Bolsonaro says the fires in the Amazon are all the fault of NGOs.
Bolsonaro says the fires in the Amazon are all the fault of NGOsIt's a move straight from the authoritarian playbook.
LUKE BARNES at Think Progress
https://thinkprogress.org/brazils-bolsonaro-makes-a-baseless-conspiracy-claim-about-who-started-the-amazon-fires-21fbc85184e0/
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Far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro followed the authoritarian playbook when he claimed, without evidence, that non-governmental organizations and environmental groups caused the forest fires currently destroying large swathes of the Amazon rainforest.
“On the question of burning in the Amazon, which in my opinion may have been initiated by NGOs because they lost money, what is the intention? To bring problems to Brazil,” Bolsonaro said on Wednesday.
In a Facebook live broadcast later that day, he added that “Everything indicates” that NGOs wanted to “set fire” to the Amazon. He then admitted that he had no evidence to back up the claims.
Bolsonaro’s statements are, of course, a lie. While it’s difficult to trace the precise cause of the nearly 75,000 fires currently burning in the Amazon, his far-right administration has empowered ranchers, loggers and farmers to clear land for their own benefit, destroying huge swathes of the rainforest in the process.
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