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Brazil Justice Net

An alternative news source in Brazil,  building bridges to social movements working for a better world

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NEWS FROM BRAZIL
supplied by Brazil Justice Net
Number 625, February 23, 2010


Five Years without Sr. Dorothy Stang

February 12th  for many means the Day of Impunity:  it was exactly on this date five years ago that missionary sister Dorothy Stang, at 75 years old, died after six bullets from an assassin’s gun.  It was a barbarous crime that got the country and the world’s attention.  The assassination occurred at 7 a.m. in the municipality of Anapu, in the southeastern part of the state of Para.  It was planned by two ranchers whose economic interests were being threatened by the work of the sister who defended poor agricultural workers, working on their behalf for agrarian reform and sustainable production projects. The two ranchers, Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura, known as Bida, and Regivaldo Pereira Galvao, known as Taradao, have yet to be conclusively condemned by the justice system.

“Dorothy’s work was very connected to the most needy people.  She devoted her life to them, made a preferential option for the most poor, lived with these families, and began to organize these communities and associations as well.  She often walked from community to community defending the interests of these people,” said Dom Erwin, bishop of Prelazia, Xingu, who worked with the missioner.

For Jane Silva, the coordinator of the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) in Para, the date of Sr. Dorothy’s death is important in that it is a chance to remember the work the missioner pursued, following her vision of people and forests living in harmony.  “She showed that it is possible to manage food production in a way that protects the forest.  She showed it was possible if public policies were enacted.”

According to Dom Erwin, who has also received death threats since 2006 and has had to have police escort, Dorothy worked against the ambitions of large ranchers and land grabbers by settling poor families into Sustainable Development Projects (PDS), a new settlement model based on small family farming and subsistent extraction projects with low environmental impact.  “With this type of settlement, begun by the government itself, she countered the interests of large landowners who wanted to increase their pastures,” said Dom Erwin. For the bishop, the most important thing about this five year anniversary date is to remember that the sister’s death is symbolic--it calls attention to her work in favor of those less favored and for the conservation of the Amazon, which is becoming more and more devastated.  “A few days before her death, she said that in spite of being threatened, she knew her place was alongside these people who are constantly mistreated.  So, she could not run away.”

Making the guilty responsible

In the same year that the crime was committed, Rayfran das Neves Sales confessed to be the one who actually shot Sr. Dorothy, and was given a 27-year prison sentence.  The sentence was upheld on December 10, 2009 in the Criminal Forum of Belem after a request for a new trial was denied.  Two other accomplices of the crime,  Amair Feijole da Cunha and Clodoaldo Carlos Batista, are serving 18 and 17 years, respectively.  In 2007, one of the ranchers and architects of the crime, Bida, received a 30-year prison sentence.  However, in a new trial held in 2008, he was found innocent.  The public prosecutor appealed the decision.  The Para justice system then annulled the absolution of the rancher and ordered his imprisonment.  The Brazil Supreme Court denied Bida habeas corpus in February 4, 2010, and he finally turned himself in and awaits a new trial, to be held on March 31, 2010.

The other architect of the crime, Taradao, has yet to be tried.  He continues to walk freely, though he was imprisoned in December of 2008 for another motive:  he tried to falsify land documents of the area which was in dispute during Sr. Dorothy’s time.  According to the federal police, Taradao fraudulently tried to acquire Lot 55, which occupies 3,000 hectares of the PDS for which Sr. Dorothy was fighting.  The rancher was in prison for less than two months.  His trial is expected to happen sometime in the first half of this year.

Crimes and impunity in rural areas

Despite the commotion around Sr. Dorothy’s assassination, Dom Erwin said that this is not the only crime of this type, and there are other similar cases which have never been covered by the press.  “A few years ago, a father of a family named Ademir died for the same reason.  In the early morning, they entered his house and killed him, in front of his wife.  But the case never received the same attention as Dorothy’s case.  And there have been other cases in the last few years.”

Jane Silva of the CPT stated that today the Public Defender’s Office has recognized the existence of 72 death threats in the state.  Last week, the CPT entered a list of 681 deaths related to land conflict between 1982 and 2008.   

Dorothy, a life of action

Sr. Dorothy Stang was born on June 7, 1931, in Dayton, Ohio, USA, and as a religious sister was sent by her congregation (Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur) in 1966 to work in Maranho, Brazil.  From the beginning, she worked with agricultural laborers from small Christian base communities.  Sr. Dorothy accompanied many of such communities in Para.  There was lack of land for family farmers to plant and there were workers fleeing from submission to large land owners.

In 1982, Sr. Dorothy sought out Bishop Dom Erwin to talk about her desire to work among the poor of the Amazon.  “I was already a bishop at that time, and she introduced herself as a representative of her congregation, and told me she wanted to work among the poorest.  So I said to her, go to Transamazonia East, what is now Anapu.  She stayed there until the end of her life,” said Dom Erwin. 

It was in the poorest and the most needy areas of the Amazon (through which passes the Transamazonian Highway) that Sr. Dorothy worked and struggled against the interests of land grabbers and large ranchers.  Since the 1980’s, the region of the small city of Anapu has suffered greatly from deforestation.  This has caused constant conflict among land grabbers, woodcutters, small producers and settlers.  Sr. Dorothy denounced the situation various times to the Brazilian authorities..

In June of 2004, the missioner participated in a inquiry commission on violence in rural areas and denounced the impunity that had aggravated the situation of land conflicts in Para.  She said that the land grabbers did not respect boundaries of land destined for agrarian reform.  The head of the commission later asked for the creation of a task force which allowed the Public Ministry and the Federal Police to act in Para.


The main vision of Sr. Dorothy, indicated by her work for sustainable development, was that rural workers should have the right to a piece of land for planting, respecting the environment.  “This generated a very hostile environment.  The large land owners did not want this sister.  In the middle of it all, I had to defend her.  Even the Legislative House of Anapu declared her to be a person non grata, and there was a wave of lies.  I was on the radio and television many times saying that none of these lies were true,” said Dom Erwin. 

Shortly after lands were destined for a PDS, the land grabbers took control of the lands.  They alleged that the lands already had owners, and began threatening many families, scaring them off the land.


Sr. Dorothy’s work for small farmers increased the ire of the ranchers.  For this reason, her life was cut short with six shots at blank range as she was going to a meeting of rural workers in the countryside of Anapu.  “The murderers wanted to commit the act the night before, while she was sleeping in one of those poor houses.  But they were scared away when a child began to cry, and left the deed for the next day,” said Dom Erwin.


The Dorothy Committee

After the assassination, the Dorothy Committee (www.comitedorothy.blogspot.com) was formed n Anapu.  The group’s objective is to construct a culture of peace through the commitment of men and women and the Defense of Human Rights and Justice office to socio-environmental causes, thus furthering the work of Sr. Dorothy.  The committee is formed by religious people, human rights activists, and young people who are indignant with the impunity around these rural crimes, and who believe in the possibility of doing something for the common good and for the rights of excluded people of the Amazon.  This is the legacy of Sr. Dorothy.

Source: Comissao Pastoral da Terra, Secretaria Nacional, February 12, 2010

NEWS FROM BRAZIL
supplied by Brazil Justice Net
Number 624, February 5, 2010

Visit our home page at:  http://www.braziljusticenet.org

In this week's News from Brazil:

Science According to CTNBio
By Verena Glass

It is possible that Brazil may gain a sad new title in 2010:  the first country in the world to license the commercial planting of a new variety of genetically-modified rice, Bayer’s LL62.  If CTNBio (National Technical Commission on Biosecurity) approves the proposal at a meeting later this month, the rice will be the 20th genetically-modified product grown commercially in the country. 

CTNBio has maintained a steady flow of approval of GMO (genetically-modified organisms) licensing requests over the last years.  Between 2005 and 2009, CTNBio gave licensing for two varieties of soy, eleven varieties of corn and six of cotton.  There seems to be little doubt that the commission will continue this trend and approve the rice, except for one thing:  this time there is a generalized opposition to the rice from various sectors, such as researchers, consumer groups, environmental groups, and even groups that have traditionally been pro-transgenic, such as Embrapa (Brazilian Agricultural Research Company, a public entity which has supported GMOs), Farsul (Agricultural Federation of Rio Grande do Sul), and Federarroz (Federation of Rice Grower Associations of Rio Grande do Sul).

According to Embrapa and Southern rice farmers, the major threat of Bayer’s rice is the possible transference of a genetic mutation of red rice, with is considered the most invasive plant of irrigated rice farming.  With contamination, this plant, which already causes damages to productivity and quality of the rice in areas which are highly infested, will become resistant to chemical control.  In other words, according to Embrapa, if transgenic rice is licensed, it will be a threat to food security, capable of contaminating other varieties of rice in the country.

Thus, if researchers (concerned with scientific evaluations), producers (concerned with economic questions), and consumers (concerned with what they eat--Greenpeace has already gathered 20,000 signatures against the transgenic rice) are opposed to the proposal, then one could ask the question, To whom is the CTNBio catering if it votes in favor of Bayer’s rice?  Perhaps it would be imprudent to suggest that the sales of multinational transgenic companies is related to the licensing of GMOs in Brazil.  But the fact is, according to Exame magazine, Monsanto, which has had nine varieties of GMOs approved, earned in sales US$783.9 million in 2006, US$899.2 million in 2007, and US$954.8 million in 2008.

According to the Law of Biosecurity, the commission, created in 2005, was to “give technical and consultative support to the federal government in formulating, updating, and implementing the National Policy of Biosecurity, relative to GMOs, such as the establishment of technical norms and technical partners in regard to the protection of human health, other organisms and the environment, and activities which involve the construction, experimentation, farming, manipulation, transportation, commercialization, stocking, consuming, licensing and disposal of GMOs and their derivatives. “  In order for a GMO to obtain commercial licensing, fourteen of the 27 members of the commission must approve the product. 

According to entities of civil society who have watched over the work of CTNBio, many of the technical analyses in the processes of licensing GMOs have lacked scientific rigor and have not followed the  principles of caution as outlined in the Protocol of Cartagena regarding Biosecurity.  In addition these processes have lacked research on national soil that proves the security of the commercial planting of the varieties that were licensed.  On the contrary, a strong characteristic of the majority of the commission’s members is that they favor GMO technology.  In 2003, eight of the current members of CTNBio wrote an open letter in which they affirmed that “Brazil cannot let go of transgenic technology” as it is “essential for sustainability and keeps agribusiness and small family farms competitive, and brings innumerous social and economic benefits to the country.”

Among current members, there are various who have or have had some personal relation with biotech companies or with the pro-transgenic lobby groups of Basf, Bayer, Cargill, Dow, Dupont, Monsanto, Pioneer, Syngenta, and others.

Regarding observance of adequate scientific criteria in the process of licensing GMOs, or in the establishment of security norms for protection against contamination of non-transgenic fields by GMOs, CTNBio has been repeatedly challenged by diverse institutions.  In 2007, the licensing of Bayer’s transgenic corn Liberty Link and Monsanto’s MON 810 (outlawed in France, Austria, Greece, Luxemburg, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Germany) was questioned by Anvisa (National Sanitation Agency) and Ibama (Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Natural Resources).  Both entities pointed out errors in the technical reports which were fundamental in the licensing.  In the case of Bayer’s corn, Anvisa pointed out the insufficient data around proof of the security of transgenic corn for human consumption.  According to Ibama, CTNBio ignored the inexistence of environmental impact studies and an analysis of risk.  The Minister of the Environment also pointed out the absence of “studies or literature which prove the absence of environment damage, something alone which should have impeded the licensing.” 

Shortly after these denouncements were made, entities filed a civil suit which forced the Justice Department to demand of CTNBio the creation of norms which would in theory protect non-GMO corn fields from contamination.  In this case, minimal distances were established to protect non-GMO corn fields from transgenic corn--20 to 100 meters depending on different types of barriers.

But over the past three years, various entities have reported the contamination of non-GMO corn fields.  The Department of Inspection and Agriculture Defense officially confirmed these accusations in 2009, proving that the CTNBio’s norms are inadequate.  “The preliminary reports indicate that under the present norms it is impossible to secure the coexistence of GMO fields, conventional fields, and organic fields, as at the present moment all areas monitored show cross-pollination at a distance much greater than the current norm provides,” affirmed the Secretary of Agriculture.

Given this information, at the end of October 2009, various organizations of civil society promoted  a civil law suit that ask for the suspension of the licensing for commercially planted transgenic corn until an adequate norm can be established.  The suit currently is awaiting a decision from a judge in Parana.

In response to this issue, a representative of the Science and Technology Ministry, Luiz Antonio Barreto de Castro, acknowledged the contamination of non-GMO corn, but stated, “the norms of CTNBio were established taking into consideration that not always would the contamination result in damage for the farmers who produce varieties called heirlooms…even if contamination occurs, it will be to the advantage of the farmer.”  But contrary to Castro’s assertion, damages caused by contamination from GMO fields are recurrent in Brazil and in the rest of the world.  In 2004, for example, Eco Brazil Organics Ltda in the state of Parana had its production paralyzed after their fields were contaminated--three million dollars worth of damage.  In 2006, Bayer’s experimental fields for transgenic rice contaminated conventional fields and caused damages of one billion dollars around the world, according to a report issued by Greenpeace International.

CTNBio’s generosity towards transgenic has already had its collateral effects.  Biotech companies originally argued that their technology would mean less use of chemicals and pesticides.  Yet one study shows that the use of herbicides on soy, for example, has actually increased.  In 2004, 129.6 thousand tons of herbicides were poured into soy fields.  In 2008 the volume was raised to 192 thousand tons.  It is important to remember here that Brazil has become the biggest world consumer of agricultural chemicals, using nearly 673,890 tons per year.  The collateral effects of this:  6.3 thousand cases of human intoxication in 2007 resulting in 162 deaths.

Source:  Brasil de Fato, January 7-13,
 
The reproduction of this material is permitted as long as the source is cited. If you wish to contact us, send a message to bjn@braziljusticenet.org.



NEWS FROM BRAZIL
supplied by Brazil Justice Net
Number 623, December 8, 2009

Visit our home page at:  http://www.braziljusticenet.org

Dear News from Brazil readers,

This will be our last newsletter for 2009.  We will return to our work in February, 2010. 

We the staff of Brazil Justice Net wish you much peace as we come to yet another year’s end.  May 2010 be a year filled with more peace and justice for Brazil and all the nations on this good Earth. 

Best wishes,

Brazil Justice Net staff
In this week's News from Brazil:

The Valley of Resistance
By Silvia Alvarez

In 1969, guerilla leader Carlos Lamarca, member of the VPR (Popular Revolutionary Vanguard) chose the Vale do Ribeira, a region along the border of the states of São Paulo and Paraná, to build a training center for rural guerilla warfare.  The following year in an interview with a European magazine, Lamarca commented that the rural worker was receptive and capable of understanding [the ways of guerilla warfare].  Meanwhile, the military did not accept such receptivity:  “The military began to realize that we had gained popular support.  They arrested and assassinated a young rural couple.  They evacuated the population in the region and then bombed it.  They continued the terror by machine-gunning the forest, and sending low-flying aircraft over huts still inhabited,” said Lamarca.

Twenty years later, after Brazil had already established rights for election and began to write its new constitution, the various populations of the Vale do Ribeira were threatened again.  This time, not by the military, but by a company.  In 1989 the Brazilian Aluminum Company (CBA) began its first feasibility studies of constructing the Tijuco Alto dam to be built on the Ribeira de Iguape river.  This would be the main dam among three other dams on the river, Batatal, Funil and Itaoca.

Another 20 years have passed, and not one of the proposed dams have been built.  Once again, the people of the Vale de Ribeira have shown that they know what it is to resist.  In 2009, the Movement of Those Affected by Dams (MOAB) celebrated these two decades of resistance against the dams and other types of this construction.

“When I arrived here in 1986, I found various rural communities, and many, many trees--this impressed me a lot--and a population forgotten by those in power, very rich in their culture and in their relationship to the earth,” commented Sr. Sueli Berlanga, one of the founders of MOAB.  Berlanga went on to comment that some of this richness no longer exists.  There are now large extensions of land dedicated to eucalyptus and pine productions, and other areas which have been deforested.  Even so, according to statistics from the Social-Environment Institute (ISA), this region has 21% of what remains of the Atlantic Rainforest.  Part of this cultural and environmental diversity are 273 natural caverns that attract tourists and increase economic activity in the region.

The Environmental Impact Study of the Tijuco Alto Dam estimates that 51 square kilometers--the equivalent of 11,000 soccer fields--of this richly diverse area would be flooded, an area ripe for agriculture and animal husbandry.  The study affirms that 689 families would be affected by the construction of the dam.

“The Vale has always been a forgotten land, a valley of misery, but now businesses have come here because they have discovered the richness that we have, and want to exploit it for the benefit of very few,” asserted José Galindo, professor of History and member of MOAB.  “In reality, everything is part of the plan for the construction of the dam, the eucalyptus plantation, the pine plantation, the construction of paper factories, the construction of the port in Cananeia to export these products.  It seems like they are isolated factors, by they are part of a big puzzle now being put together.”

Together with the struggle against the dams, MOAB has also fought for land titles for those living in quilombos (communities of descendents of runaway slaves).  The Vale de Ribeira has within its region 51 such quilombos, whose ancestors worked as slaves in mining operations of the 18th century.  “We know what it is to struggle for the rights of the quilombo communities and to struggle against the dams.  If the dams were constructed, we would lose the land for which we have struggled all these years, and for which our ancestors struggled.  The two struggles are connected,” commented Benedito Alves of the Ivaporunduva quilombo, considered to be the oldest in the region.

Between 1989 and 1997, CBA began land acquisitions and began to evict rural workers in the municipalities of Ribeira and Cerro Azul, where the company’s quarry is located for the construction of the dam.  The company acquired 379 properties, paying very little or nothing at all for these.  In the case of Joceli Andadre, the company paid nothing.  One day, a judicial eviction notice was presented to her and her family, along with a moving truck.  The family never even had heard of the dam.  “They wanted to take us to the mayor’s office, but we asked them to leave us here at my father’s house,” said Andrade who now lives in the periphery of Cerro Azul with her husband and five children, where they often have to beg for food.

Without even being constructed, the dam has already generated unemployment and misery.  Sr. Sueli along with Sr. Angela Bigioni assert that the owner of CBA, Antonio Ermirio de Moraes has an enormous debt with the people of the valley:  “If we were to count all the energy, time and money spent during these 20 years of resistance, the hours of protesting, under the hot sun, without food or water, the time families have wasted on this issue instead of working on the farms, Antonio Ermirio’s debt is great.”

Of all the protests that have happened over these twenty years, there have been many unforgettable moments, like the one that happened in 1994 after a meeting of the Environment Council of São Paulo, where the Tijuco Alto dam project was being debated.  When Antonio Ermirio de Moraes left the meeting, a young reporter from Paulista State University approached him and asked him about the project.  Irritated, he grabbed the young woman and twisted her arm.  At that moment the Globo and Bandeirantes television crews turned off their cameras so as to not capture the scene.  Another woman, Araci Pedroso, who lives on one of the quilombos of the region, grabbed de Moraes’ arm and reprimanded him for assaulting the reporter.  He turned to the Pedroso and asked sarcastically, “How much do you want for your land?”  Pedroso responded, “It is not only I who live on the land.  You would have to buy up everyone’s land, and this I doubt you will ever do.  We don’t want your dam, and we don’t want to sell.”

The Tijuco Alto dam would not be the first dam to be built by CBA in the region.  They have already built two along the Juquiá River.  “When CBA came here in 1968, it made the same promise it does today:  it would bring development and jobs, and everything would change.  If you compare Juquiá at that time to how it is today, you will see that nothing has changed practically.  It continues to have one of the lowest human development index factors in the region,” said one of the inhabitants of Juquiá.

Source:  Brasil de Fato, November 19 - 25, 2009
 
The reproduction of this material is permitted as long as the source is cited. If you wish to contact us, send a message to bjn@braziljusticenet.org.