Racism and Environment Terrorism in Maranhão

Violent provocation by forest developers against native populations have significantly increased in 2010 on the East border of the Amazonian forest. The government sent the police and the army to restore order in 2013. The legal status granted to native population maintains them under political-administrative tutelage, which favors widespread discrimination. At the end of 2015; the election of a communist, hence developmentalist, governor has led to a new wave of violence against natives and to the start of new forest fires. More than developmentalism, one should speak of “growthism”, a furious passion to see exploitation grow at all levels, most notably through large scale project aligning State intervention with private interests.