African people in Brazil are facing an increase in systematic extermination orchestrated by the white supremacist government of Jair Bolsonaro, an ally of Donald Trump, during the Coronavirus pandemic.

 - Brazil has the third largest population in the world, and it is one of the fastest growing. Black people who constitute a growing numerical majority have been targeted for mass incarceration. While prisons can only hold 430,000 individuals, today more than 815,000 people are incarcerated, most of them African. The overcrowding of cells and the lack of safety and health procedures in prisons thus render the environment quite propitious for the expansion of the pandemic;

 To make matters worse, President Jair Boisonaro demands that workers continue to work, despite the recommendations of international health organizations and the high death tolls in other countries as a result of the Coronavirus. When quarantine became inevitable, the president tried to pass a law allowing companies to withhold worker’s salaries for four months and refused to entertain any emergency provisions for workers unable to work. He issued a Provisional Measure (PM), published on March 22, which changes a series of labor rules during the Pandemic. Among the changes, the PM establishes that individual agreements between employer and employee will be above the existing labor laws throughout the period of validity of the provisional measure to "ensure the continuity of the employment relationship,” while at the same time using the

country's foreign exchange reserves to generously bail out large companies and banks.

 Furthermore, the president has been carrying out a campaign of disinformation: in an official statement he referred to COVID-19 as a “minor cold or flu,” from which - if contaminated - he would come out unscathed thanks to his athletic background. All governors, from all parties and political lines, have tried to work to adopt safety and health measures in the face of the presidency's opposition, which deliberately goes against all contingency measures that have shown their effectiveness elsewhere in the world. The president, who had been in the United States in the company of people, 24 of whom tested positive for the virus, on his return to the country called and participated in public gatherings, embracing and kissing the crowd, even under suspicion of contamination. Even the Minister of Health of the current government was threatened of being fired for carrying out containment measures.

Yet, while the president refuses to adopt measures to minimize the disastrous effects on the life, health and economy of people in Brazil, whose majority, again, is African, he has sent support to Italy, his family's place of origin, using the country's public resources.

 African people around the world must bear in mind that the plan of our historical enemies is our submission and destruction. Afrocentricity International thus urges all of us to intensify our efforts in order to achieve complete autonomy. Africa will prevail!

 Unidade é nosso Objetivo, Vitória é nosso Destino!

 Unity is our Aim, Victory is our Destiny!

 Per-aat Ama Mazama

International Organizer Molefi Kete Asante

 April 7, 2020/6256

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