Comrade João Amazonas Passes Away

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Comrade João Amazonas Passes Away

The communists and Brazil are on mourning

Message of Condolence of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist)

Message of Condolence of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ireland (Marxist-Leninist)

The Communist Party of Brazil, PCdoB, with deep sorrow announced on Tuesday, May 28, 2002, the death of João Amazonas, President and long-time leader of the Party, on May 27.

The Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) expresses its deepest condolences to the Communist Party of Brazil, PCdoB, and its militants, the family and friends of Comrade Amazonas, and to the Brazilian working class and people, on this sad loss. WDIE is reprinting the announcement of the National Secretariat of the Communist Party of Brazil, PCdoB. We are also posting the messages of condolences from the Central Committee of RCPB(ML) and from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ireland (Marxist-Leninist) to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Brazil, PCdoB.

The website of the Communist Party of Brazil with the announcement of Comrade Amazonas’ passing is to be found at: http://www.pcdob.org.br

May 29, 2002

Renato Rabelo
Jose Reinaldo Carvalho
Central Committee
Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB)
Sao Paulo
Brazil

Dear Comrades

It is with profound sadness that we learn of the passing on May 27 at the age of 90 of your much-loved and widely respected President Joao Amazonas. Our Central Committee and entire Party sends its deepest and most heartfelt condolences to you comrades, to your Central Committee and Party, and to Comrade Amazonas’s devoted wife and family.

I personally, along with our late General Secretary John Buckle, first met Joao Amazonas in Albania in 1981, accompanied by his wife and Comrade Renato. We were immediately deeply moved by his modesty, his kindness and his complete devotion to the highest principles in the cause of revolution and socialism. In the subsequent 20 years I had the privilege to meet him again on numerous occasions, in Albania again, in Canada and in Brazil itself. It was always the greatest pleasure to meet and talk with him. I learnt of his outstanding personal history of struggle stretching back to his youth, of his leadership of the Party in defence of the purity of Marxism-Leninism, in resisting - sometimes in exile - the savage onslaught of the fascist regimes, in painstaking work for the interests of the Brazilian people, for the victory of democracy and national independence and the socialist ideals. I witnessed in Brazil and elsewhere the very highest regard in which he was held in the communist and progressive movements and among the people themselves.

It goes without saying that his passing is a great loss to your Party and the Brazilian working class and people, and to the international communist movement and the cause of democracy and progress worldwide. Our Party is sure however that your grief will turn to strength, that the memory of his wonderful life, of his outstanding qualities as a communist leader, will inspire you to march on with renewed vigour in the great cause to which he devoted his days.

With sympathy and with profound comradely greetings

Chris Coleman

National Spokesperson, RCPB(ML)

Wednesday, 29 May 2002

Dear Comrades, it is with great sadness that our Party has received the news of the death of your great leader, Comrade Joao Amazonas, on Monday 27 May.

I had occasion to meet Comrade Amazonas on a few occasions - at the Congress of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) in the 1980s and also as a guest at your own Congress in Brasilia in January 1992.

It was a great honour to meet such a distinguished leader of a previous generation to myself, who had fought his way and led your Party through every battle for so many decades, overcoming the tremendous internal national oppression of pro-imperialist military regimes inside Brazil, as well as the heinous betrayal of Khrushchevite modern Soviet revisionism, which was to be the author of the eventual complete liquidation of socialism in the USSR and in so many other countries.

What a tremendous achievement! To wage the glorious struggle to bring your Party to such a point in national politics today where it has real influence on national affairs, by which I mean that the working class has real influence.

Of course, at aged 90 years, Comrade Amazonas was bound to pass from your Party at some stage. I know from the comrades I have met over these last two decades of contact between our parties, that there are succeeding generations of leaders in your Party as well as militancy in depth in your whole membership to carry forward the struggle in Brazil to still greater heights in the future.

Please accept the condolences of our Party on the loss of your great leader, Comrade Joao Amazonas. And please pass on my condolences to his wife and daughter whom I have met and whose company I enjoyed.

Your Party has great responsibilities in the struggles to come in the future, but with the example of Comrade Amazonas, you are sure to overcome all difficulties and achieve success.

Revolutionary greetings on behalf of our Party, Rod Eley

General Secretary, Communist Party of Ireland (Marxist-Leninist)