We reproduce the homage notes for comrade Remís Carla – revolutionary militant and student of pedagogy who was cowardly murdered in December 2017 – from Popular Women’s movement (MFP) and Revolutionary Popular Student’s Movement (MEPR).
Comrade Remís: This crime will not go unpunished!
Guitar in moon night
In sertão is like a sword,
Hope of revenge.
The same foot that dances samba
Goes to fight if needed,
Capoeira.
Since December 17th, comrade Remis Carla was missing after being seen for the last time in the house of her ex-boyfriend, Paulo César, in the neighbourhood of Nova Morada, Recife. In December 19, 48h after her last telephone contact with her mother, with a lot of insistence, Remis family managed to register the Police report. A strong campaign in search of news of her whereabouts had already began by her family, comrades and friends. Today, December 23th, we found her body wrapped in a blanket, buried in a cove 10 meters away from the house of her ex-boyfriend who was arrested in the beginning of the night and confessed this coward crime.
Comrade Remis was in the 10th semester of pedagogy course in the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE) and was very close to finish her graduation. As a student of the people, she already worked with infant education in two kindergartens of the city, she was very committed and assiduous with her work and very loved by the children. Remis was 24 years old, she was a very happy young woman, she had a very captivating smile, which was her trademark. She loved music and knew an almost infinite list of lyrics by heart, especially Rap. Despite being very shy, Remis loved theatre and was an excellent actress. She lived her youth intensely and left many friends throughout all the corners of the metropolitan region of Recife. Remis was a great daughter companion of her mother, miss Ruzinete, and advisor of her father, mister Carlos, and dear friend of her sister Juliete. The void that the death of Remis causes us is immense and there is no place in this city that does not make us remember her smile and her glance of bursting vivacity.
Comrade Remis was a militant of MFP (Popular Women’s Movement), of MEPR (Revolutionary Popular Student’s Movement) and an important activist from Bagaço Collective. In addition, she was very dedicated in her role in ExNEPe (National Executive of Pedagogy Students) and was considered the “number 0 fan” of Palafitas band. Remis began her militancy in 2012 when she got to know the A Nova Democracia newspaper in a stand in the hall of Education Centre of UFPE. In this same year she joined MEPR and MFP. In the beginning of 2013 was part of the Regional Coordination of the movement and acted intensively in the election and in “Pedagogy in Movement” management of the Academic Directory (DA) of Pedagogy. During the June journeys, which were extended until November of that year in Recife, Remis had a remarkable performance and was always in the front line of the demonstrations, covering her face and never afraid to face the repressive forces of the old State.
In 2014, she actively participated in the “Pedagogy in movement – The struggle continues” election and management and was in the front lines of the electoral sham boycott campaign of that year. Remis was a militant of few words but of a lot of vein and action capability. One who only knew her in the university hallways maybe cannot imagine that the young woman was the one to command one of the biggest graffiti campaigns of our movement. Having the opportunity to walk through Caxangá avenue, near the integration terminal, one will still be able to read: Do not vote! Long live the revolution! MEPR, the calligraphy of our revolutionary pedagogue, forever our comrade Remis Carla, is registered.
In 2015, comrade Remis heads, for the first time, the election of the Pedagogy Academic Directory, in the “Struggle Mood” management. She had always a firm struggle stand against opportunism in the student’s movement, upholding with decision the banners of classism, independence and combativity. Remis also had a remarkable participation in the 34th, 35th and 36th ENEPes (National Meeting of Pedagogy Students) held in Recife, Curitiba and Porto Velho.
In 2016, the militancy of Remis is focused mainly outside the university, particularly in support to the peasant struggle in defence of housing. Remis participated of the beginning of the struggle of the squatters of the called “Zone 6” of the Federal Rural University of Pernambuco (UFRPE), acting as a leadership of the Association of Residents and as a supporter of the people’s lawyer Dr Maria José do Amaral’s office. Remis supported directly in the construction of People’s Schools in the LCP (Poor Peasant’s League) areas in the struggle for land in the countryside. Also acted directly in the peasant resistance to ownership repossession like last year, when she spent more than fifteen days together with the peasants of the Renato Nathan Revolutionary Area in Messias – Alagoas.
Comrade Remis, through her revolutionary practice, advanced in her condition of communist militant, defender of the scientific ideology of the proletariat: marxism-leninism-maoism and the contributions of universal value of gonzalo thought. The last political activity that Remis participated was the study of the recently-published interview on comrade Laura, the EPL (Liberation People’s Army) commander and leadership of PCP (Communist Party of Peru).
The death of comrade Remis is a hard loss to the revolutionary movement of our country, particularly in such decisive moment of the class struggle in Brazil. Her murder and the hiding of her corpse provoked a strong pain that did not paralyze us, on the contrary, propelled our action. The campaign “Where is Remis?” was decisive for the solution of this crime. The mobilization of the students in the university and in the Nova Morada neighbourhood were key for the arrest of this coward murderer. The pression made by the rectory of UFPE to the state government was an important political event that revealed the indifference of this old State in the search of a missing people’s student.
The sheriff’s conduct of the case was indecent! In December 20th, a sniffer dog search team was sent to the murderer’s house, but the dogs were not even used for the search of the body of our comrade who was buried only 10 meters from the place. The homicide sheriff, after convincing himself of the innocence of the murderer, began to collect the testimonies of the relatives and friends of Remis in an investigation that seemed to show that the comrade herself was responsible for her own missing. The collecting of all evidences that proved that Remis had been murdered by her ex-boyfriend was made by her comrades, such as the wound in the left hand of the scoundrel and the siding built to obstruct the view of the place the body was hidden.
Starting from the mobilization of the neighbourhood, made in December 22th, with the posters of the “Where is Remis?” campaign, the cornering of the murderer began to take place. In the night of December 23, a denounce pointed at the possible location where the body of our comrade could be. From this information a group of policemen who were not officially responsible for this case arrived in the neighbourhood with the comrades of the Association of Residents and managed to find the place where the body of Remis was. In short time, a team of IML (Legal Medical Institution) and at night the identity of the corpse was confirmed.
One month before, in November 23, comrade Remis had registered an occurrence in the Women’s police station denouncing the aggressions of her ex-boyfriend. As expected, the police authorities attitude was deplorable. They even asked if the marks on her arm were pen tint! The protective measures promised by the Maria da Penha Law once more were not effective. This is a fact that has been repeated numerous times in the whole country in the last years: women denouncing domestic violence, do not get protection an after they are murdered. Another populist law that promises to solve the problem of oppression on women, but that in many cases sharpens the violence situation. We cannot have illusions, this old State will never protect the worker women! Sexual oppression against women is part of the economic base of this capitalist system because the double work journey of female family work represents an important profit amount for the bourgeoisie, who does not feel responsible to pay for the invisible domestic work.
The true emancipation of women will be a work of the proletarian revolution! This year in which we lost Remis, 100 years of the Great October Socialist Revolution is completed. The Russian revolution opened a new era in human history, under the leadership of Lenin and Stalin, the proletarian and peasant women achieved victories never reached before. With the Chinese revolution the industrialization and socialization of domestic work is incredibly advanced. In the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, under the leadership of Chairman Mao and comrade Chiang Ching, the struggle for women emancipation reaches high peaks. This is the path of comrade Remis Carla, in this path we will persist as the only way to keep her memory alive and prevent crimes like this happen again. Even though this is our single strategic perspective we will keep struggling hard for the immediate punishment of crimes like this. We demand punishment but we place our true hope in the justice of the masses and to in this rotten judiciary.
Comrade Remis Carla, Lives in the struggle!
Down with the landlord and bourgeois old State!
Paulo César murderer, you will pay us!
Funeral of Comrade Remís Carla
In December 24, 2017, around 300 people were reunited in the funeral of comrade Remis Carla, to pay homage to her memory in the Paulista Municipal Cemetery in Pernambuco. After an intense campaign to find her, relatives, friends and struggle comrades finally had the right to bury her body and to bid farewell with the corresponding honours of this combative and great comrade.
After the religious ceremony organized by her family, comrade Dr Maria José do Amaral – who struggled with us to find Remis since the beginning with extreme militant dedication and professional competence – took the floor and made a firm denounce to the crimes the old State commits against the poor people as it was in the case of our comrade. She pointed out that were not the State forces who found the body of Remis but the masses through the vigorous campaign made. This is how all the crimes against the sons and daughters of the people are treated, a indifference that do not represent “omission”, but on the contrary, it expresses the very bourgeois and latifundium character of the old Brazilian State.
Next, a comrade from the Revolutionary Popular Student’s Movement and leader of ExNEPe made a forceful speech that began with the question: “Who was Remis Carla?” and answered reporting the militancy and engagement history of Remis in the struggles in defence of the Agrarian Revolution, the rights of the students and the public and free university. She pointed out that comrade Remis was a convict defender of the ideology of the proletariat, marxism-leninism-maoism, of the need of revolutionary violence and the Communist Party to achieve the radical social transformation of our society. Attuned with the feeling of all the ones present, the comrade affirmed this crime will not go unpunished and this was acclaimed by vigorous claps of revolt and indignation.
After this the comrades of the Popular Women’s Movement sang the hymn of MFP, so many times sang by comrade Remis, marching firmly in two columns, with red armlets bearing the hammer and sickle symbol. Followed by the sound of drums and with a big panel, graffitied by Bagaço Collective, bearing the face and the poud glance of our comrade, the hundreds of people heard the hymn – which synthesises the stand of comrade Remis – in solemn silence. Comrade Remis defended revolutionary classism and hated revisionism and bourgeois feminism, because it divides and disrupts the people’s struggle from the path of revolution. Thus, reaffirming the oath that we will keep raising each time higher the red flag of revolution hoisted by comrade Remis, the impressive display touched all who knew and lived with her. Both columns of MFP militants, composed by students and peasants, ended the homage singing Bela Ciao song and with the slogan “serve the people with all our hearts! Shock troops of revolution!” and were followed by dozens of students present, many of whom sang and shouted this song and slogans with Remis in the streets of Recife in the demonstrations of 2013 and against the Fifa spree in 2014.
With the arrival of the body of our comrade to the graveyard the cortejo for the burial had to be immediate, which increased everyone’s anger against the notorious and coward murderer because of hiding her body. After the burial, Bagaço collective and comrades of the Palafita band ended the homages.
After, showing the decision to keep struggling for this crime not to go unpunished, dozens of students, teachers and peasants present went to Joana Bezerra Forum, where a custody audience which would define the immediate arrest or release of the murderer was was arranged. Once more the class character of the old State was revealed, with policeman trying to stop even the lawyer Dr Maria José do Amaral, Remis Carla's struggle comrade, from entering the Forum; so they blocked the access of the rest of the demonstrators. Thanks to the protest we could make the lawyer to enter.
See also
Inside the Forum, Dr Maria José met with Dr Ana Luiza Mousinho, president of the lawyer women’s commission of OAB (Brazil Lawyer’s Order) who was mobilized to follow the case. Élder Tavares, the “irresponsible” sheriff of the case, who was not able to raise a single information that could lead to the arrest of the murderer, stipulated a bail of R$ 30.000,00 for the crime of corpse hiding, the reason of flagrant arrest of Remis's assassin. Facing the firm and acting presence of our two lawyers and the pressure made by the demonstrators outside the Forum, the bail request was rejected by the judge and the preventive arrest os Remis's assassin was decreed.
Facing the revolutionary spirit of comrade Remis Carla, the red homages in her funeral ended with a victorious demonstration. Nothing fairer and that corresponds to the history of our comrade. Comrade Remis, the preventive arrest was only the first justice act; once more we repeat our promise: this crime will not go unpunished!
Comrade Remis Carla, Lives in our struggle!
Down with the landlord and bourgeois old State!
Paulo César murderer, you will pay us!
Popular Women’s Movement
Revolutionary Popular Student’s Movement