Word: sarney
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...Brazilians, such pressure amounts to unjustified foreign meddling and a blatant effort by the industrial nations to preserve their economic supremacy at the expense of the developing world. Brazilian President Jose Sarney has denounced the criticism of his country as "unjust, defamatory, cruel and indecent." How can Brazil be expected to control its economic development, he asks, when it is staggering under a $111 billion foreign-debt load? By what right does the U.S., which spews out more pollutants than any other nation, lecture poor countries like Brazil on their responsibilities to mankind...
...Sarney is caught between conflicting, and sometimes violent, forces within his nation. On one side are the settlers and developers, often backed by corrupt politicians, who are razing the forests to lay claim to the land. On the other are hundreds of fledgling conservation groups, along with the Indian tribes and rubber tappers whose way of life will be destroyed if the forests disappear. The clash has already produced the world's most celebrated environmental martyr, Chico Mendes, a leader of the rubber tappers who was murdered for trying to stand in the way of ranchers...
...President's strident nationalism drew a sour reaction from his many critics. "Sarney declared war on the world today," said Fabio Feldman, a Congressman from Sao Paulo who is a vocal environmentalist. "He's trying to - rally public support around a discredited government." Feldman declared the Our Nature program itself "too academic and vague. It won't change a thing." Said another leading ecologist: "It is obvious that the intention of the program is not to save the Amazon but to appease foreign criticism...
...Sarney fell far short of his goal. Just days before Our Nature was announced, a group of 28 Latin American intellectuals, none of them Brazilian, issued a stinging open letter to Sarney accusing him of a "policy of ecocide and ethnocide" in the Amazon. The statement called for an immediate halt to "massive deforestation" and other "acts of barbarism." Among the signers were three prominent novelists: Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez of Colombia, Carlos Fuentes of Mexico and Mario Vargas Llosa of Peru...
...Acre proposal, first aired in January, has been so strong that President George Bush reportedly asked Japanese Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita to clarify whether his government had any plans to finance the highway. Takeshita said Japan had yet to receive a request from Brazil for funding. As President Sarney's speech last week demonstrated, the proud Brazilians will not be easily deterred. Officials insist that the highway from Acre to Peru will be built in spite of the clamor it has aroused...