• Olympic athletes might win, but favela dwellers in Rio have already los

    From Bradley K. Sperman@21:1/5 to All on Fri Aug 19 16:09:58 2016
    XPost: sac.politics, alt.politics.obama

    Obama was the fag behind the push to have the Olympics in
    homosexual capital Rio.

    RIO DE JANEIRO – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 3 (efe_epa).-
    To many, the Olympics are a grand affair which celebrate the
    enduring values of athletic achievement and international
    friendship. But for the former residents of a neighborhood in
    Rio de Janeiro, the Olympics constitute a short-term gain for
    the Games and Brazilian authorities, and long-term pain for the
    locals who were evicted so the Olympic Park could be built.

    Vila Autodromo, known in Portuguese as a favela, or shanty town,
    sits on the western side of Rio, not far from the large urban
    lagoon of Jacarepagua.

    On Tuesday, the air in Vila Autodromo was filled with dust as
    trucks and bulldozers drove through on their way to demolish the
    remaining houses, an epa journalist reports.

    There were at one time 300 families living here, and since the
    1990s they had used legal channels to fight and win against
    efforts by the city to remove them.

    Though back then they secured a 99-year lease on the land, once
    Rio was granted host status for the 2016 Olympics, their efforts
    to resist eviction failed and most residents took compensation
    and left the area.

    "Slowly they chipped away at the community. We watched and
    documented this," said Theresa Williamson, executive director of
    local NGO Catalytic Communities, which describes itself as an
    organization supporting and empowering residents of informal
    settlements.

    Just 20 families refused to leave despite the pressure from city
    authorities, and in the end accepted a compromise in which their
    homes were demolished but they would get new white cement houses
    located 100 meters away, behind a wall separating them from the
    Olympic Park.

    "Some regretted that they gave in. Despite the opposition to
    move them the 20 families were able to stay on the land. Their
    resistance was a sort of victory," said Williamson.

    "No one I have spoken with wanted to leave," she added.

    One resident who resisted until the end, Augosto Pereira, on
    Tuesday helped his family move a blue water tank, among the rest
    of their possessions, out of their house before bulldozers tore
    it down.

    "I built the house over many years and now it takes the city
    only five to ten minutes to demolish the house," Pereira said,
    standing in front of a wall on which was written in Portuguese
    "You Cannot Remove Memories".

    Beyond that wall and on the street, an official Olympic shuttle
    bus drives by.

    "I feel proud to have been able to resist all the pressure to
    move so long. My emotions are a mix of pride and hate. The elite
    who are behind this are the ones who are poor in their ethics
    and morals not we," he said, as a kitten walked past his feet.

    http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2016/08/03/olympic- athletes-might-win-but-favela-dwellers-in-rio-have-already-lost/

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