Brazil's MST Pays Tribute to Landless Workers Killed by Police in 1996
Brazil's MST Pays Tribute to Landless Workers Killed by Police in 1996
Saturday, 09 May 2015 00:00
By Armando Carmona, Truthout | News Analysis
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Shacks occupied by members of the Landless Workers' Movement in Brazil.
(Photo: Matteo Turilli/Flickr)
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Landless rural workers occupy farms in Brazil to fulfill the promises and obligations of a people's agrarian reform movement and to reclaim a sense of justice. Land occupations in Brazil happen continuously throughout the year, however, the month of April - called "Red April" (Abril Vermelho) - pays tribute and remembrance to the Landless Workers Movement's (MST) fallen comrades of the Eldorado dos Carajas massacre. More than 46 land occupations in 15 states occurred between April 17 and 24. In the south of Mato Grosso, the MST's largest occupation now includes more than 1,500 families.
On April 17, 1996, 21 political militants of the MST were killed by military police. Nineteen were killed immediately and three died days after; 69 additional people were injured in the shooting. The MST members were blocking a road in the northern state of Para. Military police responded to an order by then Gov. Almar Gabriel, who ordered them to remove the roadblock, and then Secretary of Public Safety Paulo Camara, who authorized the use of force. Reports state that close to 150 police were involved in the shooting. In 2012, nearly 16 years after the actual killing of these MST members, only two officers, Col. Mario Colares Pantoja and Maj. Jose Mauriz Pereira de Oliveira have been tried in court: Pantoja was sentenced to 228 years in prison and Oliveira to 158 years.
The Eldorado dos Carajas massacre has reverberated through the hearts and minds of the MST for nearly two decades. It has been a rallying cry for those who denounce violence in the fields and a key example for how impunity for state officials exists when dealing with concerns of the landless people. While two officers have been imprisoned, that is an inadequate response that does not reverberate with what the movement understands as justice for their societal and political concerns. Justice for the MST is not limited to a judicial response to individual atrocities such as the Eldorado massacre, but a systemic response to the conditions that allow these types of incidents to exist.
"The organization of the state and its judicial branches have laws that emerge from a capitalist system. Brazil's history is marked by legislation that has privileged the interests of the market," said Bruno Rodrigo Silva Diogo from the MST Statewide Direction in Minas Gerais. The MST argues that violence and discrimination against landless workers exist because agrarian reform - land reform - has yet to be put into practice.
More:
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/30620-brazil-s-mst-pays-tribute-to-landless-workers-killed-by-police-in-1996#
