Sitting on the ground on Avenida Paulista, in São Paulo, children knead the clay and make small pots to accommodate the seeds or plants they received and which will germinate and bear fruit in the future. Handling this clay is a symbolic act to remember seven years since one of the country’s greatest tragedies, when 272 people died after the dam break of the mining company Vale, in Brumadinho.
Symbolic act marks seven years since the collapse of the Brumadinho dam- Paulo Pinto/Agência Brasil
The event was promoted by the Instituto Camila e Luiz Taliberti, an entity that was created in honor of Helena Taliberti’s two children, who died as a result of the dam collapse. Both were staying at Pousada Nova Estância, swallowed by waste.
In addition to her children, Helena also lost her daughter-in-law, Fernanda Damian, who was five months pregnant with her first child. On that same trip, her ex-husband, father of Camila and Luiz, who was accompanied by his then wife, also died.
Helena Taliberti calls for justice so that tragedies like Brumadinho no longer happen – Paulo Pinto/Agência Brasil
“Children are our future”, said Helena, with tears in her eyes, in an interview with Brazil Agency this Sunday (25). “I’m a little emotional because I won’t have grandchildren anymore. But I think I still have an obligation to look after the future of these generations so that they understand what the environment is. The environment isn’t there in the Amazon, the environment isn’t there in the Pantanal”, she lamented.
The activist highlights the need to take care of all biomes and that the capital São Paulo is embedded in the Atlantic Forest, but only has 12% of the original biome.
“We do need to create, within our cities, important niches for breathing space for the planet. São Paulo needs to have breathing space and very important work with the next generations so that it does not become an unviable city from a housing point of view”, he reinforced.
In addition to the clay workshop with the children, a siren was sounded on Avenida Paulista, at 12:28 pm, to mark the time when the Brumadinho tragedy began and to remember that, on January 25th, seven years ago, the warning siren did not go off to warn people about the dam collapse.
“Through the investigations that took place, we learned that the company knew that the dam was having problems and that it needed maintenance, but did not do the maintenance properly. That tragedy could have been avoided”, he highlights. Helena emphasizes that if the siren had sounded, it would have prevented deaths.
“The importance of drawing attention to this tragedy is so that it does not happen again and, more than that, we need to remember that happened in Mariana before Brumadinho. Mariana, in fact, was the real siren of Brumadinho and that no one heard”, highlighted Helena.
Act on Avenida Paulista demands justice on the day that marks seven years since the dam collapse in Brumadinho – Paulo Pinto/Agência Brasil
No justice
Seven years after the tragedy, there has still been no criminal liability, that is, no one has responded for the crime. A process pending in the Minas Gerais court and will judge 15 people for the episode.
“Justice was not done”, concludes Helena. “It is important to know that repairs are being very slow, they have not been adequate and the people who were affected lost everything they had – such as their homes, their crops, their animals – and this was not replaced, it was not repaired”, he lamented.
Helena reinforces that reparation is a dubious term, because you cannot repair someone’s death. “That doesn’t exist. But reparation for those affected needs to happen. And also justice, so that the people involved are held responsible for what they did”, he highlighted.
According to the activist, accountability is important, including to prevent similar tragedies from happening in the country. “Impunity is the door to it happening again. And we cannot allow it to happen again.”
