Fire destroys museum with panels by Carlos Lamarca in SP – 03/30/2023 – Daily life

A fire registered last Sunday (26) destroyed the physical structure and collection of the Capelinha Museum, which is located inside the Rio Turvo State Park, in Cajati, in the Ribeira Valley.

The place housed panels that portrayed the passage through the region of Captain Carlos Lamarca (1937-1971) and was the subject of controversy in 2017, when the former secretary of the Environment of São Paulo Ricardo Salles, now a federal deputy for the PL, ordered that they be removed a bust of Lamarca and quotes about the guerrilla.

There is a suspicion that the fire was criminal. It destroyed or seriously compromised the existing collection on site, with panels, books and furniture, in addition to reaching an area where stuffed animals were displayed to visitors. Windows were broken and the roof collapsed.

According to the Forestry Foundation, the museum did not have original materials, documents or pieces from Lamarca’s personal collection, but rather “panels relating to events that took place within the scope of the park”, produced by the management of the site, with reproduction images. Other original documents about archaeological discoveries in the region were also not there, according to the state – they were transferred to USP 23 years ago.

The museum, opened in 2012, is located far from the park entrance and, when the fire was detected, it was not possible to contain it by the employee who was on site at the time. The fire is estimated to have lasted two hours. There were no injuries.

The Forestry Foundation also informed that the management of the conservation unit called the Civil Police after the fire at the thematic exhibition center, which conducted on-site expertise, and that the local team is preparing a report on the damage caused at the site to support the actions future to be taken.

Through a note, the City Hall of Cajati repudiated the fire and asked that those responsible be punished for acts of vandalism. The case is investigated by the Civil Police.

According to the administration, the space housed thematic exhibitions with information about the state park, the mosaic of conservation units in Jacupiranga, the Atlantic Forest and the Ribeira Valley, in addition to replicas of animals existing in the forest.

GUERRILLA

Salles was accused of a crime against urban planning and cultural heritage for the decision to remove the bust and the panels that portrayed Lamarca’s passage through the region from the museum.

The former minister was denounced by the Public Ministry in November 2019 and, in the following month, the Justice accepted the complaint and made him a defendant.

The TJ (Tribunal de Justiça) of São Paulo, the following year, decided to suspend the criminal action.

The bust and panels removed by order of Salles made reference to Army Captain Carlos Lamarca. Between 1969 and 1970, he and 16 other members of the VPR (Popular Revolutionary Vanguard) did guerrilla training in caves, in the middle of the Atlantic Forest, at Sítio Capelinha, where the park is today. Lamarca was killed in a military operation in Bahia on September 17, 1971.

The state park receives, on average, 20,000 visitors per year. Created in 2008 in the municipalities of Cajati, Jacupiranga and Barra do Turvo, it has an area of ​​73,000 hectares (the equivalent of 102,240 football fields) full of palm trees and araucarias and with a fauna composed of invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals .