Activist sends letter to Pope Francis and asks Catholic Church leader to visit Roraima to help refugees

Document was sent to Pope Francis (Release)

Bruno Pacheco – Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – The activist and documentary filmmaker Dado Galvão, 38, has mobilized Catholic authorities, politicians and famous people to draw the attention of Pope Francis on the situation of Venezuelan refugees in Brazil. In a letter sent to the leader of the Catholic Church, the activist asks the Pope to visit Roraima to help the immigrants.

Dado Galvão is a native of Jequé, in the interior of Bahia, and the creator of “Mission Ushuaia,” recognized by the Mercosur Parliament (Parlasur) in July 2019 as of cultural and humanitarian interest. The initiative, also composed by Paraiban Arlen Cezar and Venezuelans Carlos Javier Arencibia, Dubenson Eduardo Manzanilla, will become a documentary and aims to promote rapprochement between Venezuelans and Brazilians through letters.

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Dado Galvão, disguised as a priest, visiting Venezuela (Personal File/Reproduction)

To the CENARIUM MAGAZINE, the activist explained that the letter-invitation to the Pope is a request for the religious leader to make a missionary trip to the state of Roraima, the gateway of the Venezuelan exodus in Brazil, where thousands of immigrants from the neighboring country begin a new trajectory to escape hunger, misery and oppression from the government of Nicolás Maduro.

“So that the Venezuelan diaspora that we witness in Roraima and in the streets of Brazil does not fall into oblivion and becomes a new normal, we beg the Pope: ‘The missionary presence of Your Holiness, an Argentine citizen, South American and of Mercosur, head of a State governed by God, will bring hope, light and catechetical, pedagogical visibility, in the face of so much suffering,” explained Dado Galvão.

The document is also being addressed to several personalities. The list includes 28 people, including six Catholic leaders, two Protestant religious leaders, 18 politicians, including President Bolsonaro (PL) and the governor of Roraima, Antonio Denarium (Progressive), and two television presenters, José Luiz Datena and Luciano Huck.

“What we are witnessing is a problem to be faced by politicians and the organized civil society of Brazil and the Mercosur countries, it is a mission for the South American democrats, with this in mind and putting it into practice, I wrote to 28 Brazilian personalities, church authorities, politicians with and without a mandate, and two television presenters”, he said.

“I think there are many influential people in Brazil who can contribute so that the ongoing diaspora does not fall into oblivion, but there is a lot of omission, a blind eye because of political ideologies, when, in fact, we are looking at a question of humanity”, reinforced Galvão.

Mission

The “Ushuaia Mission” was born in 2015 and makes reference to the “Ushuaia Protocol”, signed on July 24, 1998, in the Argentine city of Ushuaia, which reaffirms the democratic commitment of Mercosur member states. In 2012, Venezuela joined the agreement, but the country’s participation was suspended in December 2016 because of reports of human rights violations and anti-democratic actions.

“The mission has as its final goal the construction of a documentary, but because of the variables and uncertainties of the directions of Venezuela, we started to carry out cultural and humanitarian actions in the light of what we believe to be the exercise of Mercosur citizenship”, said Dado Dalvão.

The beginning

The recording of the documentary began in 2019, when the activist and documentarian traveled, disguised as a priest, to Venezuela. To REVISTA CENARIUM, Dado Galvão explained that the use of the costume was the way he found to protect himself from the dangers of the trip, such as the repression faced by press professionals, flee the dictator regime, record videos with the population and with opponents of Nicolás Maduro and the self-proclaimed president Juan Guaidó.

Dado Galvão at a meeting with the self-proclaimed president of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó (Personal File/Reproduction)

“To begin the editing and finalization process we depend on the future of Venezuela, that is, ‘the full validity of democratic institutions’, which describes article I of the “Protocol of Ushuaia – Mercosur”, which inspires our work. The script of our documentary awaits and works for a happy ending, respect for free thought, democracy/rule of law, the right to come and go, the appreciation of human dignity, and justice for crimes committed against humanity”, he stressed.

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