voltarRUBBER SOLDIERS
This photo essay wants to be a little tribute to the survivors of a tragic and painful story that involved more of 50.000 Brazilian men during the Second World War. In 1942, after that Japanese army invaded Malaysia and blocked the rubber supply to the Allies, the role of Brazil as a latex producer became fundamental. In March of the same year President Getulio Vargas signed the “Washington Agreements” with the United States. Financed with the capitals of North American businessman, a special investment fund was created, with the aim of subsidizing the big operation that was later called ” The Rubber War “. Vargas launched a big campaign to enlist new workers to send to the Amazon. The campaign was particularly compulsive in the northeast area, which was the poorest of the country and where a terrible drought had just struck. About 54.000 men were enlisted and they became known as the “Rubber Soldiers”. After extremely long and exhausting trips, the soldiers reached their destinations only to find out that the reality was far from what the propaganda had promised. What were supposed to be plantations were in fact large areas of virgin rain forest, since the rubber tree (Hevea Brasiliensis) only grows spontaneously there, and the soldiers had to settle and try to survive in this unknown and inhospitable habitat. In this segregated conditions they were also forced to buy all they needed from local shops that belonged to the landowners themselves, running up debts that they were never able to repay with their small income. At the end of the war the Government didn’t even keep its promise to bring the soldiers home and abandoned them in the hands of the landowners and their armed thugs. They were trapped in a feudal system of exploitation and slavery, which was constantly fueled by their debts, their ignorance and with scams. Almost half of the Rubber Soldiers died during the war due to accidents, epidemics and tropical diseases. That is an impressive number, considering that of the 20.000 Brazilians sent to fight in Italy, only 545 never came back. For decades the Brazilian Government has been indifferent to the Rubber Soldiers ordeal, and it was only in the 1988 Constitution that their right to a pension (the equivalent of 2 minimum wages) was recognized. I decided to photograph them in the forest. I was sure that this majestic background would awake once more the sense of pride in these brave old men. Anonymous and silent heroes who never stopped loving life in spite of the defeats, the tricks and the delusions they have been through. Being surrounded by a known and reassuring habitat, they gave me a chance to see their inner landscape. That place in their conscience where the sound of the soul and the sound of the forest become one.
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