Maggie (1:57)

Hell yeah.

Brett (1:59)

Let's talk about something that makes sense, you know, something that makes us feel good, that makes us feel optimistic. Oh, wait, no. We're talking about slavery in Brazil. We're not talking about any of that at all. Maggie, you want to plug anything before we get back into talking about Brazil's slave plantations? Well, Volkswagens in Brazil.

Maggie (2:18)

I mean, I am sorry, excited to get back into talking about that, but in case you need a little bit of a headspace before. Yeah, you can check out my YouTube channel. I do video essays on cultural stuff and film. And then, yeah, over on Nebula, there's a nice little show, Amy's Den and Dream House kids show for adults. Adult topics under the guise of a kid show. We don't, however, cover business practices. So I think we'll cover that here today in the second part of this podcast.

Brett (2:53)

Excellent.

Maggie (2:54)

Maybe just give some advice.

Brett (2:56)

Yeah, we'll be talking a lot about that. And weirdly, I mean, we just started talking about the strange bedfellows that politics make. But like, one of the good guys in this is the Catholic Church, or at least a Catholic priest, which doesn't happen often on this show, but it does happen more when we're talking about Latin America. You know, that's true. So we've got some liberation theology, guys. So our Catholic listeners, this is what you get to feel good about. Congratulations.

Maggie (3:21)

You get one. You get one.

Brett (3:24)

You get one. Every now and then we have a good priest who comes in. Usually when we bring up the Catholic Church on the podcast about bad people, it's a dark story. But not today. Not today, folks.

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Brett (3:50)

Nether regions because I. I read that you're supposed to get sun not only.

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I was gonna say. Is it cheeks open? It's cheeks open all the way wide.

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Uh huh. Who's holding them? Enough of that nonsense. Now listen to High key on the.

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Ah, come on. Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient.

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Brett (6:01)

When the military juntas started putting out feelers to multinational corporations, seeing who might be interested in investing in the Brazilian economy, VW executives weren't just going along with the flow. They were eager supporters of the military dictatorship. And after the former left leaning president was forced out, directors at Volkswagen were quoted as describing what had happened as the restoration of a rational political order. Oh, thank God we got rid of those democratically elected guys. You know, some dudes with guns coming in as Germans, we feel really confident that this is going to end well.

Maggie (6:33)

Yes, I feel safe now amongst my people.

Brett (6:38)

Yeah, I mean, again, these are guys. We're talking the 60s and 70s here. So anybody who's over like 40 or 50, you know what their background was. Right.

Maggie (6:47)

Like, wow. Doing that now.

Brett (6:49)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of the people who are running this company. Not great backstories, you know. Now the irrational thing, when they talk about the dictatorship restoring irrational political order, what they're saying is irrational is the idea that the government of a country that Volkswagen might have profit interest in would have any other priorities beyond maximizing the amount of money that multinational corporations could take out of the country. Right. A write up by the Organization for World Peace summarizes the reaction of members of the VW board to these changes. Volkswagen board member Friedrich Wilhelm Schultz Wenk rejoiced when secret police arrested trade union leaders on factory premises. In so doing, he endorsed a regime that perceived its own citizens as mindless autonatons, that committed widespread torture, that ran hidden concentration camps to repress uncooperative indigenous tribes and precipitated the environmental destruction of the Amazon. Who? Guy Friedrich Wilhelm Schultz Wenk. Huzzah. The secret police have arrested union organizers. Woo hoo. Yeah, the Nazis didn't go away. They just moved around a little bit. They shuffled. You know, there's a good chumbawamba song about that. There is now, as I noted earlier, Volkswagen was participating in a wider system embraced by the military junta and a lot of foreign corporations that had a profit interest in Brazil, which is a large country. There's always been a lot of money in selling to and utilizing Brazil's natural resources. That OWP write up lists other corporations like Mitsubishi, Nestle, Goodyear, Swift, Bamarindas and Anderson Clayton as all investing in Brazil during this period at the express request of the military dictatorship. The whole reason these companies wanted to work in Brazil is because the junta would let you tear apart the Amazon, which climate scientists generally consider to be the lungs of the world, for quick profit. Yes. And because labor unions and the rights of workers were among the first things cracked down on by the dictatorship, there was no oversight for how your workers were treated. So you could really turn a profit doing this. Right. As long as you didn't care about how certain people were treated. Right.

Maggie (9:02)

And we don't.

Brett (9:04)

Yeah. I mean, obviously nothing like this has ever happened before or since. This is the only time this happened. Just in Brazil, Just these companies, of course. So from 1974 to 1986, Volkswagen operated their Para state farm through a local subsidiary and tried to generate a profit from ranching and logging. It's unclear to me how many workers were victimized during the span of time. Court filings have since indicated at least 300 people were hired through what were known as irregular contracts. Some sources I found put the real number at close to a thousand people. One of the only ways to escape was through contracting malaria or some other serious illness. And this was not always a way to escape, but sometimes you could get out because they just didn't want to deal with you. There was no real medical care for workers beyond the most basic treatment of wounds. And sometimes you couldn't even count on that, depending on when and where it happened. It was uncommon in some cases for workers to have any kind of medical treatment for even those basic injuries. People on the edge of death might be allowed to leave, but it was at least as common for them to be worked to death and disposed of. A 2024 article for the Intercept describes what was found at one graveyard for enslaved laborers. Some of the bones were full of strings, as if the person had been tied up before they died, says Giselda Pereira, national director of the MST Landless Workers Movement's production sector. The crimes, however, were never properly investigated. It was a very common logic to put the person to work, and then when she made some charge, they sent her away and eliminated her on the way. Explain. The sister of one such worker, Isabel Rodriguez, a pedagogue and farmer who has been working at the MST for 35 years. And this is something you'll hear a lot, specifically with Volkswagen's workers, that a lot of these people, they're not just worked to death and buried. Some of them were strung up. This is a punishment when, like, workers would refuse to work, when they would try to escape if they would get caught, if they would resist in any way, the Gatos, they would be strung up and sometimes hung until dead, you know, as a way to make sure everyone else kept working.

Maggie (11:07)

Right, right, right, right.

Brett (11:09)

Yeah.

Maggie (11:09)

There's many parallels to, you know, a lot of the fishing industry. They also, you know, trap people out on a boat and tenuous contracts that they can't fulfill. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brett (11:23)

These are the kind of things there's no oversight. Any sort of, like, unionizing, any sort of, like, workers rights has been utterly cracked down on by the regime, which is part of what's appealing to Volkswagen. Right. Is that they can just have these contractors do whatever. As far as they're concerned. There's no one policing how they treat these people, right? As that previous quote said, they're not looking at these workers as human beings. These are automatons. They're robots. You plug them in, you work them until they break, and then you throw them away. And if one of them isn't working right, you string them up as an example to the others, you know, rich.

Maggie (11:55)

And there's still no cars, being.

Brett (11:58)

They're not making cars.

Maggie (12:00)

They're not making cars.

Brett (12:01)

They're clearing. They're clear. Cutting forests for cows.

Maggie (12:04)

Right, right, right.

Brett (12:06)

This isn't even in your wheelhouse. Vw. What the fuck?

Maggie (12:09)

Just need that to sink in.

Brett (12:11)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This would be like if Cool Zone Media started a cattle farm in Brazil. It's like, this is so far outside of our wheelhouse. Like, why. Why are you even for the first. Like, even outside of the ethical stuff, why are you in this business?

Ad Voice 3 (12:26)

Yeah.

Brett (12:27)

The answer is they thought they'd make a buck. They didn't. Because labor rights and organizing had been so comprehensively shattered by the military junta, the first outside entity to look into the horrifying situation at Volkswagen's farm was a Catholic priest named Ricardo Rezende. As a new priest and a young man he was stationed at a diocese in the Para state, relatively close to the Volkswagen ranch. He was made the regional coordinator for the Bishops conference Land pastoral commission, or CPT, which was formed in 1975 to support peasants and rural workers. Now it would be fair to say that like the cpt, it's a good attempt, but it's kind of like a band aid on an arterial wound. Right. But this is also the only kind of oversight for poor workers that exists. During the military dictatorship. Unionizing has effectively been like. I mean, people are being put in secret concentration camps for like being labor organizers. Right. But you can't do that to the Catholic Church. I mean, you can't. Obviously some priests and nuns throughout Latin America who are part of the same liberation theology, which we'll talk about thing as Rezinde are killed, are assassinated. But you can't whole scale if you're the military juntu, you can't just go after the Catholic Church whole hog. Right. Like that is a bridge too far. Cause everyone's Catholic basically. Right?

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Brett (13:50)

Like if you do that, you are going to get in. It's the same problem the Nazis had, right. Where they didn't like the Catholic Church, Himmler especially saw it as an enemy, but they had to co opt and work with it. Because you can't just ban Catholicism in Germany. Like that is going to get you in trouble. Like, even the Nazis didn't feel like they had enough of a handle on things to do that.

Maggie (14:10)

Yeah, it's the Civ 6, you know.

Brett (14:13)

Right, yeah, right, right, right. You have to care somewhat about how much you're pissing these people off because these are kind of. These are the people who are real people in your state. Right. And so we can argue that like this Land Pastoral Commission, it's not like enough. There should have been much more here. But Rezende and his diocese get a lot of credit because they are the only people who can really do something right. Because they have some ability to operate under the junta without getting just completely annihilated. And it would be fair to say again, while this is not on its own a sufficient thing in order to replace what's been lost in the crackdown on workers rights. Father Rezende is a pretty admirable person in all of this, I think, and he is unusually dedicated to the spirit of his work. As I noted earlier, Rezende was a follower of what's known as liberation theology. This was at the time a new creed that was particularly common in the Latin American segments of the Catholic Church and was dedicated to a broad support for emancipation from every kind of oppression. Right. And Rosende personally considered the fight against forced labor a sacred calling. Right. This was a religious duty to him, which is good. And he made it known publicly that his office would investigate all serious allegations that people were being forced to work. Rozinde gets moved into this program in 1975, and he first starts hearing allegations that Volkswagen has a plantation in the Amazon and people are being enslaved there's in 1977, two years later, okay? The very first claims come from a union organizer named Natal Ribeiro who said that he had been hired by, I think he was a former union organizer, but he goes to Resende and says that, you know, I was hired by these gatos and they forced to pay me for my work. And he tells Resende that, like, yeah, there's a farm out there. It's guarded by people he described as professional pistoliros. These are just, you know, gunmen, right? And that they were abusing workers, that there were hundreds of people who weren't being allowed to leave, were being held at gunpoint. So Rozinde hears about this in 77, but all he's got is this one guy's claim. He doesn't have hard evidence. He doesn't have, like, anything he can really go to the state with. And this is something where if you kind of go off half cocked on this when you've just got this one. And this is a union organizer, so it's not someone that, like, the government's gonna take super seriously if you just go off immediately. Right, Exactly. Exactly.

Maggie (16:38)

Yeah. They'll kill him. They'll.

Brett (16:40)

Yeah, right. Or they'll clean up their act enough that nothing else will get out. Right? So he, Rezinde, he does the hard thing, which is he keeps digging, he keeps trying to collect accounts. He doesn't give up on this. But he doesn't immediately pull the trigger on it too, because he's trying to see, like, can I get enough that I can make an unimpeachable case. He gets a major shot in the arm to his efforts in 1981 when he meets his first escapee from the ranch, Edevan Alencar, who told him, quote, a man tried to flee and was caught by Chico, who's one of these gatos. Chico beat him with a beam. So this is his first. He's talked to this one guy who had formerly worked there. Then he talks to another guy who was like, outright enslaved and had some direct stories about being tortured by these guards. So he's kind of slowly starting to build this basis of accounts on what had happened.

Maggie (17:32)

Right.

Brett (17:33)

Alencar would go on to provide extensive testimony both to the state and to journalists with several publications, including the Washington Post. He accused Chico and his men of beating and disappearing laborers. And in one instance, he claims to have seen Chico and other Gatos burn down a parcel of forest filled with workers who he believes were burnt to death. These men were still working at the time and they may have just been murdered to save the Gatos. The risk of freeing them. Right. That they were going to be like moving on. And it kind of sounds like it was a situation where they were like, we don't have anything to do with these folks, but if we let them go, they'll spread more stories. What if we just light them on fire and burn down a chunk of the Amazon?

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That one. Let's do that one.

Brett (18:15)

Right, Right. It's a perfect ad for Volkswagen right here. Yeah, Volkswagen. The hottest cars. And that's. You know what? Forget I said that. Here's some ads. Wow.

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Brett (22:07)

We're back. So Rozende is increasingly building up his kind of account of what's been happening in this slave plantation. And as he talks to more and more people, his investigation reveals these kind of patchy and incomplete stories that nonetheless paint a pretty bitter picture. Workers were being kept dozens of miles away from the main Volkswagen compound. They bedded under clear plastic sheets and they drank unfiltered water, he wrote in 1981 of one woman who managed to flee. They fled through the forest, because if they'd taken the road, the Gatos would have killed them. They walked 155km. Now, by 81, he's got been doing this for three or four years. He wants to take action. He wants to stop this. But the political situation at the time makes that impossible. And Rezende is only able to get away with anything at all. Cause he's a representative of the church. And even so, he starts being surveilled by the dictatorship, okay? He's labeled a communist sympathizer and a subversive. And the first witnesses he meets, this isn't enough for him to really go on yet, even four years in. So it's not until early 1983 that this really gets blown open for him. He gets approached by a group of young men who'd been hired to work clearing land owned by Volkswagen. These kids had all been part of a local soccer league in their hometown. Oh, my God. And one day, a friend of theirs comes in. He's like, hey, guys. Hey, buddies. This guy's been out for a while. He's like, I'm looking for men to do some contract work down south. It pays great. It's a good job. Rezende would write, quote, among the five workers who fled the farm, three were only 17. They were lured to work there not only because of a promised payment, but also because they were told that they would be able to play soccer there.

Maggie (23:50)

Ribbert.

Brett (23:51)

Oh, yeah, soccer. You'll basically just be playing soccer the whole time, you know?

Maggie (23:56)

Oh, my God.

Brett (23:58)

Who wouldn't want to get paid to play soccer?

Maggie (24:00)

This is so sadistic.

Brett (24:03)

I will say, on the main Volkswagen ranch, there was a soccer field. But laborers like this, the people who are being enslaved to clear land, they're not allowed on that compound facility, right?

Maggie (24:16)

They're not even near it, necessarily.

Brett (24:19)

No, they're miles away. As we'll talk about, there are some really nice facilities for regular employees who are, like, managing this cattle farm. It's a pretty good job for those people. It's the folks doing this backbreaking labor in the jungle that are, you know, being treated this way. And so they don't have access to the soccer field. Now, within the main body of the camp, which is a mix of there's some skilled local workers and there's a lot of foreign employees, right? There's German, there's Swiss. You know, there's a lot of people who have been brought in for their skills. And these men and their families enjoyed a high quality of life. There were gardens. There were paved roads. There were proper brick houses. There was a school for children of workers. There was a club, a restaurant and a bar as well as a pool. Now, the kids who had escaped, these 17 year olds who flee home to fucking make some money and play soccer, they tell Father Azende that they didn't have access to any of that stuff. They had been sold to a gato named Chico. This is our second time hearing about Chico. Right? This is the guy who burnt down a forest with people in it.

Maggie (25:20)

He gets around, right?

Brett (25:21)

Yeah. Chico's a busy man. And Chico made them work in a forest labor camp under a coterie of armed men. One of the kids died of malnutrition and malaria. Another was shot in the leg trying to escape. A woman who worked with them was raped when her husband escaped without her.

Maggie (25:38)

Oh my God.

Brett (25:39)

On one occasion, one of the boys found a dead man in the forest who had been strung up and beaten to death. Again, these are 17 year olds. Now, these kids do escape eventually, right? They weren't allowed to. This is something that they. They kind of managed to make it out on their own because they. They're in debt, right? The gato says that they owe money. And the way they're able to finally get out is they convince him that they've been conscripted by the military. So in other words, they only got out of forced labor by convincing their bosses that the state wanted to force them to work for the military. Right, Right, right. Like you'll get in trouble if you keep us. Right. We're expected, you know, like that's how fucked up the situation is for these kids.

Maggie (26:22)

That is so brave of them to do.

Brett (26:26)

They, yeah, they.

Maggie (26:27)

They go. They try to go above him and it works.

Brett (26:30)

Wow. Yeah. They're smart kids. Yeah. So these kids get out and they're. They are. This is kind of what blows the case open for Father Resende, Right. He's got these five kids who have like this just really hideously grave accounts and they're willing to like, talk under their own names about what's happened. They're naming specific people. Like, this is kind of what he'd been waiting for the whole time.

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Brett (26:52)

And the boys told Father Azende that they expected at least 600 laborers were still stuck clearing land and working as slaves. The priest, horrified, tried to schedule a meeting with Yader Barbelo, who was the state governor of the Para State. And Rezende is refused initially, but this does not dissuade him from pursuing the truth. So the father flies to Brasilia with one of the escaped kids and he goes to the media and he gives a press conference in a place that the junta couldn't ignore. The National Bishops Conference of Brazil. The next day, newspapers featured the headline, priest says there are slaves on Volkswagen farm. Right? So he takes this kid out in front and is like, they can't crack down on a bishops conference and they'll have to pay attention to fight. And this is a brave move. He's putting himself in danger, and this kid is putting himself in danger to do this. But it works. Part of why it works is that the German media picks up the story. You know, the Brazilian media is very much under control of the regime, but Volkswagen's a German company and Germany has a free press. And the German free press are like, hey, vw, this sounds pretty bad.

Maggie (28:02)

Sounds familiar.

Brett (28:03)

And bad as Germans, we're kind of, we're kind of sensitive about slave labor allegations. What's going on down there? Now, VW denies everything, of course, but they couldn't entirely ignore what had come out. So they decided to authorize a fact finding mission to, quote, shed light on the truth. This is like the standard playbook of like, oh, well, this is definitely not true. But just to make sure, you know, everybody knows how not true it is, we're gonna, we'll send a fact finding mission. We'll get these.

Maggie (28:38)

We'll send them. Yeah, right, we got it. Don't worry.

Brett (28:41)

Yeah, come over here, Father. We'll take care of this. You know, we'll get you up with some local politicians, we'll take you to the, our ranch and you can see how nice it really is, right?

Maggie (28:51)

Uh huh.

Brett (28:52)

So Volkswagen invites a bunch of their critics to visit the ranch and see what they claimed was the reality. One of the men selected for this delegation was Sao Paulo state lawmaker Expedito Batista. Now, he had actually worked in a Volkswagen factory previously and was likely invited by the company executives because they were like, well, this guy's a former employee, he'll be sympathetic to us, right? This proved to be a miscalculation. Batista told OSV News, a local publication, quote, they just wanted to show me the modern buildings they had recently built there. But I asked for a truck that could take me to a nearby city where I would meet with Father Rezende and the local labor union leader. The vehicle had to take a road that was not part of the visit planned by Volkswagen. That's when Batista saw a farm truck carrying some people and Asked for it to be stopped. And this is Batista. A worker had his arms tied and was being taken by a labor contractor known as Abilau. I ordered them to immediately release the man. Abilau argued that the worker was trying to escape the farm, but that he was in debt with it, so they had to get him back.

Maggie (29:53)

So they just say it, Right.

Brett (29:56)

Well, we got. We can't let him just have work for us for free, you know, like, he's gotta pay to work for us, obviously, but this guy's obviously been beaten and is clearly being taken against his will to work. Like they've just stumbled, this delegation. Volkswagen brings them in to impress them with how nice the main facility is. And this guy drives and grabs the priest. And on their way back, they just stumble upon proof of forced labor.

Maggie (30:25)

That is wild. I said take the other road. I said go the other way around.

Brett (30:30)

Fuck.

Maggie (30:31)

Fuck.

Brett (30:31)

We should have had him take the bus, God damn it. Yeah, this is like a Jurassic park problem, but instead of the raptors getting loose, it's this Gatos out of pocket and forcibly hauling a man back in chains. It's a lot like Jurassic Park.

Maggie (30:49)

It is. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brett (30:51)

So now you've got not just these eyewitness accounts, but now credible members of, like, this fact finding mission.

Maggie (30:59)

Yeah. That they brought. That they brought here.

Brett (31:02)

So a member of the clergy and elected leaders have seen this going on. Right. This is like the worst case scenario for vw, because you have pretty hard evidence now. Yeah. So the investigatory team, which now has the Father with them, heads back to the ranch and they do the original meeting that they'd been scheduled at have they meet with Volkswagen's corporate PR manager for Brazil, a guy named Paulo de Castro. And they meet with the ranch's director, Friedrich Brugger, who was a Swiss national. From an article in the Washington Post. Quote, he touted its commitment to social service, according to an account by a reporter who accompanied the delegation, saying the farm's 328 direct employees and their families had it great discounted food, free medical care, quality schooling. The delegation, Rezende said, was not permitted to visit the deforestation camps. One day, though, one of its laborers managed to find them. He went straight to the priest and touched his arm. The man's hand was hot with fever. You have to save me, the priest recorded him saying. Save you from what? I've worked here for nine months and I can't leave. The man said, I have malaria and I am sick, Padre. I want to leave. So that's again, pretty bad. This is how, like they can't even keep a lid on this thing the least bit. As soon as these guys show up, they just start stumbling into evidence of crimes against humanity.

Maggie (32:20)

Honestly, pretty incredible. Like very.

Brett (32:23)

Yeah.

Maggie (32:24)

They made the wrong pot and kettle and invited everyone to tea. Time to partake.

Brett (32:29)

Yeah.

Maggie (32:30)

Wow.

Brett (32:30)

No, they wouldn't notice anything. We'll show them how nice our basketball court is. Look at this club. Look at how good the food is here. They're not going to notice the sick people begging them to die. So the father goes to Brugger, who's this Swiss dude running the ranch, and he says, he tells him there's a problem, you're hiding something. And Brugger says, this isn't my problem. And he tells them it's the Gatto's problem. Right. I got nothing to do with this. Uh huh. I'm only responsible for these workers who are being treated well because these guys are actual employees of the Volkswagen subsidiary. I can't. How could I possibly expect to know what's happening 10 miles away with the guys that I'm paying to make other guys work for them? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Maggie (33:09)

I want to get into the detail, you know, when you get granular like that, Obviously.

Brett (33:14)

Yeah, right, obviously. Yeah, yeah. How much can you expect me to do? You know, I'm sitting here, I'm in the jungle, I'm pretending not to hear the screams. Nothing else is my job, obviously.

Maggie (33:24)

Right. I also love the Catholic priest being. I know a liar. I know many liars and I can see that in you.

Brett (33:34)

Yeah. Like I. I'm a Catholic priest. Like I have met, I have met better liars than you. Like, it's kind of my job.

Maggie (33:42)

Yes, yes.

Brett (33:43)

Yeah.

Maggie (33:43)

You're hiding something and I want to know. Yeah.

Brett (33:48)

So on their way out of the area, the delegation actually runs into one of the gatos, this guy. We talked about him a little bit earlier to Abilau, who was driving back into camp in his Chevy truck, quote, wearing a cross necklace and a cowboy hat, which really must have pissed off the father. Like you're wearing a fucking cross while you're. Come on, man, in a Chevy, take it off to do the slavery stuff.

Maggie (34:13)

At least it feels like it's on purpose at this point. Yeah, he's mocking them.

Brett (34:17)

Right, right. Like, yeah, I feel kind like you're just insulting the faith here. So they run into this guy Abalau, who's driving back to camp, he's got his crosses, cowboy hat on, and Rezende questions him about the Mistreatment of the workers. And the Gato's like, I don't use violence, I just use energy to keep my workers in line. Right? Just energy, you know, kinetic energy.

Maggie (34:39)

Energy like jazz hands.

Brett (34:41)

It's not hitting, it's kinetic energy. Yeah.

Maggie (34:43)

Oh yeah.

Brett (34:45)

He insisted, quote, they're nasty goats and vagabonds that take my money then disappear into the forest. And he bragged that just 16 out of 408 workers on the ranch had fled and gotten away that year. One unsuccessful fugitive was in the back of his truck when the investigators found it. Abilau insisted the man had been eating more than he could afford and thus couldn't be freed again. Nah, he's eating too much. We can't just let this guy go, right?

Maggie (35:11)

We can't let this man be eating and sinning him. No, right.

Brett (35:17)

This is a lot that they found. And the delegation, they put together enough info on this trip that it forces the state police to open an investigation. So police officers come in and they talk with laborers, they talk with the Gatos, with Volkswagen contractors, and they make a report which they say into the state security chief. And the state security chief writes a letter to the governor in late 1983 which concluded that the Gatos quote, treat their contracted workers like slaves.

Maggie (35:45)

Wow.

Brett (35:46)

Yeah, so that's, that's good. That's pretty, pretty direct.

Ad Voice 7 (35:48)

Yeah.

Brett (35:49)

Huh?

Maggie (35:50)

Uh huh.

Brett (35:50)

The security chief is a guy named Arnaldo Filho, who concluded that VW wasn't directly guilty of any criminal action, but that it had responsibility for what had happened by omission. And he says, quote, it's impossible that everything investigated inside the limits of its property occurred without any knowledge or action on its part. And I might say so why isn't he responsible? Why doesn't he have any responsibility here? Right. Like that kind of seems like you're responsible if you like, knew what was happening and the resources to have stopped it and you chose not to.

Maggie (36:26)

Yes, but yeah, it seems a little more active than. Yeah, just not, you know, not disclosing. Uh huh.

Brett (36:34)

It seems like pretty damning to me. But, you know, I'm not an expert on Brazilian law, so I suspect this is just partly one of those things where it's like, it's probably a mix of corruption and also, well, if I go too far, they might sue me. And he's kind of a little bit of a coward. I don't know. That's kind of my interpretation of it is he doesn't want to like, go too far, you know, and maybe get out of pocket here. But yeah, that's partly me kind of guessing, parsing, drawing that out, right? Yeah, yeah, I think that's like a fair conclusion here. So several weeks after this all happens, the Father gathers with a group of bishops in the state capitol, along with the governor who we talked about earlier, Barbelo. And Barbelo makes a public statement during this gathering that his office is now looking into the case, which would be referred, once he makes a conclusion, to the federal prosecutor's office. So he's like, hey, I'm taking this seriously. Once my people come to a conclusion, we will send this up the ladder so it can be prosecuted, you know, at the highest possible level. And this was a lie. I think it was just a delaying tactic.

Maggie (37:42)

Okay, you said it. So, uh huh, like you really meant it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brett (37:48)

They don't do shit. A full year later, the ranch is still operating and no action has been taken against VW or her subsidiaries. There's no evidence that he had his office refer anything to the federal prosecutor's office. I think he just did this to buy time.

Maggie (38:03)

Yeah, or he forgot about it. Maybe he forgot.

Brett (38:06)

Or he forgot about it. He's a busy man, you know. Right, right, right, right. Look, you can't, you can't keep track of all of the slavery happening in your state. Right. Like that. Just obviously an unreasonable ask.

Maggie (38:19)

There's so many trees to cut down. That's just one. But part of it all that I gotta cut.

Brett (38:24)

Yeah, yeah. People can hide in forests. People can hide. Burning people to death in a forest, you know, it's just too much work for one man and all of his employees. So In August of 1984, there's another delegation sent to the ranch. A group of state labor officials visit, and they conclude that nothing meaningful has changed, that there's been no improvement in conditions, that workers are still basically being treated as slaves by the Gatos. And they further conclude that Volkswagen's ranch was, quote, a snapshot of all the other farms in the region where humble and illiterate laborers were easy prey for unscrupulous recruiters eyeing profits, often with the complacency of the farm's owners. Still, nothing gets done. No further steps are taken. By this point, the governor has moved on from being the governor to the Senate, which is probably why he never referred the case to the state at all. He was delaying because he was like, I'm not gonna have this job. I don't need this heat. I'm just going to like, wait until I can Go do something else.

Maggie (39:22)

The shuffle, the Nazi shuffle. He's doing that into a new.

Brett (39:24)

Yeah, the Nazi shuffle. Yeah. Years later he's asked like, hey, why didn't you do anything about this? And he's like, I don't remember this at all. You're saying I said something? I promised to refer people to prosecute something that doesn't sound like me.

Maggie (39:36)

Oh, he did forget. He forgot my job.

Brett (39:40)

No. Yeah. Now it must have been some other governor. So two months after this, 1984, this is the second delegation to visit the ranch. State police finally arrest one of the Gatos Abilau after investigations on two separate farms unrelated to the Volkswagen farm, turned up another 107 enslaved workers working for this guy. The report named that other Gato Chico, who'd provided workers for Volkswagen's farm too. But they couldn't find him to prosecute.

Maggie (40:08)

Oh, I remember, right.

Brett (40:09)

So these guys, one of them is now being prosecuted, the other they just can't find interest in. The case dies down after this. Chico is investigated again two years later, in July of 1986, under suspicion of trafficking workers in a nearby region. But again, nothing comes of the investigation. By 1986, Volkswagen is kind of looking at their balance sheet and they're like, this isn't making us any money. Right. And it never really does. This is not a profitable enterprise. I kind of think the point was never for it to be super profitable. They would have liked that. I think the point is Volkswagen's in business in Brazil and the military junta wants companies doing stuff like this. So I think there's a large portion of where their interest in this is less the money it makes directly and more the relationship it helps them build with the dictatorship. That's kind of my interpretation here.

Maggie (41:01)

Right, Right. Yeah, it's like it's, you know, being paid in exposure via many people's lives and livelihoods.

Brett (41:07)

Right? That's exactly it.

Maggie (41:09)

Yeah.

Brett (41:09)

Yeah. Speaking of paid and exposure, we're not paid in exposure, we're paid by our advertisers. And let's hear from them now. Foreign.

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Brett (44:55)

And we're back. So in 1986, Volkswagen closes down their operation. They sell off their assets. They are cutting bait in 86. Yeah, 86.

Ad Voice 3 (45:06)

Okay.

Brett (45:06)

This does not mean the workers who'd been enslaved there get freed. Right? Because these guys are property of the Gatos, who still considered these men indebted to them. So the ranch workforce is sold. And this is very much a chattel slavery moment where to try to get as much money as they can out of this. These Gatos are splitting up their labor force, in some cases splitting up family members in order to auction workers off to the highest bidder.

Maggie (45:31)

In 86, I just like orienting myself.

Brett (45:34)

In 86, they're splitting up families in a slave auction to get rid of these Volkswagen fucking laborers.

Maggie (45:42)

For no profit.

Brett (45:43)

Yeah, for. Yeah, I mean, Volkswagen isn't making. The Gatos are making bank. Don't get me wrong here.

Maggie (45:47)

Well, at least somebody.

Brett (45:48)

Yeah, fine. Yeah, yeah. At least one worker. Raul is separated from his brothers. He later told the Washington Post, I can still see my brothers being put on the back of a truck and taken away from me. Per the Post's reporting quote, Raul said he spent the next four months captive until a farmer helped him escape. He found his way back home to his brothers, who had also managed to flee. But Raul discovered that his younger brother was not the same. Over the years, his brother receded further into his trauma. Today, he no longer speaks. He only nods and sways. Oh, my God, that's great. Good stuff. Wow. All worth it for beef, killing the rainforest.

Maggie (46:26)

Did they even get to the cows part of all this? Or did they just.

Brett (46:31)

They've got cows. It's just not very profitable compared to how much it costs. Yeah. The real reason they're doing this is because it makes the government more inclined to give them VW other things they want. I don't think Volkswagen's primary interest is directly profiting from this.

Maggie (46:45)

Right, right.

Brett (46:48)

So for decades after the ranch closed his doors, the father continued to collect accounts of former enslaved laborers. He eventually documents 69 alleged victims whose stories range from 1977 to 1987. Here are some relevant examples from the document he puts together. Quote, we worked Monday to Monday, often without eating. One man said, they promised to kill us. Another laborer, Jose Da Silvia, 29, of Annapolis, says they stomped on a laborer, broke his teeth, brought him to the hospital, and put him back to work in the jungle.

Maggie (47:21)

Oh, my God.

Brett (47:21)

Yeah. Three men made an account in 1989 after escaping and told Rezende, quote, they tied up a man and beat him in the forest, leaving him naked there. Another survivor, Edevan Dias Alencar, told the priest, they have a cave where they kill people and throw the bodies in.

Maggie (47:40)

Oh, my God.

Brett (47:42)

Cool stuff. Yeah. Volkswagen.

Ad Voice 5 (47:45)

Wow.

Maggie (47:46)

New Beetle driving you wild.

Brett (47:48)

Volkswagen. We got a cave for corpses. Yeah, we got a cave.

Ad Voice 3 (47:52)

Woo.

Brett (47:53)

Look here at Volkswagen. We know that people are concerned about our history and the slave laborers that. That were mass murdered in concentration camps in Europe, and we promise that'll never happen again. We have a cave for the corpses now.

Maggie (48:08)

You know, wine cave. It's the same thing, but for bodies.

Brett (48:12)

We're learning, we're growing.

Maggie (48:14)

Yes.

Brett (48:14)

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So much better than a death camp. I mean, my God, a death cave. Come on.

Maggie (48:22)

It's a roof. It's got a roof.

Brett (48:23)

It's got a roof. It is a roof. So the father documented everything he could. But again, even after this branch closes, he has very little hope that any punitive action would ever be taken. And it almost doesn't. It's not until late 2019 that a state prosecutor in Brazil reopened an investigation on the federal slave labor division into what had happened at Volkswagen's ranch. And he engages Rezende, who had to spend weeks traveling around rural communities, finding witnesses who would be able to come back on the record and talk again about what they'd endured. Right. They need to have people who are willing to, like, show up in court and talk about it. A lot of these people died at this point. This is a difficult effort for a man who's not young. You know, this priest is not a young man anymore, and he's got to really go around and find these people, pull them out of, you know, obscurity so that they can attempt to force some sort of accountability.

Maggie (49:19)

Right.

Brett (49:19)

And they are somewhat successful here. The case does not move rapidly. Again, I said it starts in 2019, and in 2022, they finally wind up in court, and a lot of these survivors have a chance to testify. Now, Volkswagen had been in the process they had just been negotiating and admitted wrongdoing. And like, working with the military junta, like, this is a thing that had happened not long before that. But they're not willing to admit that they had anything to do with these slave labor, plantation, or anything to do with, like, the work of these gatos. They gave up after months of negotiations with the Labor Ministry and refused to pay $30 million in reparations demanded by the government for their past collaborations. In 2020, the company had signed a conduct adjustment agreement with the public Prosecutor's office, acknowledging that it had supported the regime in several human rights violations. But admitting to the enslavement of laborers on their isolated ranch was a bridge too far. The case finally comes to trial in 2025. Like, they're starting. There's some testimony and whatnot, but, like, it doesn't shake out until this year. This is all reaching its conclusion very recently. This is.

Maggie (50:30)

Yeah, the evils are usually described. They are evils, but. And often, you know, there are echoes we're feeling now. But this is. This is now.

Brett (50:41)

Yeah, this is right now that this is coming to some kind of conclusion.

Maggie (50:44)

This is right now.

Brett (50:46)

Quote from the Post Wow. The first person to testify was Volkswagen's representative, Jose Tiro. He said that the company didn't monitor human rights as rigidly in those days, but that it had investigated the allegations at the time and didn't identify any irregularity. Then, one by one, the laborers came to the stand. We were sold, said Raul Batista d'. Souza. We slept under a black plastic sheet, said Pedro Vasconcelos. They were all armed. We had to work, said Jose Viana Nunes. Finally, Rezende, who'd come from across the country, rose to testify. The priest hadn't slept much the night before and had woken angry. How could they have permitted this crime? He'd vented that morning and continued to have permitted it. The court ultimately ruled against Volkswagen, ordering them to pay 165 million BRL for collective moral damages. Volkswagen still denies any wrongdoing. And last I said, are appealing the case. And for an example of, like, how hideously company officials have refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing. There's a very good article by DW Deutsche, well, which is like a German publication by Astrid de Oliveira. Brazilian prosecutors summoned VW over slavery allegations. This is from 2022, quote, the Swiss agronomist and former manager of the cattle farm in Santana de Aragua, Friedrich Brugger. This is the guy we talked about earlier. This is like the dude that met with Resende, when the delegation showed up, describes the allegations that VW engaged in modern slavery as complete nonsense. As if there were nothing more important today than improving the past. He told a reporter.

Maggie (52:21)

Oh, yeah, like, it's.

Brett (52:23)

It's. It's. It's pretty hideous. He says the responsibility of a company ends somewhere when there are over a thousand men in one room. Things aren't always gentle. That's obvious, especially in the middle of a jungle. The issue is that stuff that's happening in a room.

Maggie (52:38)

For one thing, you were clearing the trees. It wasn't in the middle of the jungle. It was a. It was a field with cows.

Brett (52:45)

It was the jungle, man. Like, yeah, like, it's. It's so fucked up. Like, the. This fucking guy Ruger needs to. I mean, he needs to be locked up in a fucking cage somewhere. Yeah. These are the kind of things that people really need to pay for more often. Like the. The fact that. That 2001 law in Brazil, where they're like, we can take all of your assets if we find you holding slaves. Like, that's a good start, but they need to go. Like, especially Germany needs to go further for guys like this. There's another really infuriating quote from this motherfucker from a Washington Post article that I just have to read to you. Healings. The brutality that happened, of course, doesn't surprise me at all. The Brazilian is a bad person, he said in the 2017 interview with a German reporter. He blamed the laborers for their own debts and defended the Gato's alleged use of violence to keep a crowd under control. They have to show a certain amount of strength, man. I mean, he's Swiss, but still not beating the Nazi allegations. My man. Holy shit, dude.

Maggie (53:48)

Wow.

Brett (53:51)

So that's cool, you know, and that's. That's more or less where we are. The court ruled against Volkswagen. They are appealing. They have not admitted wrongdoing as of yet.

Maggie (54:00)

Right.

Brett (54:00)

In 2016, as part of their long reconciliation effort, Volkswagen engaged, at the urging of the Brazilian state, the car company hired a historian named Christopher Culper to write a report on the company's activities during the dictatorship. And this is, as I said, they're not copying to the slavery. They did admit in 2020 to having worked to, like, punish and put in concentration camps and whatnot, like, labor organizers. Like, they help the Brazilian state prosecute labor organizers, often viciously. And they admitted to that. Right. They haven't admitted to this, but as a part of that other reconciliation effort, they bring in this historian and Copper. He writes a good report. He's not quite willing to say, yeah, they definitely enslaved people. He says that in like a more academic kind of less, less legally actionable term. Volkswagen strictly monitored operations, pasture cleaning, fencing, deforestation, all done under slave conditions. Contractors were only paid once the work was in order. The company couldn't not know how laborers were treated. Ignorance is not credible. It's absolutely impossible. As the ranch was orderly and efficiently run, workers were surveilled at all times by armed security who weren't directly employed by the automaker, but were following a set of directives established by vw. Managers later talked their way out of trouble by emphasizing they were not responsible for the treatment of laborers employed by the subcontractors. Even as they bragged to the media that full time workers employed directly by VW lived very well by local standards. Volkswagen farm managers were certainly aware of the realities of the rural labor market, the exploitative practices of the Gados, and the treatment of the itinerant labor force. As second class, these men got no reliable shelter, no sanitation, no proper medical care. Instead of fixing this, management kept supporting the Gatos. His ultimate conclusion is that while Volkswagen never gave the orders to enslave or abuse workers, it, quote, took no action to mitigate inhumane conditions and was absolutely aware of how its contractors were performing their duty. And yeah, that's the story.

Maggie (56:08)

Wow. So I guess maybe don't buy a Volkswagen.

Brett (56:10)

I think they maybe don't buy a Volkswagen. I don't know, man.

Ad Voice 5 (56:14)

I don't know.

Brett (56:14)

Again, good luck finding it. Like buy a used car, I guess. Although used car dealers are also sketchy in different ways, but.

Maggie (56:22)

Right. I mean, there are several ways you can stick out a window here or there.

Brett (56:27)

I'm not going to tell you the right way to live ethically under capitalism, but. Bad. Wow. Bad Volkswagen. Bad. Yeah. Wow.

Maggie (56:36)

This is so more recent than I think my spine was prepared for.

Brett (56:44)

It's shocking. Right? Yeah, same. Yeah, I had this. This is a friend of mine who I'm not gonna name because they're a friend and I don't name friends on the podcast because that's a bad idea. Yes.

Maggie (56:55)

And you have none.

Brett (56:56)

Yeah. And I have none. No, they just brought this up to me in person. Like, did you know that Volkswagen had a slave plantation in Brazil in the fucking 80s? I was like, no, I didn't know that. Wow. That's pretty fucked up.

Maggie (57:06)

Wow.

Brett (57:07)

And now you know about it.

Maggie (57:08)

And now I know about it.

Brett (57:09)

So great.

Maggie (57:10)

And now you all know about it.

Brett (57:11)

Now you all Know about it.

Maggie (57:13)

What do we do with it, you know, now that we know?

Brett (57:16)

I don't know. Somebody should probably like. You know that guy we kept talking about, that Swiss dude? He should probably get charged with something. Bruger.

Maggie (57:25)

Yeah, that's right. Cause he's still around, right?

Brett (57:28)

He's still around, last I checked. I don't know, maybe he died recently, but he was around in like 2022, I think.

Maggie (57:33)

Yeah.

Brett (57:34)

Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, somebody go yell at him or something at least. Fuck, I don't know. I don't know how to fix this.

Maggie (57:42)

Yeah, I guess that's not our problem.

Brett (57:44)

Yeah. Maggie, you want to plug anything? Yeah.

Maggie (57:48)

Oh, man. Well, yes, this. This was lovely. I learned, unfortunately, so much about our current state of the world. And yeah, my other show, Amy's Dead in Dream House, it's on Nebula because. Yeah, it also deals with. With topics, I would say probably nothing as. As. As grandiose as current, you know, labor infractions, but it does do with misogyny, depression, getting misdiagnosed, friend breakups, you know, lesser evils in the. In the grand scale of things. But, yeah, I can hop over there, check it out. Have a beautiful, wonderful time. I have some wonderful guests, some wonderful guests that I've been on this podcast. Jamie Loftus, friend of the pod, and, yeah, YouTube essays at my name. What about Copaganda coming out soon and that's it. Man. Yeah, I think I would just really eat chocolate. Maybe I will eat ethical chocolate the rest of the entire day, I think, is what I'm going to be doing.

Brett (58:51)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I will say, folks, maybe avoid Haribo if you don't know. They've got a pretty rough human rights. The Gummy Bear Company, not a great history.

Maggie (59:05)

I could not tell from your tone earlier. Yeah. If that was a joke.

Brett (59:08)

No, that's not a joke. They allegedly still rely on slave labor to harvest carnauba wax to this day. Yeah, there's a documentary released in 2017 which showed that Brazilian carnauba pickers live in horrific conditions without access to clean food or water and receive. I think it's like maybe $12 a day. And I think it's like a similar sort of like, debt peonage system in a lot of cases. It's maybe not quite as bad as it used to be, but it's pretty ugly.

Maggie (59:38)

Sounds bad. Put those gummy bears the fuck down if they're in your hands currently, maybe.

Brett (59:44)

It'S gotten better, but just don't get it from Haribo. I don't know. I don't know where you should get your gummy bears, folks.

Maggie (59:50)

Again, that's not your job.

Brett (59:52)

Just look into it. Read about Haribo, you know. Yeah, I don't know. Just lick sugar from a bag. Lick from the bag. That's probably ethical. Yeah. All right, well, thanks, Maggie. Bye, everybody. Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website, coolzone media.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Brett (60:25)

New episodes every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to our channel YouTube.com behindthebastards.

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Ah, come on. Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient.

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Brett (61:43)

Honestly, Honestly.

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Honestly. No one wants to think about hiv, but there are things that everyone can do to help prevent it. Things like prep. PREP stands for pre exposure prophylaxis and it means routinely taking prescription medicine before you're exposed to HIV to help reduce your chances of getting it. Prep can be about 99% effective when taken as prescribed. It doesn't protect against other STIs, though, so be sure to use condoms and other healthy sex pract practices. Ask a healthcare provider about all your prevention Options and visit findoutaboutprep.com to learn more.

Ad Voice 2 (62:12)

Sponsored by Gilead Saks Off 5th is your secret to fashion's most wanted deals at up to 70% off on the hunt for designer steals that'll turn heads and leave a trail of envy. Uncover Gucci Valentino Versace, Stuart Weitzman and more. With new arrivals dropping weekly at prices too good to stay confidential, Luxlayer's statement boots and tailored essentials from Saks Off 5th will put your wardrobe on the most wanted list. Head to saksoffith.com or a Saks Off 5th store near you for a style lineup you won't want to miss.

Brett (62:43)

This is an iHeart podcast.