sept. 8, after three and a half years of filming. A Brazilian, Danish, and U.S. co-production directed by Alex Pritz, the documentary features young Indigenous leaders such as Bitaté Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau, both in front of and behind the camera: starring in the documentary’s main scenes; filming the threats they face themselves; and working on the production team, as was the case of Txai Suruí, who is credited as an executive producer. The film has received international recognition, winning both an audience award and special jury award at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.
Restrictions on movement imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic saw the residents of the Indigenous territory take on the responsibility for filming scenes inside their community, while the rest of the production team filmed outside the territory. That helped contextualize the land invasions threatening the territory. “The invaders thought they could take the land without repercussions. Poor people were used by the rich to invade [the land]. They told them that the [boundaries of the] Indigenous territory had been reduced [in size],” Neidinha recalled.
The filming process was marked by two events that shook the community. The first of these was the pandemic, which badly affected Indigenous communities across Brazil and also caused much personal anguish for the Suruí family. Neidinha and her husband both lost their mothers to COVID-19, meaning their children lost both grandmothers in traumatic circumstances as the health crisis overran the community. The pandemic also claimed the lives of many of Neidinha’s other friends and relatives. She estimates that at least 50 of her closest contacts were lost to the disease.
The second event that shook the community to its core was the killing of Ari Eu-Wau-Wau, a teacher and local figurehead for the defense of the community’s territory. Two years have passed since his death, and the clamor for justice continues to echo through the community.
“The news was a real shock for us. We all lived alongside him. My children grew up with him,” Neidinha says, visibly moved as she recalls the events. “He features in the film. [What happened to him] was a barbaric crime.”
Txai Suruí spoke of him during her speech at COP26 in Glasgow. Authorities in Brazil arrested a suspect in his killing in July this year, but still haven’t released his identity or motive for the killing — something that has been met with protest by Indigenous organizations.
In a statement to Mongabay, the Federal Police in Rondônia said the suspect remains in custody and that according to the ongoing investigation, “the possible motive for the murder was that the suspect of the crime was bothered by Ari’s presence in the region.”
Police also suggested that Ari had been drugged before he was killed. “The [victim’s] body did not show signs of self-defense, therefore, one of the lines of investigation being looked into by the Federal Police is the hypothesis that the perpetrator of the crime offered the victim a substance that, once ingested, left Ari unconscious, allowing the physical assaults that culminated in his death to take place [without resistance]. The body was later taken to another location.”
The police statement also made clear that the suspect had not confessed to the killing to investigators. “He confessed the criminal practice to other people by narrating details that were only verified by forensics, such as, for example, that the place of death was not the same as the place where the body was found. It is also worth mentioning that the [perpetrator] is accused of other crimes, including murder, and has a history of committing violence,” the statement said.
Police added that they expected prosecutors to keep the suspected in pretrial detention pending a trial. “The final report is quite robust and contains evidence of authorship, motivation and materiality,” the statement said.
The psychological impact on the family
Because of the intensifying threats, Neidinha Suruí now lives surrounded by security devices — so many that she says she feels like a “prisoner inside my own home.” Every time she ventures outside she has to implement defensive measures that take a physical and emotional toll on her. “People don’t stop to think about how people who face this kind of pressure have their lives changed. I live in a constant state of jitteriness because of the death threats,” Neidinha says.
At one point the threats were so severe that Neidinha and Almir had to live with a military escort between 2010 and 2014. “We were all shaken, sick. We couldn’t go to a restaurant, like any normal family would. Everyone looked at us. It seemed like we were the criminals,” she recalls. The toll on their physical and psychological health was enough for them to give up living under state protection. “We get protection from support groups. But we are afraid to invite friends to our home,” Neidinha says.
Asked how she feels about being the mother to a young female activist such as Txai Suruí, who has taken up her parents’ social and environmental struggles, Neidinha says she has mixed feelings. “I am proud to have a daughter who is fighting for the planet, but at the same time I am afraid of the risks she faces. She has also suffered many racist attacks and death threats. All of this keeps me up at night.”
But there’s another reason to be proud: the revenue raised by the documentary film will be used to fund the headquarters of the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous Territory’s community association. The plan is to set up a digital media training center there, allowing the Indigenous residents to keep records of events and issue communications. The project has been approved by local leaders, and architects and engineers are already working on it.
As for the future, Neidinha vows to continue to fight “to change the way that nature is treated in our country, and [to fight] for the rights of those who suffer the consequences of a society that has no regard for life.”
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