TAKE ACTION-Armed landlords prevent agrarian reform in Brazil
October 09, 2003
Since the end of 2002, 180 landless families are camping on the border of municipal land in Foy do Jordão,Paraná. Local landlords created armed military groups to protect their properties, harrass landless families and hinder the expropriation of land for the agrarian reform.
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Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform
EMERGENCY NETWORK
9/21/03 Brazil
Since the end of 2002, 180 landless families are camping on the border of road PR-373 in the surroundings of Municipality Foy do Jordão (centre of the state of ). The families had recently begun to work on the land of the Trombini Hacienda, a hacienda that has been declared as unproductive and is included in process of the agrarian reform. The second of September last year, twenty heavily armed men hired by the owners of the landlord, attacked the settlement of land less families and killed the peasants Paulinho Brasil and Anarolino Vial and severely injured two other persons. This recent violent act is only one among many in the campaign of These violent acts carried out by the landlords constitute a crime and represent a serious obstacle to an efficient realisation of the agrarian reform and the right to feed oneself for the affected land less families.
In this moment it is very important to ask the government of the state of Paraná to take urgent measures to end the acts against the families carried out by the armed military groups and to speed up the process of the agrarian reform. Please send letters to the Governor and the Security Secretariat of the state of Paraná. Please, send also a copy of the letter to the Land Pastoral Commission.
Background
After a period of severe repression and practices to paralyse the process of the agrarian reform, the poor peasant families’ demand for land in Paraná has increased the last months: the estimated number of settlements during the first semester of the year is 80 – 14 000 families – in the state as a whole. The prior Jaime Lerner government sealed an anti-agrarian reform pact with the landlords: thus, they were able to strengthen their private military groups in favour of the Public Security Secretariat and the Military Police of the state at the same time as it untied a wave of violence that during Lerner’s eight years in power has resulted in 16 assassinations, 31 victims of attacks, 47 death threats, 7 tortured, 324 injured, 488 detained, and 134 violent displacements.
The landlords’ violent respond to the struggle for land did not take long. In March this year the First Rural Command, PCR, an organisation led by the landowner Humberto de Sá, was created with the objective to recruit gunmen that persecute the land less families organised in the central region of Paraná. This organisation publicly argues in favour of the use of arms against the landless families and announce that they distribute arms of heavy calibre in order to prevent occupations of land.
Together with other landlord organisations such as the National Syndicate of Rural Producers, SINAPRO, and the Agricultural Federation of the state of Paraná, FAEP, the PCR put pressure on the current governor, Roberto Requião, in order to realise the legal decisions reintegração de posse (the return of the occupied land and the proceeding of redistribution of the land to the owner) and to act in a forceful manor towards the land occupants. It is most worrying that the juridical power often act in a partisan manor in favour of the landlords: in many cases the judges that are authorising the reintegração de posse in the occupied areas, do not consult relevant institutions such as the National Institute for Colonisation and Agrarian Reform, INCRA; and moreover, do not bear in mind to issue the failure in constitutional obligations such as the social function of the land, nor the international human rights that clearly give priority to the social rights of the poor rural families rather than the property rights of the landlords.
The mandate of the Emergency Network
Brazil ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and are therefore obligated under international law to respect, protect and fulfil the rights of the land less families. The state’s obligation to fulfil the people’s rights to feed oneself requires that the state must be open to the demands of marginalised groups such as the landless and must successfully implement integral programmes – like the agrarian reform – to improve the situation of deprivation that those without access to productive resources suffer. Moreover, the State must protect the land less from the violent acts carried out by the landlords and their armed military groups. The very existence of armed groups not only represent a formidable obstacle to the realisation of the agrarian reform, but also threatens the rule of Law.
End of Emergency Hotline: 31. November 2003
Addresses:
Sr. Roberto Requião
Gobernador del estado de Paraná
Palácio do Iguaçu - Centro Cívico - 3o. andar
80530-90 -Curitiba - PR - Brasil
Fax: +55 41 350 2535
Email: ccivil@pr.gov.br Copias a:
Sr. Dr. Luiz Fernando Delazari
Rua Deputado Mário de Barros, 1290 - 4º andar
CEP 80530-280 - Curitiba-PR-Brasil
Fax: +55 41 254 8838
Email: mjugenv@pr.gov.br
Comisión Pastoral de la Tierra
Email: cptpr@softone.com.br
Translation of the proposed letter
Ex. Mr. Governor,
I am receiving worrying information about violations of human rights currently carried out against land less rural workers en the state of Paraná. Since the end of 2002, 180 land less families are camping on the border of road PR-373 in the surroundings of Municipality Foy do Jordão (centre of the state of Paraná). Since a week ago the families are situated on the land of the Trombini Hacienda, a hacienda that has been declared as unproductive and is included in process of the agrarian reform. The second of September last year, twenty heavily armed men attacked the settlement of land less families and killed the peasants Paulinho Brasil and Anarolino Vial.
This violent act carried out on a daily basis against the rural workers in Paraná, that are being terrorised, intimidated, and physically and psychologically threatened by gunmen hired by the landlords in order to encourage this violent situation, complicate the process of a efficient implementation of the agrarian reform.
The gunmen hired by the land lords (renamed as “companies for private security”) currently constitutes the mayor threat to peace in the countryside. When trying to protect the unproductive latifundos in Paraná (land that already has been defined as unproductive – as in the case of Fazenda Trombini in Foz do Jordão) these military groups are challenging the constitutional authority and create a climate of fear and terror in the state.
As a state party of International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Brazil is obligated to respect, protect and realise the rights of its population. Systematic violence against the rural workers is against the political and civil rights. The slow process of realisation of the agrarian reform has indefinitely delayed the realisation of economic and social rights. Taken the obligations adopted by the Brazilian state in consideration, I therefore ask Your Excellency to take the measures necessary to end the violent acts against the land less in the state of Paraná, punish those responsible for these violent acts, and dismantle the private military groups of landlords. Moreover, I ask for immediate measures to realise the agrarian reform in this state, measures to settle the land less families, and essential measures to realise the human rights of the land less rural workers.
I kindly ask you to inform me about concrete measures taken in this regard.
Sincerely,
Please inform FIAN about any response of your letters and faxes
Sr. Roberto Requião
Governador do Estado do Paraná
Palácio do Iguaçu - Centro Cívico - 3o. andar
80530-909 - Curitiba - PR - Brasil
Fax: +55 41 350 2535
Exmo Sr. Governador,
estou recebendo informações preocupantes de violações de direitos humanos praticadas atualmente contra os trabalhadores rurais sem terra no Estado no Paraná. Desde final de 2002, 180 famílias de Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra estão acampados próximo ao município de Foz do Jordão (Região Centro do Estado do Paraná), as margens da PR-373. Há uma semana, mesmo permanecendo no acampamento a beira da estrada, as famílias vinham trabalhando na Fazenda Trombini, que é uma área improdutiva e já ofertada para a reforma agrária. No dia 2 de setembro, 20 fazendeiros fortemente armados atacaram os trabalhadores. Os trabalhadores Paulinho Brasil e Anaro Lino Vial foi assassinados no operativo.
Este ato de violencia traz à tona a realidade cotidiana vivida pelos trabalhadores rurais no Paraná que vêm sendo aterrorizados, intimidados e ameaçados física e psicologicamente por pistoleiros e jagunços agenciados pelos fazendeiros para estimular episódios de violência que emperrem ainda mais o processo de efetivação da Reforma Agrária.
Os jagunços do latifúndio (rebatizados de „empresas de segurança privada“) são, atualmente, a maior ameaça à paz no campo. Ao tentar proteger os latifúndios improdutivos do Paraná (terras muitas vezes já com laudo de improdutividade - como é o caso da Fazenda Trombini, em Foz do Jordão) essas milícias colocam em xeque a autoridade constituída e criam clima de medo e terror no Estado.
Brasil, como signatário do Pacto Internacional dos Direitos Humanos Econômicos, Sociais e Culturais e do Pacto Internacional dos Direitos Civis e Políticos, assumiu o compromisso e a obrigação de respeitar, proteger e assegurar estes direitos à população. A sistemática violência e arbítrio contra os trabalhadores rurais atentam contra seus direitos civis e políticos. A morosidade na realização da reforma agrária tem postergado indefinidamente a realização de seus direitos econômicos e sociais. Tendo em vista as obrigações assumidas pelo Estado Brasileiro, solicito veementemente à Vossa Excia que se digne a tomar as medidas necessárias e eficazes no sentido de impedir a violência contra os trabalhadores rurais do Estado do Paraná, punir os responsáveis envolvidos nos casos de violência e desmantelar as milícias privadas dos fazendeiros. Além disso, solicito medidas urgentes para a realização da reforma agrária neste Estado, mediante o assentamento das famílias de sem terra, medida imprescindível para a realização dos direitos humanos dos trabalhadores rurais sem terra.
Gostaria também de ser informado a respeito das medidas concretas tomadas nesta direção.
Atenciosamente,
CC: Secretário de Segurança
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