* Brazil
126 City of hun The radical left government in the city of Porto Alegre is incorporating human rights questions into their pioneering system of direct democracy. Mark Johnson Over the last 10 years the city has pioneered a participatory budget process in which citizens debate and control municipal policies through open meetings in each neighbourhood. At the begining, Women Breaking the Counsellor Helena Bonhumá outlines the impact of feminist ideas in the management of the city of Porto Alegre
At the beginning of the PT's second mandate in 1993, the party organised a city-wide Constituent assembly, to establish the priorities for the popular administration.
One of the elements of this Assembly was the launching of the "Porto Allegre for Women" programme. This identified 16 areas of concern to women: including work; creches; violence; and education.
The wide participation of popular organisations and specialists enabled the development of a diagnostic model. A smaller seminar assessed this raw information, and identified 12 International Viewpoint #313 July 1999
" -ORÇAMENTO PARTICIPATIVO VOCÊ É QUEM FAZ UMA CIDADE DE VERDADE lan rights human rights questions were not integrated into the discussion. But gradually the Workers Party (PT) government recognised the demands coming from marginalised groups and organisations outside the participatory budget process.
"Of course, it was never our intention to limit this process to discussion about roads and schools, says city counsellor Helena Bonhumá. "But everything we are doing here is innovatory. And we didn't know how to introduce questions like human rights. But, as we gain conficycle policies and key demands. These were presented to the Assembly.
We explained that discrimination and subordination are reproduced in all areas of life, including urbanisation, and participation in public affairs. The city expresses all the social relations existing in the urban space. For example, 13% of men in Porto Allegre are unemployed, but 18% of women. And 26% of women are heads of households.
Unless we introduce decisive counter-measures, discrimination will be reproduced. We need to break this cycle. To create new habits and new spaces.
Wee need to include compensatory measures into all areas of our work. So far, we have given a special role to co-operatives of women, dence, we are trying to gradually widen the scope of the participatory process, by bringing in more and more non-economic questions. Concretely, to widen the space for human rights in popular political discourse and government action."
The party began by forming a Human Rights Commission, as a kind of coalition between the various discriminated social sectors: women, blacks, old people, and homosexuals. The commission became a centre for receiving and rechannelling the demands of the different sectors. But there was only limited collective work, and the issues the commission identified were not unified into a general struggle."
But the commission was a springboard towards a city-wide conference on human rights. "A very rich experience for the participants and for the party," remembers Bonhumá. The conference for human rights discussed each sector, separately and in plenary sessions. Participants identified the main demands of each sector, and the priorities in each area of municipal intervention.
*Participants pressed us to transform the council into an organ with power to control those sectors of government which impact on human rights in the widest sense. The city council cannot just point the finger at the state and federal authorities which have the constitutional responsibility to protect human and civic rights. All government has an obligation to protect human rights."
The Council was reorganised on a territorial basis, ensuring representation in each of the city's 16 participatory budget constituencies. "The idea became to combine work in each sector of human which have been awarded contracts for cleaning and other areas of service work in the municipality. We have also created clothes-making workshops, bakeries and other employment and training projects for women. We have begun to investigate non-traditional careers for women, including computer studies and agriculture.
We would like to have more income generation projects for women. But this is a disputed area. The participatory budget meetings invariably relegate these programmes to the bottom of the list, and funds are severely restricted. We also lack a legal framework for positive compensatory projects.
As we go forward, we are trying to identify weaknesses like these, and introduce city-wide legislation to correct them.
Curiously, there are no feminist non-governmental organisations in Porto Alegre. The PT's only 'competitors' are some very conservative church groups. * rights netw syster syste questi
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rights with work in each of the local networks of the participatory budget system. We want the participatory budget system to incorporate human rights questions.
"Deepening direct democracy is an incredibly rich process. The role of the government and the PT is increasingly one of mediation between different sectors of the population, bringing them together to find solutions.
"Take the example of street children. These are clearly victims of Brazil's terrible poverty and social inequality. But some of them are also criminals. And the people who participate in the participatory budget process are the poorer people of the town, those who are the main victims of violence. Not just police violence, but violence within the poorer communities, where most crime happens.
"Our role as the PT, and as the government, is to build links within the population. It is a long process. But there are some positive examples. I remember at one participatory budget meeting, residents of a 'red light' zone protested about the noise and traffic caused by the presence of prostitutes. The prostitutes explained that they had to work in order to survive. We helped them find an agreement that reduces disruption for local people, without repressing the prostitutes."
The right wing parties in the municipal assembly have tried to use human rights to divide the PT's massive popular support. One conservative counsellor recently proposed transferring funds from programmes for street children towards programmes for the physically disabled. Bonhumá attacked "this discourse which makes a false distinction between "deserving' and 'undeserving' poor; this obsession with security; and this deamonisation of the most marginalised groups in society."
By trying to reassert the city council's authority to amend the budget, the rightwing parties were also attacking the very basis of the participatory budget process. As Bonhumá explains, "in this town, city counsellors should just implement the decisions of the participatory budget process. It is for the society to decide about the relative importance of any two areas of government intervention.
"Any conflict, including the inevitable competition for resources, should be resolved through dialogue, not through a "divide and rule" strategy. The essence of our project is getting each sector to express its desires and needs, to understand the other groups in the population, and to vote for programmes that increase solidarity and social justice.
*I'm happy to say that our policy of putting full trust in the people has been vindicated. When we present the population with full information, and when they can see and feel that they genuinely The people's g What about When they took power in Rio Grande do Sul state, the Workers Party accepted responsibility for managing the state's paramilitary police force. Mark Johnson reports
The Workers Party (PT) has always had a tense relationship with the police. Party leaders gained their spurs in the struggle against the dictatorship that established state police forces like Rio Grande's Brigada Militar.
According to Luis Felipe Nelsis of the vice-governor's office, "we come from a military state, where the police role was clear — repress the population. The Brigada Militar was a repressive body. It was concentrated in rich areas, to protect property, and absent from poorer areas, where criminals could act with impunity
"But the gradual reforms of society, towards the rule of law, and constitutional protection of human rights, leave the police in a very contradictory position. Of course, the constitution is not respected, and there are high levels of police violence, but there is also a concern among policemen about their role.
"There has been a real evolution in the thinking of many police officers. The development of a critical analysis of their own role. Some officers told us that their constitutional role of defending the state prevents them from guaranteeing the real security of the citizens."
In 1997 police across Brazil demonstrated in protest against non-payment of wages. President Cardoso promised wide reaching reforms. But it now seems that what he really wants is to transfer powers away from the existing police bodies, so as to reduce the threat of militant activity. Some powers will be transferred to new police bodies. But many areas of civic security will simply be privatised. The police will concentrate on protecting the state, while private security companies will increasingly control the city and its government, then, time and time again, they vote for solidarity and tolerance." * * Helena Bonhumá has coordinated the city government's human rights work since 1994. She is also the coordinator of the women's work of the PT counsellor's caucus. overnment he police? police the richer residential and shopping areas.
According to Nelsis, the Workers Party government in Rio Grande do Sul is determined to reform the paramilitary Brigada Militar, and put police matters firmly within the framework of the participatory budget system.
"We want a thorough retraining of the police, and redeployment evenly across the state, to ensure that all areas have an equal level of policing. We will also be completely determined to root out and punish cases of police brutality and corruption.
"Previous administration didn't hesitate to use the police to repress strikers and demonstrations. There will be no return to those practices, even if sections of the population or the public sector workforce enter into conflict with the popular government."
Nelsis is not worried that the Brigada Militar will try to paralyse or destabilise the PT government. "The base of the police is PTista. The officers can't influence this. The police can't be politically active, but there have been demonstrations of policemen's spouses, and even of masked policemen, demanding improved working conditions, wage rises, and the right to trade union organisation. There have been discussions with the PT and the CUT trade union federation.
"Many policemen don't see why they should be obliged to repress the workers. By introducing democratic rights within the police, we will be able to increase this consciousness among police of their civic role.
"This division within the Brigada Militar makes us convinced that we can implement a thorough reform of the police, and that the officer corps will not be able to block or sabotage us." But he warns that "This is probably not the case in other parts of Brazil, even where the PT is strong." *
International Viewpoint #313 July 1999 13
* Brazil