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In this week´s edition of News from Brazil: 

• Annual Report from the National Office of the Pastoral Land Commission
• Urgent Action Request:  Letter Writing Campaign for Murder Trial of Dorothy Stang

Annual Report from the National Office of the Pastoral Land Commission

The data about conflict and violence in 2006 reaffirm that their basic causes remain untouchable: land ownership concentration, its defense as an almost absolute value, the truculence of those that  appropriate land, and above all, impunity. Rural workers continue to be oppressed and suffer violence.  In 2006 there was a 176.92% increase in homicide attempts with respect to 2005. In 2006 there were 72, while the year before there were 26. The number of workers imprisoned also increased, from 261 workers in 2005 to 917 in 2006; an increase of 251.34%.

There was an in crease of 2.63% in the number of murders.  In 2006, 39 people were murdered. There were 38 in 2005. There were 10.54% fewer deaths in consequence of conflicts: 64 in 2005 and 57 in 2006.  The number of persons who received death threats also fell: from 266 in 2005 to 207 in 2006, 22.18% fewer, and there were fewer victims of torture:  33 in 2005 versus 30 in 2006, a reduction of 2.09%.

Conflicts
One thousand two hundred and twelve conflicts related to possession, use, resistance and struggle for land were registered. These conflicts include struggles for land, occupations and encampments. A total of 140,650 families were involved.  It is important to note that almost 20% of these conflicts involved traditional communities and peoples, principally indigenous and descendents of communities of escaped slaves (quilombolas), in addition to other communities.

 In these disputes over land, judicial evictions accounted for the removal of 19,449 families and an additional 1,809 were expelled by private means. These numbers represent a 24.08% reduction in the number of families evicted judicially in 2005 (25,618 families) and a reduction in non-judicial expulsions of 58.57% (4,366 families).  The judicial evictions did not involve just recent occupations, but areas that had been occupied for many years. In 2006 there was an eviction of an entire community of descendents of escaped slaves of the town of São Malaquias, municipality of Vargem Grande, Maranhão. The families had lived in the area for more than a hundred years. The body of one, who had died the day of the eviction, had to be taken to another town for the wake, while his house was being destroyed. Among the cases of non-judicial expulsion, we note what happened in Murici, Alagoas, where 29 families were expelled by the well-known political family by the name of Calheiros.

Reading the numbers, relating them to the rural population of each state or region, gives another perspective.  Where there is the greatest number of mobilized people in occupations and encampments, in the Center-South of the country, there the number of government created settlements is smaller. On the other hand, the indices of violence suffered by the workers are considerably greater in the region where the movements are less active, as in the Amazon. With this, it is obvious that the rural violence cannot be attributed to the increased pressures of the rural mobilizations, but are directly linked to the historic truculence of the large landowners, today called “agribusiness.”  

Labor conflicts
The violence that accompanies slave labor and other labor conflicts was significant in 2006. Three enslaved workers were assassinated, while there were no such cases in 2005. The number of enslaved workers liberated in 2006 was 20.67% smaller than the year before (3,633 as opposed to 4,585, all freed under the Labor Ministry’s oversight), while the formal accusations of slave labor were 5.07% fewer. Two hundred and sixty-two were received in 2006 versus 276 in 2005. The numbers of worker victims in these cases also fell, from 7,707 in 2005 to 6,930 in 2006, a reduction of 10.08%.

Impunity
For many years the Pastoral Land Commission has repeated that rural violence continues because of impunity.  From 1985 to 2006, 1,104 conflicts were registered that resulted in one or more murders. One thousand four hundred and sixty four workers died. These deaths resulted in only 85 being brought to trial. Seventy-one of the murderers were convicted but only 19 of those who ordered the crimes were convicted. It is necessary that Brazilian society demand more rigorous action on the part of its judiciary. An example of impunity is the Eldorado dos Carajás massacre, where 16 landless people were killed, on April 17, 1996.  Though convicted, colonel Mário Colares Pantoja (sentenced to 228 years in prison) and captain  José Maria Pereira (158 years), obtained the benefit of habeas corpus and today are out of jail while their cases are on appeal. To memorialize the workers’ action, in 2002 a law was passed declaring that April 17 as the National Day of Struggle for Agrarian Reform. 

Water Conflicts
Concerned about the situation in which thousands of Brazilian families live, the Pastoral Land Commission began in 2002 to register water conflicts.  The registry is still timid and does not succeed in grasping the reality.  But behind each number there is an experience that needs visibility in society and public opinion, like the case of the little girl Géssia Rodrigues de Sousa, age 12.  She died in February of this year when she fell 15 meters as she tried to “rob” water from the Senator Nilo Coelho Irrigation Canal, in Petrolina, Pernambuco.  Géssia lived with her family in a settlement that ironically is called “Living Waters.”  More than 189 families like Géssia live in that settlement and have no access to water suitable for human consumption for drinking, cooking and washing.  The only source of this precious liquid is the irrigation canal that is three kilometers from the settlement and 15 meters high. It conducts water of the São Francisco River to the great  irrigated projects that raise fruit for export (basically grape and mango).

Thirty-six per cent of the conflicts in 2006 were related to dams and hydroelectric production and 49% to pollution or destruction of bodies of water. Of the 45 water conflicts registered in 2006, 16 related to dams, 20 to use and preservation and nine to individual appropriation.  As to the problems, the most frequent were: destruction and or pollution, involving 22, barriers or access restriction in nine and threat of dispossession  in five. As to their geographic distribution, they occurred in 20 states.  Those of greatest occurrence were:  Paraná with six, Minas Gerais with five and Mato Grosso do Sul and Tocantins with four each.

There are also signs that water conflicts will increase in the coming years with the implementation of infrastructure water projects included in the National Plan for Accelerated Growth (PAC). The projects are planned in areas where there are riverbank populations, indigenous peoples, historic communities of escaped slaves and other traditional communities. One example is the hydroelectric power station of Belo Monte, in the middle of the Amazon.  In the past the project was abandoned because of the predicted enormous environmental and social impacts, especially with respect to the numerous indigenous communities.  Now it is included in the list of priorities of PAC. It will have the generating capacity of 5,881 megawatts, a bit more than one third of all new electric generation predicted for the years 2010 to 2015.

Another huge project that will affect various communities is the transfer of the waters of the São Francisco River.  In PAC, this project will use more than half the proposed budget that pertains to water infrastructure (approximately $3.3 billion of a total of $6.3 billion, in USD).  The project, however, gives no priority to human consumption needs, contrary to what the federal government proclaims almost daily in the media.  The truth is that it is destined for irrigation, shrimp production, and industrial use, like metal production. The high costs of the project will be charged to the entire population of the Northeast, whether or not a person receives benefits from the project.

Urgent Action Request:  Letter Writing Campaign for Murder Trial of Dorothy Stang

The trial of Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura, a rancher accused of ordering the assassination of Sister Dorothy Stang, has been set for May 14^th, in Belem, Para. The American missionary, a leader in defense of the environment, rural workers and human rights in the state of Para, was assassinated with six bullets in February of 2005.  We urge our readers to take part in a letter writing campaign to let authorities know that the outside world is interested in this case and others like it.  As the trial is in a few days, you can send letters to INDBELEM@AMAZON .COM.BR,  or Depweg@sndden.org, who will print your letters and take them to the trial.  Below is information received from the lawyer in the case:
 
MESSAGE FROM ROSELENE  LAWYER IN SISTER DOROTHY’S CASE:

I am giving you the following suggestions of points to send in a letter to the authorities:

HISTORY OF THE SITUATION
Dorothy dedicated her life:
- in favor of the cause of poor farmers
- struggled for agrarian reform and in defense of the forest and the Amazon poor
- lived her last years in Anapú, a city along the Transamazon Highway, a municipality known for the violent actions of  ranchers and loggers
- the announcement of Dorothy’s death had immediate repercussions provoking reactions of social and religious groups that urged urgent action, diverse mobilizations that were begun to accompany the proceedings that were taken by the police and by the State and Federal government
- during the investigations and the process, it remained evident that to execute the crime, the gunman, Raifran counted on the help of Clodoaldo Batista (Eduardo), both hired by the intermediary Amair Feijoli da Cunha (Tato and that the one’s who ordered the crime, the land owners, were Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura (Bida) and Regivaldo Pereira Gelvão (Taradão).

ACTUAL SITUATION OF THE PROCESS
- of the 5 accused, 4 are in prison, three have been judged and condemned.  Raifran das Neves and Clodoaldo Carlos Batista were judged in December of 2005 and were sentenced respectively to 27 and 17 years in prison; Raifran, because he got more than 20 years appealed (this is set for sometime in 2007) and Clodoaldo appealed to the Justice Tribunal of the State.  His appeal was already heard and was denied and his appeal has been sent to the Superior Court of Justice in Brasilia.
- Amair Feijoli da Cunha )Tato) was judged in May of 2006 and sentenced to 18 years,  and this was not appealed.
- of the two who ordered the assassination, Regivaldo Pereira Galvão was freed in June 2006 by a Habeas Corpus given by the Federal Supreme Court, while Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura is still in Prison.

THE TRIAL OF VITALMIRO BASTOS DE MOURA
- Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura will be judged as the one who ordered the assassination of the missionary Dorothy Mae Stang, he, together with Regivaldo Pereira Galvão, offered to pay 50 thousand Reias for the death of Sister Dorothy.  Bida, as Vitalmio is known, was cited by Sister Dorothy in several documents that she sent to the Brazilian authorities.

OTHER POINTS
- the people of Anapú have lost a great leader and as of today have not yet recovered, they sense the lack of the one who stimulated and gave courage to them to keep on struggling
- the dream of agrarian reform for the poor of the land, to have land to plant, live and produce continues to be a distant dream
- the ranchers, loggers and large farmers (landowners) continue encroaching into the Project for Sustainable Development (PDS)
- the fight of impunity passes over the condemnation of those who order the murders against workers and leaders.

For the moment this is the information, I am at your complete disposal for other explanations.

Sincerely,

Rosalene do Socorro C. da Silva

Addresses of the authorities that should receive correspondence for support and solidarity for the people of Anapú and the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur on the occasion  of the hearing of Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura.

Juiz Dr. Raimundo Moisés Alves Flexa
2 Vara Penal
Forum Criminal de Belem
Rua Tomázia Perdigão, 310 Cidade Velha
CEP: 66015-260 (Anexo São João)
Belem, Pará


Des. Claudio Montalvão das Neves
Av. Almirante Barroso, 3089
CEP: 66613-710, Bairro Souza
Belem, Pará


Governadora Ana Júlia de Vasconcelos Carepa
Palácio dos despachos
ROD: Augusto Montenegro, KM 09
Bairro: Coqueiro CEP: 66823-010
Belem, Pará

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