Brazil:
International campaign against rural violence
in the Amazon
A team comprising Alvaro Santos, Emiliano
Camacho and the author travelled from Montevideo, Uruguay to the
state of Para in the Brazilian Amazon in the framework of a national
and international campaign on “An end to violence in rural areas!”
“Cut out this scourge from the root!” promoted by the Latin American
Secretariat of the International Union of Food workers (Rel-UITA)
and the Brazilian National Confederation of Agricultural Workers
(CONTAG), against rural violence in that country. The purpose
was to film a documentary video gathering testimonials regarding
some of the dozens of cases of rural leaders that have either
been murdered or threatened with death.
These people are struggling in the front
line where “grileiros” burn thousands and thousands of hectares
of forest to appropriate the land, with no papers – and in the
event they do have papers, they are always false – exploiting
it during the few years soil fertility lasts, until irremediably
it turns into a desert. The association between wealthy adventurers,
retired or serving military personnel who have founded their own
feudal dynasties (starting in the sixties during the years of
dictatorship) and those exporting precious wood, razing to the
ground almost 40 per cent of the best Brazilian Amazon timber
-and still advancing- and the cattle-ranchers and soya bean growers
that cover vast tracts of bootlegged land, are such a powerful
factor that, save for a few honourable exceptions, they are able
to demolish Justice, the Police and the local political system.
The 40-minute video prepared on this
occasion* tells three of these stories to help understand how
this social and environmental massacre carried out in the Amazon
turns into a drama of survival on a personal, individual level.
To get an idea of the magnitude of the disaster, it is enough
to mention a few facts:
- During the period of the Brazilian
military dictatorship alone (1964-1985), 10 million hectares of
Amazon forest were given over to settlements. Most of this land
was distributed among high ranking military officials.
- Since then, over 1,550 murders have
taken place, associated with disputes over land between powerful
landowners and landless peasants or rural worker leaders. Between
1985 and 2004 alone, 560 murders were denounced relating to this
cause.
- Of these, the police investigated
a mere 30 per cent, only 6 per cent led to legal proceedings and
in only 3 per cent of the cases were the merits of the cause determined,
the suspects nearly always being absolved due to “lack of evidence.”
In short, cases in which a conviction was made were less than
one per cent and the intellectual authors of the murders were
practically never tried.
- Because of this inefficiency on the
part of the legal and police system, 300 murder cases have already
been prescribed as unenforceable.
- In 2003, 35 thousand families were
recorded as having been evicted from their plots of land, in 2004
this figure was 37 thousand and in 2005 the figure dropped to
“only” 26 thousand families. However, partial figures for the
current year lead us to suppose that there will be an increase
in the number of families evicted from rural areas in relation
to the previous year.
- The Brazilians call people who have
become landowners by “stealing” fiscal land “grileiros.” Very
often this involves thousands of hectares. These grileiros open
up a gap in the forest, where large trucks can enter and leave.
Then they log all the timber with a high market value and burn
the rest. Satellite photos show the hundreds of fires taking place
every day, where high spirals of smoke rise from the whole of
the Amazon forest, from Bolivia to Venezuela.
- After burning this “useless forest”
the grileiros fake title deeds with the complicity of corrupt
local authorities and fence in their new “acquisition.” With this
procedure there are landowners who have managed to accumulate
over 200 thousand hectares. First of all they bring in cattle
to “tame” the forest soil, and then they plant transgenic soya
bean, with massive use of the herbicide glyphosate for weed control.
- In the city of Santarem, in the heart
of the forest and on the River Amazon, the transnational corporation
Cargill has built, without any type of permit, its own port and
the largest soya bean deposits in the world, where it stores the
soya beans grown in these illegal farms.
- According to official and conservative
estimates, some 100 million hectares have been “griladas” in the
whole of Brazil, some 90 per cent alone located in the Amazon.
This area is as large as the whole of Central America and Mexico
put together.
- Proposals for agrarian reform made
by civil society set out a rational use of the forest: out of
the total amount of land allocated to a community or to a farming
family, the owners are authorized to cultivate 20 per cent and
acquire a commitment to conserve the other 80 per cent where they
can only carry out sustainable extractive activities. Land
ownership is associated with fulfilling this commitment.
- In the opinion of trade unions and
local peasant associations, the present government has made notorious
efforts to change the situation. For example, over the past few
years, 17,325 people who were subject to slave labour in ranches
distant from populated centres were freed. In 2005 federal
resources to resolve and prevent these conflicts were increased
fourfold. Laws protecting important areas of the Amazon were adopted
(that will have to be enforced), but the aspirations and needs
of the communities concerned have still to be fulfilled.
A law was adopted for the protection of Quilombola communities**.
Among other initiatives and actions, a programme for geo-referencing
the “hot frontier” of the Amazon forest corresponding to the areas
most attacked by grileiros and logging companies has started to
be implemented, under the responsibility of the Brazilian army.
- In spite of this, the pace of deforestation
in the Brazilian Amazon remains at approximately 2
million hectares per year and changes agreed on in the
capital often take years in reaching the concrete locations where
communities and rural workers suffer from the consequences of
the landowners’ - the powerful ones - impunity and absolutism.
Rel-UITA and CONTAG’s national and international
campaign is already showing positive results such as the visit
by European trade union delegations and parliamentarians to the
Brazilian government and to the area of Para with the aim of appraising
in situ the complaint. The presence of Federal Police in the zone
and strengthening of economic and human resources for the Public
Ministry in the region have raised hope for change. However, the
experience accumulated over so many years of struggle prevents
any social organization from dropping its guard and they all are
active and alert.
By Carlos Amorín, Rel-UITA. The complete
version of this article -in Spanish- can
be accessed at:
http://www.wrm.org.uy/paises/Brasil/Para.html
*“En la frontera del miedo. Historias
de vida y muerte” (At the frontier of fear. Stories of life and
death,” Direction and script: Carlos Amorín and Alvaro Santos;
Cameras: Emiliano Camacho, Alvaro Santos, César Ramos; Edition:
Fabián Arocena; Made by: Osmedia (www.osmedia.com.uy);
Production: Rel-UITA (www.rel-uita.org),
CONTAG (www.contag.org.br).
For information on the video:
uita@rel-uita.org
** Quilombos: Communities of descendents
of African runaway slaves
