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Comité
Ejecutivo
Latinoamericano:
Presidente
Argentino Geneiro
UTHGRA
Argentina
Vicepresidenta
Neuza Barbosa
CNTA
Brasil
Carolina Llanos
UATRE
Argentina
Héctor Ponce
ATILRA
Argentina
Silvia Villaverde
FAOPCHPYA
Argentina
Alberto Broch
CONTAG
Brasil
Siderlei de Oliveira
CONTAC
Brasil
Luis A. Pedraza
UNAC
Colombia
Guillermo Rivera
SINTRAINAGRO
Colombia
Edwin Ranchos
FESTRAS
Guatemala
Gerardo Iglesias
Secretario Regional |
President of the
Federative Republic of Brazil
Ms Dilma Rousseff
Palacio de
Planalto
Brasilia
Dear President,
We are writing you
on behalf of the IUF’s 374 affiliates from 119
countries around the world to express our
profound dismay at the murder last Tuesday, May
24, in the state of Pará, of a husband and wife
team of rubber tappers and environmental and
trade union activists who had been working for
years to combat deforestation and the
misappropriation of land.
José Cláudio
Ribeiro da Silva
(Zé Cláudio) and Maria do Espírito
Santo Silva were executed in cold blood and
part of their ears were cut off by their
murderers as a warning of more terror and death
to anyone who continues their struggle.
This barbaric and
savage act would rightly be considered without a
doubt an act of “terrorism” anywhere in the
world, as it was a premeditated and planned out
crime committed by professional assassins
against innocent and unarmed persons, motivated
by political, social and economic objectives.
These are
“instrumental deaths,” mere tools meant to
influence a conflict that is not private but
public.
This time they
were the chosen victims, but it could have been
any of the 300 people who are in the sinister
death list drawn up by political and business
forces who are driven by profit and power as a
means of increasing their wealth.
Rural violence in
present-day Brazil is not just a primeval
practice rooted in pseudo-feudal relations and
promoted by the “coronéis” and land barons who
have traditionally ruled over a lawless and
God-forsaken land.
Today’s murderers
-the men who give out the orders to kill- have
computers with Internet connection, 4G cell
phones and all the latest technology to protect
their rural investments, allowing them to access
weather forecasts, consult export prices, close
business deals at a distance, manage stocks,
operate bank accounts, and more.
But there are some
things in which they have not changed: they are
still deforesting, they are still using cheap
and even slave labor, they are employing hired
guns, and they are benefiting from a system of
impunity illegally secured by complicit
officials who, moved either by conviction or
self-interest, act from public state bodies,
transforming this violence into parastatal
violence.
It is a true
organization created to kill, steal, lie and
manipulate, in sum, what is commonly known as
“organized crime” or mafia. Nowhere in the world
have such mafia groups been defeated without an
equally specialized and powerful effort
commanded by the political will of the state,
the same state that today gives free reign to
criminals while at the same time leaving local
rural communities utterly unprotected.
In an interview
published only two weeks ago on our web page,
members of our Brazilian affiliate, the National
Confederation of Agricultural Workers (CONTAG),
had forecasted the intensification of violence
in Pará, possibly favored by the recent change
in state governor.
We are all deeply
distressed to learn that their prediction came
true. This state-backed private terrorism has to
stop so that Brazil can once and for all be
steered towards the modern-day democracy that it
has already achieved in other essential aspects.
Which is why we
are joining all those who condemn and reject
these vile murders to demand, together with the
vast majority of the Brazilian people, that any
necessary actions be implemented to decisively
and persistently combat all of these mafia
groups and criminal organizations that are
greatly hurting Brazil.
In this area, like
in others, we expect truth, justice and
punishment for the perpetrators. We hope to see
an end to impunity. So that we can all be truly
equal before the law. So that the right to life
and to fight for one’s ideals will finally be a
reality for all.
Gerardo Iglesias
IUF Latin American
Regional Secretary
Montevideo, May
30, 2011
cc CONTAG, IUF
Geneva, ILO, PGAW-IUF, Trade Union Confederation
of the Americas (CSA), ITUC, Amnesty
International, World Rainforest Movement, Labor
Federations of Brazil, and Latin American
Association of Labor Lawyers.
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