Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe defined necropolitics as those policies and actions created by the state to determine which individuals live and which individuals die. Necropolitics establishes death zones, where subversive individuals, unruly bodies, and dangerous ideas are confined and left to die. Concentration camps and refugee camps, for example, are examples of necropolitics.
The Cleveland Penal Colony (Oiapoque, Brazil) operated between 1924 and 1926, under the authoritarian government of Arthur Bernardes (1922-1926). During this period, Bernardes's enemies were sent there, as well as common prisoners arrested for theft, vagrancy, and so on. Anarchist workers were also sent there.Between 1924 and 1926, approximately 1,300 people were sent to Cleveland. About 700 of them died. By comparison, during the civil-military dictatorship (1964-1985), approximately 450 people disappeared or were killed, according to the National Truth Commission.
The repression followed a "scale" that would lead to Cleveland: Bernardes' opponents were persecuted and arrested in makeshift police stations. They were then placed in the holds of ships that followed exclusive routes created for the transport of prisoners to Oiapoque. The holds of the ships were veritable prisons at sea, reproducing the filthy environments of police stations. This was only the beginning of an even worse future situation: Cleveland, the Green Hell.
The libertarians sent to Cleveland were: Domingos Passos, Domingos Braz (Italian), Pedro Augusto Motta, Nino Martins, Nicolau Paradas (Spanish-Galician), Thomaz Derliz Borche (Afro-Uruguayan), José Batista da Silva, Antônio Salgado, Fernandes Varella, Biofilo Panclastra (Colombian), José Nascimento Alves, Antônio da Costa, Manoel Ferreira Gomes (Portuguese), Pedro Carneiro, among others.
Pedro Motta, Nicolau Paradas, Nino Martins, José Maria Fernandes Varella, and José Alves do Nascimento died in Cleveland, or while attempting to escape. The anarchist Fernandes Varella even sent letters to the anarchist newspaper A Plebe, describing the terrible conditions there and his own agony. Varella died a few days after this declaration.
In Cleveland, falling ill was almost a certainty of death. Some testimonies claimed that doctors and nurses arbitrarily injected inmates with quinine. In addition to malnutrition, prisoners suffered and died from tuberculosis, malaria, and dysentery. The Afro-indigenous anarchist Domingos Passos also sent letters to the workers' press, recounting torture, beatings, and neglect. Domingos Passos managed to escape and arrive alive in Belém do Pará.
One of the survivors, the Italian anarchist Domingos Braz, described the types of prisoners held in Cleveland: Wretched beggars for the infamy of being old, disabled, rejected and derided by society, because there are no shelters here to take them in; countless sons of the people confused among the vagabonds (...) for the inconceivable crime of not having the resources to buy their freedom from the officers who arrested them; and several trade unionists and anarchists. TO THE PEOPLE. No. 245. Date: February 12, 1927.
In the same letter, Braz describes the deadly environment of Cleveland: Oiapoque is a place devoid of medical resources. Even sanitary and hygienic precepts are unknown. The unfortunate deportees sleep in groups of a hundred or more. Dirty and disgusting barracks covered with boards or straw on the top and sides-this is their accommodation. Marsh fever, dysentery, and gastroenteritis find a vast and widespread breeding ground in them, claiming daily victims with impunity. Added to all this is the poor, inadequate, and irregular diet, and, in most cases, devoid of any seasoning. TO THE PEOPLE. No. 245. Date: February 12, 1927.
The condemned in Cleveland were not executed immediately. They were left to suffer under the watchful eye of the local administration. They died little by little from disease, mistreatment, hunger, exhausting labor, and sadness.
Carlos Ferreira de Araujo Junior
REFERENCES
KARLLOS, Jr. Black Brazil Insurgent. Ed. Monstro dos Mares. 2025
MBEMBE, Achille. Necropolitics: Biopower, Soberania, State of Excess, Politics of Death. Translated by Renata Santini. São Paulo: N-1 editions, 2018.
PLEBE, A. no. 245. Date: 12/02/1927.
RODRIGUES, Edgar. Companheiros. History of the Anarchist Movement in Brazil.
SAMIS, Alexandre. Clevelândia: anarchism, syndicalism and repressão política no Brazil.
https://umanitanova.org/linferno-verde-il-campo-di-concentramento-di-clevelandia-1924-1926/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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