Upon the escalating wave of violence against rural workers, primarily in Mato Grosso, Pernambuco and Pará, the National Confederation of Agricultural Workers of Brazil (CONTAG) addresses government authorities and the general population, not merely to express their condemnation of and outrage at such barbarity. In its proclamation, CONTAG demands that concrete and immediate measures be taken to prevent the recurrence of these acts. General unease spreads throughout rural Brazil:

- In Pará, on November 4, vereador Edson Coelho Lara, a municipal councilperson linked to the rural workers’ movement, was murdered in the municipality of Itupiranga.

- On the eighth Domingos dos Santos Silva (Domingão), coordinator of the occupation of the Mineira estate, was killed with total impunity in Marabá. Yesterday, it was the turn of Pedro Laurindo da Silva, coordinator of the Cabo de Aço estate, in the same municipality.

- In Pernambuco, the victim was Anilton Martins, a worker killed in the municipality of Itaiba, who was shot 18 times. Ironically, Anilton himself had gone to the Palácio do Planalto (the seat of the government) nearly 15 months ago to ask President Lula for police protection.

- In Mato Grosso, rural workers cannot sleep peacefully either. Two fellow workers were murdered yesterday in the municipality of Nueva Guarita: Vanderlei Macena and Mauro Gomes Duarte. They were part of a group of 350 families that have been claiming a piece of land in that region since 2003.

The severity of these criminal acts is further aggravated by the fact that the perpetrators are protected by the governments of these states. According to reports by local federations of agricultural workers, the hired assassins commit their crimes openly and impudently, under contract of the large landowners, thus making the situation even more serious.

CONTAG leaders are trying to meet with the Minister of Justice, Marcio Thomaz Bastos, to discuss the situation and request that measures be adopted. The climate of war that has set in calls for federal troops to be sent immediately to the regions in conflict. Such intervention must be permanent, or at least be maintained until an end is put to the climate of terror.

The federal government admittedly acted very quickly in the investigation into the murder of missionary Dorothy Stang (also in Pará), perhaps because of that crime’s international repercussion. It apprehended the assassins in record time, for Brazilian standards. However, the work was only half done. With the process halted, the people who ordered the crime continue to be protected under a cloak of impunity.

CONTAG calls for the reopening of the investigation in this case. And, at the same time, it demands that the federal government take effective measures to also bring to trial those accused of murdering national workers.

CONTAG Governing Board

November 29, 2005

Volver a Portada