In April 1996, in Eldorado dos Carajas in the state of Pará, Brazilian police fired into a crowd of demonstrators from the landless peasants movement (MST), killing 19, including a three-year-old child. The MST immediately requested the federal state’s involvement in the inquiry. Yet, despite mobilization by the peasant movement and human rights organizations, all but two officers of the military police who participated in the events have been acquitted. Ten years after the Eldorado dos Carajas massacre, the MST is launching a national and international campaign to remind the Brazilian authorities and the rest of the world of the urgent need for land reform, and of the scandalous impunity enjoyed by wealthy landowners and their henchmen who have nothing to fear from local judges.

On 17 April 1996, 1,500 landless peasants from Eldorado de Carajas started a 700 kilometre march to Belém. From the beginning of the year they had been camping on the edge of fallow land that the INCRA (the national agency in charge of land reform) was to expropriate. Tired of waiting in vain for the INCRA’s decision, the peasants decided to walk to Belém to demonstrate. The governor of Pará immediately sent a military police detachment to meet them. After an altercation with the peasants the police opened fire, killing 19 and seriously wounding 64. Two of the injured demonstrators subsequently died.

The MST immediately insisted on the Brazilian federal state’s involvement in the inquiry(1). The state prosecutor partially supported this claim by ordering the transfer of the case to the Court of Assizes in Belém (the capital of Pará). He considered that the conditions for a fair trial could not be met in the town of Marabá where the majority of the 154 policemen involved were stationed. However, when they were eventually brought to trial on 20 August 1999, the three officers in command of the the Eldorado dos Carajas operation on 17 April 1996 were acquitted by the Belém jury.

The then state president, Fernando Henrique Cardoso and the state secretary for human rights, José Grégori, expressed their concern regarding this decision. A campaign throughout Brazil and beyond its borders culminated in the court’s ruling being quashed in April 2000. A new trial was to take place.

Avoiding pressure on landowners

The MST quickly learned lessons from the first trial concerning the Carajas massacre. The peasant organization realized that it had to ensure that wealthy landowners were unable to exert pressure on state judges, especially in Pará. It requested the Brazilian senate and national congress to pass a new law to transfer human rights cases to the federal courts, in order "to ensure greater impartiality in cases involving serious violations of human rights".

This process was well on its way when there was a strange acceleration of legal events: the judge in charge of the case convened the court on 28 May and then on 18 June 2001. Faced with mobilization in civil society, he was nevertheless forced to postpone the hearing.

In the meantime the MST’s attempts to have human rights crimes transferred to the federal courts were getting bogged down. A new date for the Carajas massacre trial was set. The trial was to start on 8 April 2002 and to consist of three sessions, in which first the four main commanding officers were to be judged, then the 17 subordinate officers, and finally the 129 soldiers involved in the massacre. In the end only two officers received heavy sentences (Colonel Mário Colares Pantoja and Captain Raimundo Lameira, respectively 228 and 154 years’ imprisonment). All the others were acquitted. This unacceptable decision was the result of the incapacity of the police inquiry and the trial to individually identify those responsible for the massacre.

Impunity reigned, once again

In November 2004, following an appeal by the MST’s lawyers, the second chamber of the Pará court confirmed all the rulings, in a single sitting. Finally, on 22 September and then on 13 October 2005, the federal supreme court ordered the release of the only two officers sentenced. New appeals have since been lodged by the MST.

This constant violence against Amazonian workers, especially in Pará, is the consequence of the judiciary’s incapacity and the absence of state policy. In the past 30 years, 772 rural workers have been murdered in Pará. Only 11 murderers or people behind the killings have been brought to trial for their crimes and, of them, only two have been sentenced. Not one of them is currently behind bars(2).

Via Campesina, an umbrella organization of peasant movements throughout the world, has declared the symbolic date of 17 April as international peasants’ struggle day. In this year, the sad tenth anniversary of the Carajas events, the MST is still demanding that the two officers responsible for the massacre be jailed and the 142 other soldiers and officers involved stand trail again.

(1) Réseau-Solidarité has been mobilized four times concerning the legal consequences of the Carajas massacre: Call n° 198 of December 1998, Call n° 211 of September 1999, Call 237 of 4 July 2001 and Call 247 of March 2002.
(2) On this point, see also the long legal battle fought by the Rio Maria Committee and its lawyer, Henry Burin des Rosiers, especially the last Réseau-Solidarité call on this subject: Call n° 286 of 14 September 2005, ’Brazil - Murderers on the Run’.

FURTHER INFORMATION:

The landless peasants’ movement (MST) site: (pages devoted to the Carajas massacre) mst.org.br/informativos/especiais/carajas10anos/inicial.htm

The MST campaign In a context of mounting repression throughout Brazil, the MST decided to launch a massive campaign at national and international level. Delegations to the authorities, engagement of prominent personalities, cultural events, petitions and so on are relayed by friends of the movement throughout the world, especially by delegations to embassies, support events and public declarations. This Réseau-Solidarité letter campaign is organized as part of this broader mobilization.

Concerning the MST: ’Info Terra’, born from an education and development project, is a free monthly on-line newsletter published by Frères des Hommes. Its purpose is to maintain the French public informed on the problem of land and on related issues in Brazil, especially concerning problems encountered and solutions proposed by families and militants who belong to the landless peasant movement (MST). ’Info Terra’, which is now nearly nine years old, is edited by volunteers. All issues to date are available on line:
france-fdh.org/terra
Frères des Hommes
9 rue de Savoie
75006 PARIS
(33) (0)1 55 42 62 62

WHAT TO DO

By letter: copy the standard letter below or use your own wording; you can download it directly by clicking on the attachment at the bottom of this page. Send your letter to the address indicated below, and remember to add your own name, address and signature.

Reaction time: on reception. But you can send the letter until the end of July 2006 in order to give the campaign more importance.

PROTEST LETTER:

Date :

Exma. Sra. Dra.
Ministra Laurita Vaz
Superior Tribunal de Justiça.
SAFS - Quadra 06 - Lote 01 - Trecho III
CEP 70095-900 - Brasília - DF
BRAZIL

Relatora do recurso especial de número 818815.

A falta de Reforma Agrária gera violência.

A demora na punição a estimula.

Por isso, peço que o Superior Tribunal de justiça mantenha a sentença do Tribunal do Júri que condenou o Coronel Mário Colares Pantoja e o Major José Maria Pereira Oliveira, a 228 e 154 anos de prisão, respectivamente, pelo assassinato de 21 trabalhadores rurais sem terra, no episódio conhecido como o Massacre de Eldorado dos Carajás, ocorrido no dia 17 de abril de 1996.

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Dear Madam

Yours sincerely