NEWS FROM BRAZIL
supplied by Brazil Justice Net
Number 549, April 14, 2006
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In this edition of News from Brazil:
The 10th Anniversary of the Massacre of 19 Landless Workers in Carajás, Para
Of the 144 military police incriminated in the massacre of 19 rural landless workers in 1996, only two were condemned and they remain at liberty. In the past 33 years, 772 rural workers have been murdered in the state of Pará. Only 27% of these cases ever went to trial and only 11% were judged. Not one culprit has been punished.
On April 17th, 1996, 19 members of Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) were shot and killed by the state military police of Pará. Another 3 workers died years later from their wounds. In total, 22 workers lost their lives and many others were seriously wounded. As of April of 2006, ten years after the massacre, only two people have been held partly responsible for the attack at Carajás: Major Oliveira and Colonel Pantoja. As such, the MST identifies the State as the principal party responsible for the massacre, having utilized the judiciary and the police to impose the hegemony of the rural oligarchy.
The State is not only responsible for the massacre, but for its incompetence when addressing the implementation of agrarian reform. To make matters worse, social movements like the MST are declared enemies of the State. According to Charles Trocate, of the MST’s National Coordinating Body, the State has at its core a problem that is three-fold: forged land titles, slave labor and the erosion of biodiversity.
In accordance with a judicial decision made in 1999, the widows and wounded peasants from the massacre should have been receiving medical and psychological treatment to handle the aftereffects of the incident. Walmir Beraz, the lawyer for the surviving victims, has denounced the omission on the part of the State with respect to both the judiciary and health system and their failure to serve the needs of the victims.
Nilo Batista, who defended the MST during the trial of the two responsible, insists on the need to continue in struggle. For Batista, the judiciary is another battleground of struggle in the same way the rural area is for the fight for agrarian reform.
Source: MST Web-site, April 2006
The Report of the Special Representative of the U.N. on the Situation of Human Rights
Hina Jilani, the Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary General on the situation of human rights defenders, submitted on March 14 the preliminary report of her visit to Brazil which took place in December, 2005. Jilani emphasized that, “despite government initiatives and the efforts of an experienced and active civil society, serious concerns regarding the situation of human rights defender persist because of a wide gap between the declaration of policy and its implementation on the one hand, and the creation of mechanisms and their effectiveness, on the other.” She also cited the lack of investigation of violations against human rights defenders.
The report stresses the concern of the Representative with the criminalization of social action by human rights defender. She notes that human rights defenders have been subject to unfair, malicious, and systematic prosecution, repeated arrests and vilification, unjust and retaliatory actions by the State as well as by powerful and influential non-State entities representing economic interests. Jilanirecommends that the Special Secretariat for Human Rights and the Federal Public Ministry make joint efforts to collect and analyze the cases brought against human rights defenders in order to propose legislation or policy guidelines to prevent criminal prosecution of defenders for carrying out activities in defense of human rights.
Another section in the report deals with police violence. Jilani recommends a review of existing mechanisms for the monitoring and accountability of the State security apparatus, particularly the State military police. There is a general lack of confidence in the competence, vigilance and independence of the existing mechanisms.
The Special Representative was greatly disturbed by reports indicating that, when human rights activists organize, they are accused of forming criminal gangs and when they mobilize for collective action to protest violations of rights they are accused of creating public disorders. She notes, with grave concern, that peaceful public action for defense of human rights has frequently been met with disproportionate use of force by the police.
The Preliminary Report is available in english on the
following web-site:
http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/chr/docs/62chr/ecn4-2006-95-Add4
Source: Global Justice Web-site April, 2006
Last week, Brazil Justice Net received this request from the CPT (the Catholic Church's Land Commission) in Pernambuco:
... a little Lenten Reading, especially for those of us who are leaving aside the sweeter things of life so that we can indulge pascally ... so this is a little Lenten Reading to make us wonder what are the roots of the sweeter things of life that we take so much for granted.
Yours,
Padre Tiago Thorlby
Dear Friends,
I went down the earth road, imprisoned on both sides by the sugar cane monoculture. I turned to the fisherman who accompanied me and asked:nn“ Are you telling me that I´ll see sugar cane invading the mangrove swamp?” He nodded his head: affirmative. We continued on in the direction of the sea.
And then, I saw it: the sugar cane entering into the mangrove - the cane, blackened by the burning caused by the last harvest. The burning had entered into the mangrove swamp.
Such is the mad avarice of the sugar barons of Pernambuco. It is a madness exacerbated even more by the price rise for sugar and ethanol on the world market … a madness that makes them plant sugar cane right into the sea!
We – fisherfolk, island dwellers and the CPT – ask you to send the following letter (and a copy to us) based on the information that follows to the following authorities:
João Arnaldo Novaes, manager of IBAMA (Federal Environmental Institute)
joaoarnaldo@terra.com.br
Paulo Ferrari, director of GRPU (Regional Directorate of the Patrimony of the Union)
ferrarilucas@yahoo.com.br
Denouncement and Call to Action:
- in the face of the fraud and violence used by the Trapiche Sugar Mill to expel fisherfolk and island dwellers from the Islands of Sirinhaém
- in the face of the manipulation of a title of Dominion of the Union by the same Sugar Mill
- in the face of the devastation perpetrated in these islands by the Trapiche Sugar Mill
we demand:
1) through a Extrativist Reserve Decree of the Federal Government, that the true guardians of the environment on those islands – the families that were expelled by fraudulent and violent means, be brought back to their natural habitat
2) the summary cancellation of the “Dominion title” granted by the GRPU to the Trapiche Sugar Mill
3) the removal of armed henchmen of the Sugar Mill and the extirpation of non-native cultures planted by the Trapiche Sugar Mill
Yours sincerely,
Translation:
Denuncia e Chamada à Ação:
- diante da fraude e violência usadas pela Usina Trapiche, Sirinhaém, PE. Brasil, para expulsar os moradores e pescadores das Ilhas de Sirinhaém
- diante da manipulação de um título de aforamento da União pela Usina Trapiche
- diante da devastação do meio ambiente perpetrada pela Usina Trapiche nas Ilhas de Sirinhaém
exigimos:
1) por um Decreto de Reserva Extrativista, a volta dos verdadeiros guardiões do meio ambiente nas Ilhas: as famílias e os pescadores que foram expulsos pela Usina Trapiche de maneira fraudulente e violenta
2) a cassação sumária do título de aforamento cedido pelo GRPU à Usina Trapiche
3) a remoção dos capangas armados da Usina Trapiche e a extirpação das culturas exóticas – não-nativas - plantadas pela Usina Trapiche.
Atenciosamente,
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