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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