supplied
by Brazil Justice Net
Number 593, July 9, 2008
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In this week's News from Brazil:
Documents from Public Ministry
reveal a plan to get rid of the MST
,by Miguel Stedile
Evicting squatters from abandoned lands, prohibiting encamped families
from any movement, using violence to disrupt protests, turning the
leadership and the social movements into criminals. These
scenes, going on in Rio Grande do Sul for the last two years, are part
of a strategy of the State Public Ministry (Ministério
Público Estadual MPE) and of the Military Brigade
to do away with the Landless Movement (Movimento Sem Terra
MST). The accusations were released in a public hearing on
June 24 and are based on the minutes of the High Council of the MPE of
Rio Grande do Sul.
On December 3, 2007 the Council approved a report from prosecutors
Luciano de Faria Brasil and Fábio Roque Sbardeletto; they
investigated the MST for one year. The report used research
from . . . notorious opponents of the movement, and another report from
the Military Brigade, signed by commandant Waldir João Reis
Cerutti, former candidate for state deputy for the Progress Party.
According to the prosecutors, the MST is a paramilitary
organization, trained by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia
(Forças Armadas Revolucionárias da
Colômbia FARC) and represents a threat to national
security.
Unanimously, the Council of the Public Ministry of Rio
Grande do Sul decided to initiate a series of measures for the
“dissolution of the MST and declaration of its
illegality.”
In order to reach this objective, the High Council of the
State Public Ministry . . . formed a prohibition of any movement of
landless, such as marches or walks. It went out and conducted
surveillance on encampments and leadership for “criminal
practices”, such as squatting and the use of public
funds. It also interfered with the MST schools, including
their pedagogical method. And it worked to “close
down” all of the encampments.
The decision of the State Public Ministry has already been
put into practice since last year, when a landless workers’
march was kept from getting close to any of the towns in the Carazinho
district. Since the beginning of this year, the Military
Brigade has taken very aggressive action at protests, without
negotiations with the movements, wounding and arresting many people.
We are in the face of a greatest government and military conspiracy,
since the end of the Brazilian military dictatorship, which is seeking
to annihilate a social movement,” declared the lawyer Leandro
Scalabrin, author of the accusations. For the lawyer, the
decision of the Public Ministry goes against the International
Agreement about Civil and Political Rights and the Federal
Constitution….
Documents from their own report contradict the evaluation of the
prosecutors: an enquiry of the Federal Police, made between January and
August of last year, verified that there is not “any
connection with FARC nor is their even a foreigner in that
place” and concluded that “crimes against the
security of the State do not exist”.
In a press release, the State Coordination of the MST
affirmed that Rio Grande do Sul has created an atmosphere of
“threats to the freedoms gained at the end of the military
dictatorship”. The Coordination continues,
“The content of the documents and the actual practice of
these institutions represent a return to authoritarianism, to the
disrespect of the Civil Society and the inability to respect social and
political plurality.”
Source: Brasil de Fato, June 26, 2008
Without proof, CPT lawyer is
sentenced to 2 years in prison
by Michelle Amaral
Advocate and member of the national coordination of the
Pastoral Land Commission [Comissão Pastoral da Terra
CPT], José Batista Gonçalves Afonso,
was sentenced by the Federal Court of Marabá (PA) to a
punishment of 2 year and five months in prison, together with a former
regional coordinator of the Federation of Workers in Agriculture
[Federação dos Trabalhadores na Agricultura
Fetagri]. The verdict was based on the accusation,
presented by representatives of the Federal Public Ministry
[Ministério Público Federal MPF], that
the accused allegedly incited an occupation of the headquarters of the
Incra in Marabá, during a meeting that occurred between the
state government and 120 leaders of associations and syndicates,
representatives of Fetagri, of the Confederation of the Workers of
Agriculture [Confederação dos Trabalhadores da
Agricultura Contag], of Movement of Landless Workers [MST]
and the CPT.
Around ten thousand rural workers demanding the settlement
of thousands of landless families encamped in the region and in order
to report the precariousness of the existing settlements,
[additionally] they were going to set up an encampment in front of the
headquarters of the Incra in Marabá until they were received
by the state government. The meeting happened on April 4,
1999, twenty days after the workers had camped in the area, and because
of the session’s delay, a multitude outside of the
headquarters invaded the building, blocking the exit of the building
from the negotiation team until the morning of the following
day. The lawyer, João Batista, was in the meeting
as a consultant for MST and the Fetagri; he was charged together with
various leaders despite having tried to mediate the conflict, accused
of having incited the crowd to block the exit of the team from the
Incra building.
The decision to imprison the lawyer by the Federal Court of
Marabá, without recourse to an alternative penalty, angered
the leaders of the social movements, among them the CPT, which released
a statement that “the partiality of the judge Carlos Henrique
Haddad became clear not only in the light of the verdict, but also in
the length of the incarceration.” The CPT
complained that the decision of the judge contradicted his own
statement, when he said: “it is possible that he did not
incite the invasion of the headquarters of Incra by the rural workers
and seems believable that he was not in control of the situation with
the excited crowd”, and soon after [the judge] increased the
penalty as if the accused was responsible for instigating the crime.
In an interview given to Brasil do Fato by Dom
Tomás Balduíno, lawyer and member of the CPT,
analyzing the decision of the Federal Court of Pará.
Brasil do Fato: Was there sufficient proof for the
Federal Court to condemn the CPT lawyer, José Batista,
without recourse to an alternative sentence? What is your
evaluation of the sentence of the court?
Dom Tomás Balduíno: There was not
enough proof, because the reason given for the verdict was the
occupation of Incra. This is evidence of a form of trying
justice that is a result of political forces, [Batista] did not impede
the government, nor did he occupy the building. Truly there
is a prejudice against these organizations, in this case it’s
the CPT, that is reason behind this verdict, which is not,
incidentally, an isolated incident. In the South there is a
position taken by the Public Ministry of Rio Grande do Sul to
criminalize the MST. Added to this is the impunity of the
chief assassin of the Sister Dorothy [Stang], . . . and the positions
taken by many people in authority against organization of the
indigenous people. I think this is a retrograde attitude,
which is not in keeping with what is going on now in Brazil, which
compares well with all of Latin America, from wealth of the society and
by participation in politics. The thinking of the social
organizations, in fact, reaches more of the country in terms of needed
changes in society, justice and ecology.
Brasil do Fato: What indication is the justice
system giving to society by, on the one side condemning the defense
lawyer of human rights and, on the other, absolving the one who orders
a crime, as in the case of missionary Dorothy Stang?
Balduíno: It is a
contradiction because, on the one hand there is much complacency in
relation to all of the economic power that is now investing to the
detriment of the Amazon in the form of devastation, [it has gotten] to
the point that the government is not able to control this, and on the
other hand wanting to wipe out the whole force that emerges in defense
of social justice, against slave labor, for the democratization of the
land use and for the defense of Mother Nature, of forests and waters.
Brasil do Fato: From the perspective of the social
movements, what is the significance of the action of the Federal Court
in the case of the lawyer José Batista?
Balduíno: There are cases that become symbolic,
such as these others cited from the MST and from its own process of
impunity that is historical in the State of Pará .
Meanwhile, this represents a huge regression, perhaps worse than the
military dictatorship, the exclusion of organizations from the public
square of our civil society … by the forces that are in
power. The organizations are, appropriately, an expression of
the great dignity of our republic.
Brasil do Fato: There is the case in Rio Grande do Sul, where
the Public Ministry has the declared objective of getting rid of the
MST, what is causing this escalation of criminalization of the social
movements that are active today?
Balduíno This is a continuation of what already
was being done on by the representatives of the some parts of society,
the representatives of economic power. We already were used
to this attitude of criminalizing movements by the Democratic Union of
Rural Landowners (UDR União Democrática
Ruralista), from rural representatives and, on the whole, by timber
merchants, the owners of the huge dams and hydroelectric
projects. This was already starting to happen, and now what
preoccupies us is that this will affect the government, which should be
exempt and impartial, especially the judiciary. The case of
the condemnation of Batista, regarding the attitude of the Public
Ministry of the Rio Grande do Sul, indicates the partiality.
And the case of the Public Ministry is even worse because it acts as an
instrument at the service of the society, in defense of society, with
the power it has been granted. There (in the case of Rio Grande do
Sul), it is doing the political will of the State Government.
Source: Brasil de Fato, June 27, 2008
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