The Landless Workers' Movement : URGENT ACTION: One Landless Worker is Killed and Many Others Wounded in Paraíba Land Conflict

National Secretariat June 4, 2003

This morning, about 1500 landless workers were working together on the São José farm when a group of heavily armed hired men (ordered by the farm owner, Marcos Napoleão) surprised the workers. The hired men attacked the landless families and fired many shots at them. 43 year-old worker Antônio Alves da Silva was killed and ten other workers were wounded. Three of those were seriously wounded, including two women (one just fourteen years old) and one man.

The São José farm is located in the municipality of Jacaraú, 65 kilometers from João Pessoa. The farm extends over 400 hectares of land and was occupied by fifty landless families from the region on August 5, 2001. The families requested that INCRA survey the property, but their request was refused according to MP 2029, which states that occupied land will not be surveyed. INTERPA (Land Institute of Paraíba) agreed to come up with a proposal to resolve the problem, but has done nothing up until now. The families have already suffered eviction, various threats, and assassination attmepts. Currently, the families are camped near the farm; they continue to plant and harvest products to guarantee food on their tables.

In Paraíba, landowner Marcos Napoleão is known as an arms trafficker; he had his house inspected by the Legislative Assembly's Parliamentary Commission of Investigation, a group that investigates accusations of rural violence and private militias in the state of Paraíba. When Napoleão's house was inspected, many firearms and ammunition were confiscated.

On September 12th and 14th of last year, the families were threatened by 11 hired men on orders of the landowner. On the 15th of that same month, as the families were trying to prepare food, they were surprised by the arrival of Napoleão's gunmen. The hired men arrived with a bucket of gasoline and cotton-tipped torches. They soaked the torches, lit them on fire and threw them on top of the families' shelters. While this was happening, nine of the hired men began firing their guns toward the settlement from the top of a truck. All of the families' shelters were burned down and two of the workers were hit by the gunfire: José Gomes da Silva (45 years old) and Cláudio Rodrigues da Silva (27 years old). Both men were treated at the Trauma Hospital. Children and adults suffered from burns from the fires as well.

At the time, deputy Frei Anastácio asked Paraíba Police Superintendent Dr. João Alves to designate a group of police officers to visit the land and investigate what had happened. Military police, civil police, special delegation Magalhães, and scientific examiners were sent to the land. The police officers surveyed the damage, and while they were still there, the hired men attacked the settlement yet again. The police followed them and were able to catch the landowner, Marcos Napoleão, adminsitrator Jivago Hiure Quirino Henrique and three of the hired men. They were immediately jailed in João Pessoa, photographed and interviewed for the investigation, but then released the next day.

Currently, the workers are living without identification because many of them lost their voter registration documents, birth certificates, and marriage certificates in the fires. The children at the settlement cannot attend the regional schools because they lack the proper documents for registration, as do their parents. This situation has been communicated many times to the state government's Secretary of Justice. The workers seek to regain their honor and dignity; they have waited for weeks to meet with local authorities concerning these matters, a meeting that has still not taken place.

This is yet another grave act of violence against rural workers in our state of Paraíba. We have denounced many times the irresponsibility of public agencies, judicial powers, and the civil and military police, for permitting numerous acts of violence by landowners and their hired men against families in Paraíba, who fight for a better life and for their rights. Many demonstrations, public forums, and printed accusations have already taken place surrounding the threats, attacks, tortures, assassinations, and destruction of homes and farms carried out by hired men and police officers from our state against poor families from our communities.

Not even the work of the Legislative Assembly's Parliamentary Commission of Investigation, a group that investigates accusations of rural violence and private militias in the state of Paraíba has resulted in the protection of landless workers. Written reports rich with information have not moved the authorities to take action to stop, prohibit, and dismantle groups of hired gunmen in the state.

The large landholders of Paraíba and their protectors in public agencies are embarrassing our country. Numerous foreign delegations representing prestigious international entities have visited the areas of conflict in our state and have witnessed and denounced the horrors of the violence and the disrespect of human rights in Paraíba. The most serious cases have already been encountered by the UN's Commission on Human Rights and Interamerican Commission on Human Rights.

The federal and state Public Administrations, INCRA, INTERPA, the Paraíba Secretary of Public Security and those responsible for their operations must be held responsible for the incompetence, delays, and inefficiency of dealing with rural conflicts in our region. Their responses have lacked the respect and dignity that each citizen deserves; such disastrous practices culminate in fatal events such as what we report today.

SEND EMAILS TO THE PARAÍBA STATE GOVENOR

Send emails in protest to the Paraíba state governor, Cássio Cunha Lim, to demand that he take necessary actions against these assassinations, those responsible for them, and the hired gunmen carrying out such orders.

Governor's email: governador@pb.gov.br