Democracia e participação em processo de decisão governamental: o caso de Camará-PB.

Abstract

Northeast of Brazil is a region marked by strong socio-environmental degradation and the recurring droughts. The water lack problem is ravaging a high population quota. Even democracy treating water as a common good, right of all, this feature essential to life, it is still quite scarce in different localities. This was the case of Alagoa Grande City, in Paraiba state, Brazil what suffer with the precarious supply of drinking water from the years of 1960 intensified in the 1990's with period without rain and increasing population. The population alagoagrandense demanded the construction of a dam to ensure water, mainly for human consumption. There, the dam began to be built in 2000, inaugurated in 2002, but after two years was broke. The disaster occurred on June 17, 2004, Alagoa Grande was in a state of calamity, your entire population, and some 27 thousand inhabitants were hit directly or indirectly. We study Alagoa Grande as a locus for the development of research in the field, to understand how it is the participation in the process of government decision, more specifically, the process of interaction between a body of civil society (Commission of defense Rights of Victims of Camara) and governments established between the years of 2000 and 2007 regarding Camara. And also check the accountability (transparency, accountability, responsiveness of the government) of governments established in this same period is important to stress that the committee to which we refer was formed due to the disruption of Camara, with main objective to achieve compensation of property taken by the tragedy. We can say that the committee had an important role, has much of its claims with the government, but the civic spirit alagoagrandense is still quite fragile. We call for the participation of these plots as "immediately" affected by the disaster. In general, failed to alagoagrandenses understanding of the breaking of the dam as a process and not as a product, it could have reduced risks and vulnerabilities and consequently reduce the threats to the population.