Title: Expressing profound concern about threats to human rights, the rule of law, democracy, and the environment in Brazil.
Policy area: International Affairs

Summary:
This resolution urges Brazil and the United States to investigate human rights abuses in Brazil and reduce deforestation of the Amazon. The resolution also calls on the United States to suspend military assistance to Brazil unless the Department of State determines that measures are being taken to ensure human rights.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 594 Introduced in House (IH)]

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116th CONGRESS
  1st Session
H. RES. 594

Expressing profound concern about threats to human rights, the rule of 
             law, democracy, and the environment in Brazil.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           September 25, 2019

 Mr. Grijalva (for himself, Mr. DeFazio, Mr. Espaillat, Mr. Garcia of 
  Illinois, Ms. Haaland, Ms. Norton, Ms. Jackson Lee, Mr. Johnson of 
 Georgia, Mr. Khanna, Ms. McCollum, Mr. McGovern, Mr. Rush, Ms. Wild, 
 Mr. Pocan, and Mr. Huffman) submitted the following resolution; which 
 was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to 
 the Committees on Financial Services, and the Judiciary, for a period 
    to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for 
consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the 
                          committee concerned

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
Expressing profound concern about threats to human rights, the rule of 
             law, democracy, and the environment in Brazil.

Whereas Brazil and the United States have an important strategic partnership and 
        have cooperated closely on numerous issues of mutual interest including 
        trade, regional security, energy, the protection of the environment, and 
        the fight against racial discrimination;
Whereas in recent years Brazil made significant strides in strengthening 
        democracy, reducing poverty, addressing racial and gender-based 
        disparities, building a more just and inclusive society, and reducing 
        deforestation in the Amazon;
Whereas Brazil contains about 60 percent of the Amazon rainforest and produces 6 
        percent of all oxygen generated by photosynthesis;
Whereas, on October 28, 2018, far-right politician Jair Bolsonaro was elected 
        president, in an election marred by the controversial disqualification 
        of his leading opponent;
Whereas President Bolsonaro praises Brazil's former military dictatorship, which 
        tortured 20,000 people and killed or disappeared 434 people, according 
        to Brazil's Special Commission on Political Killings and Disappearances;
Whereas President Bolsonaro made his first foreign trip to the United States to 
        meet President Trump, where he declared that they ``stand side by side 
        in their efforts to ensure liberties and respect to traditional family 
        lifestyles, respect to God, our Creator, against the gender ideology or 
        the politically correct attitudes and against fake news.'';
Whereas President Trump praised President Bolsonaro and emphasized their 
        ``fantastic working relationship'' and the ``many views'' they share;
Whereas President Trump announced during their meeting he would unilaterally 
        designate Brazil a ``Major Non-NATO Ally'', facilitating preferential 
        treatment for Brazil with regard to military assistance and sales or use 
        of military equipment;
Whereas President Bolsonaro and officials from his government have made 
        statements and pursued policy reforms that threaten the human rights of 
        vulnerable sectors of Brazilian society, including indigenous and Afro-
        Brazilian peoples, members of the LGBTI community, land rights 
        activists, the labor movement, and political opponents;
Whereas President Bolsonaro has pledged that he will not even permit ``a 
        centimeter'' to be demarcated for indigenous reserves or 
        ``quilombolas'', the communities of descendants of enslaved Africans 
        that are home to over 1,000,000 Afro-Brazilians;
Whereas President Bolsonaro has referred to indigenous peoples living in 
        protected ancestral lands as ``zoo animals'';
Whereas President Bolsonaro has said the Afro-Brazilian residents of quilombolas 
        ``aren't even good for procreation anymore'';
Whereas one of the first measures of the Bolsonaro administration was to 
        transfer the authority tasked with protecting the lands of indigenous 
        peoples to the Ministry of Agriculture, widely known to be controlled by 
        agribusiness interests that oppose indigenous and quilombola land 
        rights;
Whereas Bolsonaro administration officials announced their intention to open up 
        vast protected areas of the Amazon, including indigenous territories, to 
        mining, logging, and agricultural corporations, a move that is expected 
        to lead to rampant deforestation and accelerate global warming;
Whereas the rate of deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil increased 
        by 88 percent in June 2019, compared to the same period in 2018, 
        according to Brazil's National Institute of Space Research;
Whereas, in August 2019, Brazil's National Institute of Space Research announced 
        that it had identified nearly 40,000 fires in the Brazilian Amazon since 
        the beginning of the year, a phenomenon linked to deforestation and the 
        expansion of ``slash and burn'' agriculture;
Whereas Brazil's foreign minister, Ernesto Araujo, has referred to climate 
        change as a plot by ``cultural marxists'';
Whereas the Bolsonaro administration has made drastic cuts to Brazil's 
        environmental enforcement agency;
Whereas, according to the international NGO, Global Witness, Brazil is one of 
        the most dangerous countries in the world for land and environmental 
        advocates;
Whereas President Bolsonaro has publicly expressed support for the 
        indiscriminate killing of criminal suspects by the police;
Whereas, according to Brazil's Institute of Public Security, police agents in 
        Rio de Janeiro killed a record 432 people in the first three months of 
        2019;
Whereas, on April 7, 2019, Afro-Brazilian musician Evaldo Rosa dos Santos was 
        killed in Rio de Janeiro when military troops shot his vehicle 80 times;
Whereas, on February 4, 2019, Brazilian Justice Minister Sergio Moro introduced 
        legislation that, according to Human Rights Watch, could significantly 
        increase the quantity of unjustifiable killings perpetrated by police 
        agents;
Whereas, in March 2018, Afro-Brazilian LGBTQ activist and dissident politician 
        Marielle Franco was assassinated, and the individuals who ordered her 
        murder remain at large;
Whereas homophobic hate crimes and killings have been increasing throughout 
        Brazil, as reported by the Washington Post, and openly gay Congressman 
        Jean Wyllys fled Brazil in January 2019, after receiving repeated death 
        threats;
Whereas President Bolsonaro has closed the 88-year-old Ministry of Labor, 
        announced reforms that would effectively end the country's labor justice 
        system and eliminate the right to collective bargaining, and issued an 
        Executive order that weakens labor inspection and enforcement, ends 
        overtime and Sunday pay, and reduces paid vacations and severance 
        payments;
Whereas former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva--the leading 
        candidate in the October 2018 presidential elections--was arrested on 
        dubious charges of corruption, swiftly sentenced to 12 years in prison, 
        and deemed legally ineligible to run for office;
Whereas Brazilian authorities rejected a request by the United Nations Human 
        Rights Committee to allow da Silva to run in the October 2018 elections, 
        despite the Brazilian State's legal ratified obligation to comply to the 
        International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;
Whereas Sergio Moro, the presiding judge in da Silva's case, acted in a clearly 
        biased manner toward da Silva, violating his right to a fair and 
        impartial judicial process under Brazilian law;
Whereas, in June 2019, media outlets published leaked communications exposing 
        politically motivated collusion between Sergio Moro and prosecutors in 
        da Silva's case, with Moro providing strategic advice and sharing 
        privileged information with prosecutors;
Whereas President Bolsonaro appointed Sergio Moro to the position of Minister of 
        Justice and later announced that he had promised to nominate Moro to the 
        next open seat on Brazil's Supreme Federal Court; and
Whereas, in July 2017, a senior Department of Justice official stated that it 
        was ``hard to imagine a better cooperative relationship in recent 
        history than that of the United States Department of Justice and the 
        Brazilian prosecutors'' and cited the Department of Justice's 
        cooperation with the Lava Jato task force that charged and prosecuted da 
        Silva: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
            (1) calls on President Bolsonaro and members of his cabinet 
        to abstain from hate speech and threats directed at minorities 
        and to instead work to protect the human rights of all 
        Brazilian citizens, regardless of their race, gender, sexual 
        orientation, or beliefs;
            (2) urges the Brazilian Government to protect indigenous 
        peoples' rights as guaranteed under the Brazilian Constitution, 
        including the right to their own social organizations, customs, 
        languages, and beliefs, and the right to their traditional 
        lands;
            (3) urges Brazil's authorities to protect workers' rights 
        as stipulated under the International Labour Organization 
        conventions, which Brazil has ratified, including the right to 
        organize and bargain collectively;
            (4) urges Brazil's Government to take all possible actions 
        to reduce deforestation of the Amazon rainforest within the 
        country's borders and take all necessary measures to ensure the 
        elimination of illegal deforestation by 2030, in accordance 
        with Brazil's obligations under the United Nations Framework 
        Convention on Climate Change;
            (5) calls on the United States Government to oppose loans 
        from the World Bank Group or the Inter-American Development 
        Bank used to fund projects that are likely to contribute to 
        further deforestation or fires within the rainforests located 
        in the Amazon Basin;
            (6) urges Brazil's judicial and police authorities to fully 
        investigate the murder of Marielle Franco and work to identify 
        and prosecute those who ordered her assassination;
            (7) urges Brazil's judicial authorities, in particular the 
        ministers of the Supreme Federal Court, to investigate 
        allegations of unethical conduct by Sergio Moro, Federal 
        prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol, and other agents involved in the 
        judicial proceedings against former president da Silva;
            (8) directs the inspector general of the United States 
        Department of Justice to perform a full review of the 
        Department's activities in Brazil to determine whether United 
        States Government agents have at any point encouraged or 
        abetted unethical conduct perpetrated by Brazilian judicial 
        agents including members of the Lava Jato task force;
            (9) calls on Brazil's Supreme Federal Court to urgently 
        undertake an assessment of the merits of da Silva's convictions 
        and the fairness of the proceedings brought against him, and to 
        release da Silva while his appeals are pending, as stipulated 
        under Brazil's Constitution;
            (10) calls on relevant international human rights 
        organizations, such as the United Nations Human Rights 
        Committee and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, to 
        closely monitor the human rights situation in Brazil; and
            (11) expresses its sense that the United States should 
        rescind Brazil's designation as a Major Non-NATO Ally and 
        suspend all assistance to Brazil's military and police forces 
        unless the Department of State formally certifies that 
        effective measures are being taken to curtail unjustified 
        extrajudicial killings by Brazilian State security agents, 
        investigate and prosecute the killings of activists, and comply 
        with international human rights norms.
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