Brazil - FIAN International

La Vía Campesina
International Operative Secretary
Apartado Postal 3628
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Tel/Fax +504 232 2198
email:
[email protected]
FIAN
International Secretary
P.O. Box 10 22 43
Tel + 49 6221 65300 30
Fax +49 6221 830545
email: [email protected]
Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform
EMERGENCY NETWORK
0504ABRA (ARC 0502)
29.03.2005
Brazil: Absence of agrarian reform leads to more murders in Brazil.
In the municipality of Anapu, an activist of the CPT (pastoral land commission), sister Dorothy Stang, and seven more rural workers
have been murdered in 2005 because of their fighting for an agrarian reform. 90% of Anapu´s territory is uninhabited land, i.e., it
belongs to the State, but the illegal occupation of the land (grilagem) is the main reason for land conflicts. Parts of this land were
destined to the implementation of the PDS - project of sustainable development- for agrarian reform. Nevertheless, due to the
absence of monitoring by the state, many large farmers (grileiros) occupy these areas and expel the settled families.
Considering these situations of murder, violence, impunity and the resulting violation of human rights, the entities of the
national forum of the agrarian reform decided to start a national and international campaign. It is very important to put
pressure on the Brazilian authorities to take urgent measures to respect, protect and guarantee the workers´ and the land
workers´ rights in Brazil. Please send letters to the Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva together with copies to the
minister who is responsible for reporting, Arnaldo Esteves Lima. Also keep informed the trade union of the rural workers of
Anapu.
Historical Background
During the past 20 years, more than 1385 rural workers, leaders and activists related to social movements of the fight for land and
agrarian reform were murdered in Brazil. The impunity of these crimes is a remarkable fact: until today, only 77 cases have been
judged, 15 governors and 65 executors have been condemned. Besides the impunity, many governmental actions punished the
workers who fight for their rights. In 2003 and 2004, more than 70.000 peasant families got victims of violent evictions which were
commanded by the judicial power and violently executed by the military police. More than 200 rural workers, especially leaders, are
threatened to death in different regions of Brazil.
According to the Comissão Pastoral da Terra (CPT), the state of Pará is among the regions of highest registers of human rights
violations regarding agrarian issues in Brasil. The municipality of Anapu is situated in the central region of the state, and 90% of its
territory is composed of uninhabited land ( land that belongs to the Brazilian State or the State of Pará). The unjustified occupation of
public land (grilagem), including the indigenous land and riverine communities´ land, is the main reason for land conflicts.
This situation has its origin in the 70s. In that time, the Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform
(INCRA) planned the expansion of the agrarian frontier through the implantation of large farms (each 3000 hectares on average).
This land was offered to large farmers who applied for the treaty of the transfer of public land. The candidates for ownership were
supposed to announce a plan of work which should be carried out in a period of 20 years. They were forced to set up an agricultural
company and turn the land into productive land and not to alienate this land during this period. At the end of this period (at the
beginning of 2000), the process of the real estates´ inspection was started and the INCRA stated that the large majority of these
farms consisted of unproductive properties. As the occupation plans weren´t carried out, the ownership turns out to be illegal.
So, the treaties of the transfer of ownership should be annihilated and the land should be returned to the Brazilian State’s patrimony.
In accordance to the Federal Constitution, this land should be determined to the agrarian reform. The INCRA achieved a small
number of judgements and in many cases the “grileiros” stayed on the land. The omission of the state which doesn´t take care of
this land - associated with the illegal actions and robbery by timber-merchants and breeders of cattle - is among the principal factors
which incite the quarrels for land.
The progress of the struggle for a new agrarian policy in Anapu is resulting from the victory of the social movements by the creation
of the PDS ( sustainable development project) on December 13th 2003, which can be seen as a new model of agrarian reform of the
federal government, reconciling the settlement of traditional people of the “transamazônica” ( indigenous people, riverine
communities, smallholders) with the promotion of sustainable development in an area of environmental interest. However, the land of
the “PDS Esperanca”, which comprises 145.000 hectares, had to suffer occupations of “grileiros” who reclaim the ownership, using
the ancient treaties of the transfer of ownership of public land.
Recently, the focus of conflict and of quarrels between large farmers, timber- merchants and smallholder peasant families increased
with the extension of the agricultural frontier (especially the extension of cattle breeding determined to slaughter) and the illegal
extraction of wood and the valorization of land prices in that region.
At the beginning of this year, these conflicts were incited by a sequence of murders against rural workers and persons related to the
movement for the right to land in the areas of the PDS of Anapu. Sister Dorothy Stang, activist of the CPT, who worked for 30 years
in that region and who was suffering death threats, made various denouncements and appeals to the federal government about the
conflicts and the organized crime of large landowners and “grileiros” of the region. She also denounced the involvement of local and
regional authorities and the state government´s civil and military police. On February 12th 2005, the missionary was brutally
murdered with six shots which hit her back and her head. The crime was executed by two gunmen, commissioned by farmers who
opposed the implantation of the “PDS Esperanca” and “Virola Jatobá”. In the municipality of Parauapebas, more than one murder
which was induced by agrarian conflicts happened on February 15th. Daniel Soares de Souza, a militant trade unionist and president
of the association of the project for the settlement Carlos Fonseca, was murdered by six gunshots at close range in a trap at the
street that leads to the settlement, which increased the quantity of violence in the Brazilian rural areas.
The mandate of the Emergency Net:
Considering these presented facts, the situation of violation of human rights in the state of Pará is obvious and shows that it is
necessary and urgent for the Brazilian state to take up measures of urgent and permanent character to detain and stop the crimes
against trade unionists, rural workers and human rights activists fighting for agrarian reform; to implement the agrarian reform´s
goals (the national plan of the agrarian reform) and to update the registers of productivity; to take immediate actions to rigorously
investigate the threats against rural workers, leaders and human rights defenders and to punish exemplarily the authors of those
threats; to allocate financial resources for the agrarian reform, without shortening the poor resources determined to the Ministry of
Agrarian Development; to implement sustainable development projects, starting with the development of agro-ecology, of family and
peasant agriculture and to implement reserves for extraction, especially in the Amazon region, so that the economic, social and
cultural human rights are guaranteed to the whole rural population. Brazil is state party to the International Covenants of Human
Rights, so Brazil has the obligation to respect, protect and fulfill those rights to the whole population. Under this international public
law obligation, the Brazilian state has to adopt measures which guarantee the human rights to the rural population of Brazil and
especially of Pará.
End of the emergency line: 10.05.2005
Directions:
President of Brazil
Luis Inácio Lula da Silva
Palácio do Planalto
Praca dos 3 Poderes
Cep: 70.150-900- Brasília/DF
E-mail: [email protected]
Fax: (61) 411-1200/ 411-2222
Copies to:
Reporting Minister of the Supreme Court of
Judicature
Arnaldo Esteves Lima
SAFS- Quadra 06- Lote 01- Trecho III. Cep:
70.095-900- Brasília
E-mail: [email protected]
Fax: (61) 319-6316/ 319-6322
Francisco de Assis dos Santos Souza
Trade union of rural workers of Anapu
(STR)
Rua São Franciso, 103
Cep: 68365-000-Anapu-Pará-Brasil
Please inform FIAN about any reaction.
Translation of the model letter:
Your Excellency President Lula,
I would like to express my deep indignation, considering the information I received about the situation of violence and injustice in the Brazilian rural area, especially in
view of the agrarian conflicts in the state of Pará, one of the regions of greater human rights violation in Brazil. In this state, in less than two months, seven murders of
rural workers and persons related to the social movements for the right to land occurred.
The murder of the missionary Dorothy Stang, which occurred in the past February, was an barbarous act which turns obvious the violence which representatives and
beneficiaries of the predatory exploration of the Amozon use in the presence of public projects which seek the social citizen inclusion with environmental
sustainability. This murder belongs to the same sphere of action of the responsible powers for the illegal acquisition of public land, for the environmental destruction,
especially through the illegal removal of wood and those responsible for the repeated violence against peasants, indigenous people, human rights defenders and all
the others who oppose the predatory occupation of the Amazon region.
I appeal for a rigorous investigation and punishment of the persons who are blamed for these murders and I claim energetic measures to restrain from the robbery of
public land, the environmental crimes and the violence against workers and their leaders, which is an already historic practice in the State of Pará and which makes
those activities examples of the governmental will to stop the impunity in the Brazilian rural area.
I take the liberty, Mister President, basing on the commitments of the human rights which were assumed by the Brazilian state and on the International Covenant of
Economic, Social and Cultural Human Rights which the Brazilian state signed, to ask your Excellency to adopt urgently the following measures: a) the execution of the
goals of the agrarian reform (the national plan of the agrarian reform) and the actualization of the registers of productivity, b) immediate actions to rigorously
investigate the threats against rural workers, leaders and human rights defenders and punish exemplarily the authors of those, c) the allocation of financial resources
for the agrarian reform, without shortening the poor resources determined to the Ministry of Agrarian Development and d) the implementation of the sustainable
development projects, starting with the development of agro-ecology, of family and peasant agriculture and the implantation of reserves for extraction, especially in
the Amazon region.
Summarizing, Mister President, I claim the implantation of a wide and massive agrarian reform and the strengthening of family and peasant agriculture as an unique
means to guarantee the human rights, like the right to work and the right to a worthy life for the rural population who is historically excluded. A change of the actual
development model of agro-cattle breeding, but a model which excludes robbery and concentration of land, rent and power is the structural way to impede that the
established situation of violence in the rural area o Pará and Brazil continues creating victims.
Please keep me informed about the measures which will be taken in this respect.
Yours sincerely,
Presidente do Brasil
Luis Inácio Lula da Silva
Palácio do Planalto
Cep: 70.150-900 – Brasília/D
Fax: ++55-61-4112222
Exmo. Senhor presidente Lula,
Quero manifestar profunda indignação diante das informações que recebi sobre a situação de
violência e injustiça no campo brasileiro, em especial ao quadro de conflitos agrários no Estado do Pará, uma
das regiões de maior violação dos direitos humanos no Brasil. Neste Estado, em menos de dois meses,
ocorreram sete assassinatos de trabalhadores rurais e de pessoas ligados aos movimentos sociais pelo
direito à terra.
O assassinato da missionária Dorothy Stang, ocorrido fevereiro passado, foi um ato bárbaro que
explicita a violência com que representantes e beneficiários da exploração predatória da Amazônia reagem
ante a existência de projetos populares que buscam a inclusão social cidadã com sustentabilidade ambiental.
Esse assassinato encontra-se no mesmo raio de ação das forças responsáveis pela grilagem das terras
públicas, pela destruição ambiental, especialmente através da retirada ilegal de madeira, e pela reiterada
violência contra camponeses, indígenas, defensores de direitos humanos e todos os que se opõe à ocupação
predatória da Amazônia.
Apelo por uma rigorosa investigação e punição dos culpados desses assassinatos e reivindico
medidas enérgicas para coibir o roubo de terras públicas, os crimes ambientais e a violência contra
trabalhadores e suas lideranças, prática já histórica no Estado do Pará, fazendo dessas ações exemplos da
vontade governamental para acabar com a impunidade no meio rural brasileiro.
Tomo a liberdade, senhor presidente, embasado nos compromissos de direitos humanos assumidos
pelo Estado brasileiro, o qual é signatário do Pacto Internacional dos Direitos Humanos Econômicos, Sociais
e Culturais desde 1992, que vossa Excelência adote urgentemente as seguintes medidas:
a)
a execução das metas de reforma agrária (Plano Nacional de Reforma Agrária) e a atualização dos
índices de produtividade;
b)
ações imediatas para apurar rigorosamente as ameaças contra trabalhadores rurais, lideranças e
Defensores de Direitos Humanos e punir exemplarmente os autores das mesmas;
c)
a disponibilização de recursos financeiros para a reforma agrária, sem cortes nos parcos recursos
destinados ao Ministério do Desenvolvimento Agrário;
d)
a implementação de projetos de desenvolvimento sustentável, a partir do desenvolvimento da agroecologia, da agricultura familiar e camponesa e a implantação de reservas extrativistas, especialmente
na Região Amazônica.
Resumindo, senhor presidente, reivindico a implantação uma ampla e massiva reforma agrária e o
fortalecimento da agricultura familiar e camponesa como único meio de garantir os direitos humanos como, o
direito ao trabalho e a uma vida digna para a população rural, historicamente excluída. Uma mudança no
atual modelo de desenvolvimento agropecuário, excludente, predatório e concentrador de terra, renda e poder
é o caminho estrutural para impedir que a situação de violência instalada no meio rural do Pará e do Brasil
continue fazendo vítimas.
Por favor, mantenha-me informado sobre as medidas tomadas a respeito.
Atentamente