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"The invaders and their main business partners—loggers and meatpacking companies—make the profits their own while passing on to society the costs of environmental damage," notes one of numerous lawsuits.
A Brazilian judge on Thursday ordered two slaughterhouses and three ranchers to pay $764,000 in combined penalties for trading cattle raised in a protected area of the Amazon rainforest.
The decision by Judge Inês Moreira da Costa in Rondônia—the most severely deforested state in the Brazilian Amazon—came in response to a flurry of lawsuits filed by green groups seeking millions of dollars in damages from defendants including Distriboi and Frigon, two meat processing firms accused of trading cattle in the Jaci-Parana protected zone.
"When a slaughterhouse, whether by negligence or intent, buys and resells products from invaded and illegally deforested reserves, it is clear that it is directly benefiting from these illegal activities," the plaintiffs' complaint states. "In such cases, there is an undeniable connection between the company's actions and the environmental damage caused by the illegal exploitation."
The slaughterhouses and ranchers are but two of numerous parties being sued, including other ranchers and JBS, the Brazilian meat giant that bills itself as the world's largest protein producer.
According to The Associated Press—whose reporting on the cattle trading documents prompted the lawsuits:
Brazilian law forbids commercial cattle inside a protected area, yet some 210,000 head are being grazed inside Jaci-Parana, according to the state animal division. With almost 80% of its forest destroyed, it ranks as the most ravaged conservation unit in the Brazilian Amazon. A court filing pegs damages in the reserve at some $1 billion.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuits are seeking to put a price on the destruction of old-growth rainforest, asserting that "the invaders and their main business partners—loggers and meatpacking companies—make the profits their own while passing on to society the costs of environmental damage."
The Amazon rainforest is one of the world's most biodiverse ecosystems and is a crucial carbon sink, meaning it absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The world lost around 3.7 million hectares of primary tropical forests last year—a rate of approximately 10 soccer fields per minute, according to data from the University of Maryland's Global Land Analysis and Discover laboratory. While this marked a 9% reduction in deforestation compared with 2022, the overall deforestation rate is roughly the same as in 2019 and 2021. Felling trees released 2.4 metric gigatons of climate pollution into the atmosphere in 2023, or almost half of all annual U.S. emissions from burning fossil fuels.
In Brazil, the government of leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has taken steps to combat deforestation, resulting in a more than one-third reduction in forest loss. Progress in reversing the rampant forest destruction wrought by the previous far-right administration of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro—who was nicknamed "Captain Chainsaw"—were partially offset by a 43% spike in deforestation in the Cerrado region last year.
Earlier this year, Marcel Gomes—a Brazilian journalist who worked with colleagues at Repórter Brasil to coordinate "a complex, international campaign that directly linked beef from JBS... to illegal deforestation"—was one of seven winners of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize.
A monthslong standoff reached a critical juncture this week when a Brazilian judge moved close to ordering a shutdown of X in the country and froze the assets of another Elon Musk-owned business.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva criticized Elon Musk on Friday after the X owner defied a Brazilian Supreme Court order to name a legal representative, as tensions between the billionaire and the government escalated and the social media platform risked being taken offline in Latin America's largest economy.
Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes late Wednesday gave the company 24 hours to name a legal representative in Brazil—a requirement to operate a business there—or have its operations shut down. X didn't comply, instead issuing the latest in a series of statements denouncing de Moraes. As of this writing, no shutdown of X in Brazil has occurred.
Another layer to the standoff was also revealed on Thursday: De Moraes on August 18 had quietly ordered the Brazilian bank accounts of Starlink, a Musk-owned satellite internet company, to be frozen, due to unpaid fines owed by X.
Lula, a left-leaning former unionist who retook the presidency early last year after leading the country from 2003 until 2011, defended the judge's position in a radio interview Friday morning, arguing that everyone, no matter how powerful, must follow Brazilian law.
"Just because the guy [Musk] has a lot of money doesn’t mean they can disrespect you," Lula said, according to a translation in The Guardian.
"Who does he think he is?" he added.
Tenho conta no Twitter há +de 10 anos. Sempre foi a melhor rede social.
Na Primavera Árabe no Egito, usei o Twitter pra enviar charges aos manifestantes.
Tenho história aqui.
Mas depois que o patife Musk o comprou, virou esgoto da extrema-direita.
Adeus Twitter. Vai fazer falta. pic.twitter.com/ao9Pbnu3wy
— Carlos Latuff (@LatuffCartoons) August 29, 2024
In April, De Moraes ordered X to deactivate more than 100 accounts of users whom he said were spreading disinformation. The accounts, which were not made public, are reportedly linked to the same far-right movement that stormed government buildings in Brasilia on January 8, 2023, in support of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who had just given up power days earlier. Bolsonaro, a far-right politician, spread lies of voter fraud and reportedly planned a coup after losing the 2022 election.
De Moraes led Brazil's effort to fight fake news ahead of the 2022 election and made the April ruling to try to combat disinformation ahead of municipal elections in October.
Musk refused to comply with the April order, arguing that it was illegal and an act of censorship targeted at the judge's political opponents. He has repeatedly called de Moraes a "dictator" and positioned himself as a defender of democracy. His defiance of de Moraes has drawn praise from U.S. Republicans and right-wingers in Brazil.
Musk calls himself a "free-speech absolutist" but critics have rejected that characterization. In a Common Dreams op-ed last year, Free Press senior director Tim Karr argued Musk was "absolutely an enemy of free speech" and accused him of "taking extraordinary efforts to silence any honest criticism and independent research that might negatively impact him or his businesses."
Earlier this month, X closed its active operations in Brazil, saying that de Moraes had threatened their legal representative with arrest. That led to the standoff this week in which de Moraes ordered the company to name a legal representative.
The social media platform has, as X planned when it withdrew its staff, remained available to Brazilian users. When or if it will be closed following the closure of the 24-hour window is unclear. The company said in a statement that it expects a shutdown "soon."
To shutter the website, de Moraes would have to issue an order to the national telecommunications regulator, which would in turn relay it to internet providers. Experts say that process could be completed quickly—perhaps in 12 hours—but many Brazilians would still be able to access X via virtual private networks, or VPNs.
Some legal experts have criticized de Moraes for freezing Starlink's bank accounts, which makes it impossible for the company to do business in Brazil. Starlink provides internet services in remote areas, including in the Amazon. Starlink is a subsidiary of SpaceX, which is 42% owned by Musk. Musk has emphasized that SpaceX is an entirely separate company from X, with different shareholders.
De Moraes' rationale for the asset freezing is that X hasn't paid its fines, which accrue daily and are reportedly now above $3.6 million in total.
Brazil has more than 20 million X users, sixth in the world, according to Statista.
The former right-wing president and others including his personal aide allegedly sold state property including jewelry and other gifts worth more than $1 million in the United States.
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's legal woes increased dramatically Thursday as he and 11 others were indicted for embezzlement and other crimes in connection with the alleged misappropriation of diamond jewelry and other state property received as gifts from the Saudi and Bahraini monarchies during the right-wing leader's presidential tenure.
Carta Capital reported that Brazil's Federal Police indicted Bolsonaro with embezzlement, money laundering, and criminal association. If convicted on all counts, he faces up to 25 years in prison. Bolsonaro maintains his innocence.
Eleven other people were also indicted in the case, including former Mines and Energy Minister Bento Albuquerque and former Bolsonaro personal aide Lt. Col. Mauro Cid. The office of Brazilian Attorney General Jorge Messias must now decide whether to proceed with a federal case against the indicted individuals.
According to authorities, Bolsonaro failed to properly register high-value gifts from the Saudi and Bahraini governments near the end of his presidential term. Those items were later sold in the United States by the president's associates.
While visiting Saudi Arabia in October 2019, the Saudi monarchy gifted Bolsonaro a white gold kit containing a diamond-encrusted Rolex watch. This and another luxury Swiss watch—a Patek Philippe—were later allegedly sold in a mall in Pennsylvania.
This diamond-encrusted Rolex watch (left) is part of the white gold kit (right) that was allegedly sold by Bolsonaro associates in the United States. (Photo: Brazilian Federal Police)
On an October 2021 trip to Saudi Arabia, Albuquerque received a gold rosé kit with a watch, cuff links, pen, ring, and an Islamic rosary made by Chopard and failed to properly report the gift upon returning to Brazil. Investigators say the kit was then taken aboard an official flight on which Bolsonaro was a passenger and subsequently sold at a New York auction.
Proceeds from the sale of the undeclared goods—which investigators say totaled more than $1 million—were pocketed by the indicted individuals.
Army Gen. Mauro Lourena Cid—the father of Lt. Col. Mauro Cid, Bolsonaro's personal aide—allegedly kept some jewelry and sculptures received by Bolsonaro at the end of the Arab-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce Business Seminar in Manama, Bahrain in November 2021.
This photo shows some of the diamond jewelry cited in the Brazilian Federal Police indictment of former President Jair Bolsonaro and 11 others.(Photo: Brazilian Federal Police)
Police recommended criminally charging the younger Cid, who signed a plea deal. Cid's lawyer claimed his client was following orders from Bolsonaro—an allegation the ex-president denies.
O Globo reported Bolsonaro allegedly stored 175 boxes containing numerous gifts at a property owned by former Formula One racer Nelson Piquet. While some of the gifts were determined to be the president's rightful property, other items given to Bolsonaro while he served in his official presidential capacity are legally owned by the state.
This is the second set of federal criminal charges for Bolsonaro, who in March was
federally charged with allegedly falsifying his Covid-19 vaccination data and criminal association in a case that could result in a prison sentence of 12-16-years if he is fully convicted.
Bolsonaro—who denies any wrongdoing—is also banned from seeking any political office for eight years due to his alleged abuse of power related to baseless claims of fraud in the 2022 presidential election.
A 2023 Brazilian congressional inquiry also found that Bolsonaro was the "intellectual and moral author of a coup movement" that culminated in the January 8, 2023 attacks on government buildings, and he and scores of his supporters should be criminally indicted for their "willful coup attempt."
Bolsonaro's autocratic actions have been compared to those of former U.S. President Donald Trump, long ago earning him the nickname "Trump of the Tropics." Bolsonaro sought refuge in the United States following the January 2023 attacks and the inauguration of leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who defeated him in the runoff round of the 2022 presidential election.
"Bolsonaro the Jewel Thief" trended on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, following Thursday's indictments.
"Today is a great day for people who believe in justice," said one Socialism and Liberty city councilwoman in Belo Horizonte.