My name is Eduardo Xavier Lemos, I am a Brazilian professor and researcher, linked to the University of Brasilia and the IESB University Centre, I also work as a lawyer in the Brazilian federal capital, where I am President of the Justice and Peace Commission of Brasilia, Advisor to the Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network - REPAM, entities linked to the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil - CNBB, Advisor to the District Council for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights and to the Council of the Prison Administration Fund of the Federal District. I am sending this testimony in letter format in the position of Research Assistant / Research Fellow of Professor Boaventura de Sousa Santos, a position I have held with great care since 2020 and, from my experience, I can report how this working relationship has taken place.
I should point out that I was indicated by the coordinator of the research group The Law Found on the Street, José Geraldo de Sousa Junior (a group linked to the University of Brasilia), who had been contacted by Professor Boaventura de Sousa Santos, requesting a research assistant with experience in criminology and criminal practice to carry out research on Lawfare. And so, the first contact was scheduled, where Professor Boaventura tried to present the research, its objectives, the limits of my performance, the remuneration, as well as the participation of my work in the resulting product of this research.
From the beginning, it was agreed that there would be a research grant, that the research work would result in the deepening of the analysis of the theoretical/practical conceptual framework of the field of Lawfare and, especially, the analysis of the Brazilian case that was currently in the news (Operation Lava Jato). To this end, I presented a proposed work plan with goals, phases, bibliography and objectives, which was approved by Professor Boaventura de Sousa Santos. I immediately inform you that from the first contact I had with Professor Boaventura, the professional relationship was cordial, respectful, of a very high technical level and characterised by the investigative coordination of an experienced researcher with a young assistant who cordially corrected his steps, discussed the bibliography and the analysis, always with patience and great courtesy.
I stress that the period of this particular work, which ended in 2021 and which resulted in two reports, was marked by the horizontality, cordiality, patience and generosity of Professor Boaventura de Sousa Santos towards me. I would also like to express that the agreements established from the beginning of the project were complied with at all times. This research formed part of a contribution to the recent publication "Law and the Epistemologies of the South" by Cambridge University Press and, as agreed from the outset, Professor Boaventura de Sousa Santos acknowledges and thanks the work of this Research Assistant, "Throughout the long period of research that is reported in the book for the valuable help of dedicated research assistants (in alphabetical order or name) [...] Eduardo Xavier Lemos [...]" (SOUSA SANTOS, Boaventura de. Law and the Epistemologies of the South. Cambridge University Press. 2023. Preface). It is essential to inform that any working relationship has always been explicit, that it was (and is) a pact between two researchers, where a paid assistant previously agreed with the coordinating researcher the terms of his contribution, where there would be no co-authorship of the specific work, which would be carried out through the delivery of two formal reports with pre-established dates, in addition to the revisions, all pre-ordered in a work plan presented by this researcher to his coordinator. Having completed the research on Lawfare, I would like to inform you that I continue in the position of Research Assistant to Prof. Boaventura de Sousa Santos. At the moment I am not developing a specific research project, but I am carrying out continuous reports on my scientific field in Brazil.
Still with regard to the recent work, I inform you that it is again marked by the horizontality, cordiality and deep generosity of Professor Boaventura de Sousa Santos towards me who, since 2021 (when he finished the research on Lawfare) has been patiently helping this young researcher to evolve as an organic intellectual.
It should also be borne in mind that when we come to an agreement, any intervention in the sense of co-authorship, book chapter, organisation, translation and/or specific and punctual project, are not implicit proposals, but explicit negotiations, previously adjusted, organised and with the scheduling of meetings, so that we can subsequently formalise the steps for the execution of the work. It is worth repeating that, in addition to the approximate relationship between scientific and political debates, the work as a Research Fellow also involves specific, organised, planned tasks, whose function, task, execution and consequent expectations are previously adjusted, and there is no reason to relate such a task to so-called "intellectual extractivism".
More than that, there is a real exchange, where the coordinating professor and this assistant exchange experiences and knowledge characteristic of the different maturities of research, a subject that transcends the interest between peers, and that consolidates the scientific process, because it is from the relationship, respect and intergenerational learning that science itself is constituted, prescribed and advances. At this point, I will give an account of my observations on the work of Professor Boaventura de Sousa Santos with oppressed collectives, which I believe to be fundamental to the decision-making of this commission.
I have been progressively following (and learning) the meaning of organic intellectuality from Boaventura de Sousa Santos, who in fact divides 50% of his time for intellectual production and 50% of his time for work with social movements. The apparently discursive percentages ended up being verified by me when I began to accompany the leaders of Latin American peripheral movements, who find in Professor Boaventura a point of reference for their daily struggles.
We can mention the movement La Poderosas and the Cooperativa Isla Esperanza, both in Argentina, in Brazil the Brazilian peripheral black movement in the struggles of Ilha da Maré in Bahia and the Maré Museum in Rio de Janeiro, the Hip Hop movement in the Midwest (Rapper GOG, Rapper Realleza, Max Maciel, Perifa Talks), in Rio Grande do Sul (Rafa Rafuagi), among so many other peripheral leaders who have direct and organic contact with Professor Boaventura, who serves as a reflexive reference, a support to the struggles in times of crisis and also as an enhancer of their struggles when they ask for it. I have followed over the years how the professor has been strengthening young leaders, quietly contributing to give them more leadership space so that they can represent the rights of the oppressed in spaces of power, an action that is little followed and perceived by most people and which the professor carries out with great humility and generosity. More than anything else, he chooses to give up spaces for speech, laurels and awards in entrenched and pompous places, to highlight and project peripheral localities and leaders, who struggle collectively and who, empowered with the presence of a global political leader like Prof. Boaventura, often overcome difficulties and are encouraged to fight back.
Equally relevant is Boaventura's strategic role in bringing together leaders from different spectrums (social movements, collectives, academic leaders, public agents from different sectors), leaderships that, previously struggling in isolation, after the Professor's work begin to act in articulation and to build important victories in different sectors of society, which is what she does all over the world.
Finally, I will set out my perception of the complaints that require this testimony. Because I am located in the country's capital, linked to one of the most important Brazilian universities, I have an organic connection with many social movements, I am a human rights activist, but also a lawyer for humanistic causes (and progressive leaders), the communities fighting for human rights in Brazil are aware of my work with Professor Boaventura and, naturally, the events had repercussions.
It is possible to narrate that in Brazil, rather than a debate on the content of the facts, there was an immediate cancellation of the figure of professors, researchers of the Centre for Social Studies and of the ESC itself. Many people took advantage of the moment of fragility to distil rancour and hatred towards the University of Coimbra and the professors as a whole.
There was a media persecution, typical of the so-called Lawfare, directed at CES professors, researchers, without delimiting what happened, without specifying the content of the publication and without gathering any direct source of the facts, in this way the Brazilian media, echoing the Portuguese media, began to spread the news like wildfire, always focusing on the image of Professor Boaventura. The orchestrated and radicalised persecution had the objective of constraining the basic principles of the Rule of Law or Democratic Rule of Law, namely the Presumption of Innocence, the Principle of Contradiction and, mainly, the Broad Defence, manifestly violating the dignity of the human person. In fact, from the very beginning, and up to the present day, there has been a cancellation of everything related to the ESC and Prof. Boaventura.
More than that, whenever there was any response from a member of the ESC, including the work of the Independent Commission, in order to demonstrate the concern of this recognised centre for the facts and, of course, with the aim of preserving the image of everything investigated (because complainants, accused, witnesses, these are sensitive facts and human beings directly or indirectly involved), the case began to be debated in the media, in an attempt to create a victorious narrative about what happened. There was even a persistent attempt to leak the Commission's report before its publication, in total disrespect for the people whose lives were on trial, which, more than anything else, is inhumane.
Unfortunately, such serious events were and continue to be treated as a dispute, a win-lose, which can be seen in the narrative used publicly. Therefore, more than any attempt to make facts visible or build reparative policies, such action was carried out with the purpose of empowering the collective cancellation of individuals and an institution and defeating the enemies. And so, explicitly, the case reproduced Lawfare strategies, where people and institutions are drawn as a target to be eliminated at all costs and, for this, rather than the search for concrete elements (fundamental in a democratic state), and respect for due process, it is enough to use rhetoric, mediatisation and cancellation to achieve a victory that is the destruction of the target.
In summary, the aim of this report is to show that the way in which the events against Professor Boaventura and the ESC have been conducted undoubtedly marks a case of Lawfare, permeated by an already established and irreversible media trial, with inaccurate information, cancellation and public persecution, concealment of complaints, lynching on social networks, persecution of all those around him (the Study Centre, his assistants, his family, etc.), characterising all the demands of Lawfare, the use of the law and its strategies to annihilate a human being (considered as an enemy), which is evident.
Even so, it should be noted that given the aforementioned position of human rights defender of this writer, dozens of people came to express their dissatisfaction with the way the situation was being handled, people (women and men), who mentioned having studied at some point in their lives in the renowned Centre of Studies, reported having only words of affection and gratitude to mention the CES, who expressed the rigorousness and seriousness in their studies, a centre that demands excellence from those who pass through there, which it does within the cordiality and academic ethics. More than that, they said that CES contributed to their personal and professional training, opening many doors for them, which is why they hold the centre in such high esteem.
Finally, and unanimously, dozens of people (men and women), professors from public and private universities in Brazil, authorities from the Brazilian judiciary, young and experienced researchers from the five regions of the country (Centre-West, North, Northeast, Southeast and South) reported that they had never suffered, neither indirectly nor remotely, any form of sexual or moral abuse by Professor Boaventura de Sousa Santos. whether those who somehow spent long or short periods of study at the CES or in the United States, or even those who lived for short periods at events during the professor's stays in Brazil. More than that, many of these people felt embarrassed and threatened with cancellation for expressing their affection and gratitude to the CES, even because some of them were contacted directly with this area, to feel that their public life and work would be harmed solely and exclusively for showing affection and solidarity to the Study Centre that welcomed and trained them.
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