‘Polemic collector’, Sérgio Camargo is removed from the presidency of Fundação Palmares

Sérgio Camargo, president of Fundação Palmares arriving for lunch with President Jair Bolsonaro and the National Secretary of Cutura. Sérgio Lima/Poder360 06.05.2020

Bruno Pacheco – Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – Sérgio Camargo, president of the Palmares Foundation, where he collected controversies, was removed from office by the Government of Jair Bolsonaro, which has not yet appointed a replacement to the office. The act was published this Thursday, 31, in the Official Journal of the Union (DOU) and signed by the Chief Minister of the Civil House, Ciro Nogueira. Alongside him, Alexandre Ramagem and Mário Frias leave, respectively, the positions of director-general of the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin) and the Special Secretary of Culture of the Ministry of Tourism.

At the head of the foundation, Camargo has been controversial. In June of last year, he called the American neuroscientist Carl Hart, 54, a renowned specialist who relates chemical dependency to social phenomena, “an addict”.

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“Any doubt that the black man that Folha climbed to defend drug liberation is an addict, not a neuroscientist? I have no doubt at all!” said Camargo at the time. “Stop using black people to defend what sucks! It’s an insult to black people and it sharpens racial prejudice,” the former president of the Palmares Foundation declared in 2021.

In October last year, the Justice Camargo was removed from activities related to the management of people of the institution, which prohibited him from appointing and exonerating public servants. The decision was made by the judge Gustavo Carvalho Chehab, from the 21st Labor Court of Brasília, in a lawsuit from the Labor Public Ministry (MPT), which asked for the removal of the former president of the foundation due to accusations of moral harassment, ideological persecution and discrimination against employees of the institution.

In mid-February this year, Minister Gilmar Mendes, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), decided to take a public civil action against Camargo out of the Labor Court and send it to the Federal Court. Mendes, however, maintained the injunction that removed Sergio from his position as the foundation’s human resources manager.

Moïse Kabagambe

In February this year, Sergio Camargo attacked the Congolese Moïse Mugenyi Kabagambe, who was murdered in a kiosk in Rio de Janeiro, saying that there was no racism in the case. In a publication on social networks, Camargo said that the man “walked and traded with people who are no good” and that “he was a bum killed by stronger bums.

“Moïse hung out and did business with people who were no good. In theory, he was a bum killed by stronger bums. The color of his skin had nothing to do with the brutal murder. The determinants were the undignified way of life and the context of savagery in which he lived and traveled”, wrote the president of Palmares on Twitter.

According to his family, the Congolese man was killed after collecting a R$ 200 debt related to daily work in the Tropicália kiosk in Barra da Tijuca, in the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro. A video shared on social networks at the time of the murder shows three suspects beating Moïse. To the police, the suspects denied that the execution was racially motivated and said that the aggressions began after Moïse opened a refrigerator in the establishment to get beers.

The words of the then president of the Palmares Foundation caused outrage. “Unbelievable”, “shameful”, “grotesque”, “unacceptable” were how leaders of the black movement, politicians and the president of the Congolese Community in Brazil, Fernando Mupapa, defined Sérgio Camargo’s criticisms. For the militant jurist of the racial cause and president of the National Institute Afro Origin (Inaô), Christian Rocha, Moïse was a victim of the structural racism that exists in Brazil.

“If for a Brazilian the job market is difficult, you can imagine for a native African. Moïse was not a bum, he is just the result of all this structural racism that exists in our country. Do you want an example? After this [his murder], his family quickly got a kiosk,” said Christian Rocha in an interview to CENARIUM MAGAZINE last month.

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In social networks, the now former portfolio holder communicated that he will run for a seat in the House of Representatives in the State of São Paulo. Camargo is affiliated to PL, Bolsonaro’s party. “After freeing Palmares, I want to help President Bolsonaro to change Brazil. If elected, I will defend an anti-vivitimist, right-wing black agenda. No more ‘mimimi’,” Sérgio Camargo wrote on Twitter.

The vacancy for Abin was also not informed. For the Special Secretary of Culture of the Ministry of Tourism, the federal government has nominated Hélio Ferraz de Oliveira, until then national secretary of audiovisual and number two in the portfolio.

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