FDEREAÇÃO DAS ASSOCIAÇÕES DE FAVELAS DO ESTADO DA GUANABARA (FAFEG/FAFERJ)
Address: Praça da República, 24, Centro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ
Themes: Favela Displacements
Translated from the Portuguese by Benjamin Brooks
The Federation of Favela Associations of the State of Guanabara (FAFEG) was founded in 1963, in the context of policy change in relation to favelas in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The governor at the time, Carlos Lacerda, opted to displace the overwhelming part of Rio’s favelas, to the detriment of these areas of the city, which underwent intense urbanization during the military coup of 1964.
To suppress outcry from the favela residents, FAFEG and other informal resistance initiatives were harshly repressed. Thus, various leaders of the Federation were imprisoned and the removals of the period of the dictatorship were marked by the presence of agents by the Department of Social and Political Order (DOPS/GB) and of other groups in the regime’s repressive apparatus.
Favela community organizing did not begin with FAFEG. Some sources indicate that the first attempts to organize favela residents date back to the 1920s and others confirm that the first commissions and associations of favela residents grew in the mid-1940s. However, in 1954 the Union of Favela Workers (UTF) was founded as the first organization to promote cooperation between residents of the city’s different favelas.
The FAFEG gained civil status in August 1963, and was composed of 28 affiliated organizations, mostly from favelas in the North Zones and the city center. The organization’s statute was not radical or revolutionary in nature, as evidenced by one of the decisions stated in the statute’s second article: “to rigorously observe the law and the moral principles of understanding that guide civic duty.” Members of the provisional FAFEG leadership were involved in the “Moral Rearmament” movement, an anti-communist group that acted in concert with the Social Studies Research Institute/Brazilian Institute for Democratic Action (IPES/IBAD) within favelas. In October 1964, the organization held its first conference. At the time, Brazil was already under dictatorial rule, but FAFEG was not yet affected by its repression.
The removal of the Skeleton Favela, where the Rio de Janeiro State University is currently located, is emblematic of the change in FAFEG’s actions, which began after the first conference. Intensified dictatorship repression against the organization accompanied the shift. Then president, Etevaldo Justino de Oliveira, was arrested by the DOPS/GB when he promoted a plebiscite to resist the displacement of the favela. In 1965, board elections took place for the next two-year term, during which the organization would represent 54 neighborhood associations. João José Marcolino led the winning ticket, leading the opposition against sitting president Etevaldo. The change in leadership marked the board’s move away from leaders tied to the “Moral Rearmament.” But the period in which this board led the organization was a relatively calm phase of displacement policies. Vicente Mariano Ferreira won the following election in 1967. On the ticket were militants from the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB), the Young Catholic Workers (JOC) and Popular Action (AP). The election of the new board signified the start of a new markedly combative position for the FAFEG, further removed from the original identity of the organization, one that sought to distance itself from the broader political struggle.
At that time, the FAFEG took up the fight against favela displacements, which had begun with renewed force in 1967. The fight intensified in the following year with the creation of the Metropolitan Area Housing for Social Interest Administration (CHISAM) by the federal government. Linked to the National Housing Bank (BNH), the entity’s objective was to establish specific policies for favelas, bringing the issue to the federal level.
The FAFEG was not inactive in the face of these new changes and organized its second conference for November of 1968. The organization was now composed of more than one hundred affiliated resident associations. Preparations for the conference took place during the entire month of November, with meetings in various sectors of the city set up to present propositions to the residents of each area. Union Park, Borel, Catacumba, and the Central region hosted the sessions. On November 30, the plenary session occurred at the Independent Drivers’ Union. On December 7, in the same location, they held the closing ceremony of the FAFEG’s second conference. The sentence that defined the gathering, that would become the battle cry for the group from that point on, was: “No to displacements, yes to urban reform.” Beyond that, the conference concluded with demands to end State control over the associations and regulations of favela residents’ land ownership. The closing ceremony happened days before the enactment of Fifth Institutional Act (AI-5).
The displacements that occurred from then on were carried out with an increasing degree of violence. In the process of eradicating favelas around the Rodrigo de Freitas Lake, several of the organization’s leaders were arrested. The repression of the FAFEG, the violence used in the displacements, and the state’s control over the associations forced the movement to quiet their efforts and take increasingly fewer radical positions.
In January of 1971, only one candidate competed in the elections for the board of the Federation. The Secretary for Social Services accompanied the electoral process, and the Secretary of Security evaluated the proposed candidates beforehand. The platform of the sole candidate was one of collaboration with the state government. Nevertheless, the group organized its third conference. Though FAFEG defended fighting displacements, the topic was presented as though it were unrelated to broader political concerns.
At the end of the 1970s, political groups tied to the PCB and to the Revolutionary Movement of October 8 banded together and met in the Church of Our Lady Salette, in Catumbi, to demand new elections. At the time, neighborhood movements represented the desire for democratization on the part of Brazilian society, and the organization, whose name later became FAFERJ when the state of Rio de Janeiro replaced the state of Guanabara, was frequently monitored by dictatorship intelligence agencies.