Human Rights in Brazil 2007
A Report by
Network for Social Justice and Human Rights

Human Rights in Brazil 2007
A Report by the Network for Social Justice and Human Rights
Edited by: Evanize Sydow e Maria Luisa Mendonça
Photos: João Roberto Ripper
Graphic Design: Carlos Vasconcelos Pitombo
Administrative Assistance: Marta Soares, Sidnéia Soares e Magali Godoi
Translation Editor and Coordinator:
Sheila Rutz
Translators: Ariane Dalla Déa, Ayla Tiago, Bethany Blooms, Bruce Gilbert, Charlotte Casey, E. Brennan Dorn, Greg Downey, Jamie Wick, Leda
Beck, Sheila Rutz, Siobhan Hayes
Sponsor:
Heinrich Böll Foundation

Social Network for Justice and Human Rights
Address:Rua Castro Alves, 945
01532-001, São Paulo, SP
Phone: 55-11-32711237 - Fax: 55-11-32714878
Email: rede@social.org.br
www.social.org.br

Table of contents
Preface ......................................................................................................................................... 005
Plínio de Arruda Sampaio
Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 011

I. Human Rights in the Countryside
The (Old) New Agrarian Issue, and Agribusiness .......................................................... 019
José Juliano de Carvalho Filho
Agricultural Industries take over new territory and feed violence .............................. 027
Antônio Canuto
Agro-energy: Myths and Impacts ........................................................................................ 037
Maria Luisa Mendonça e Marluce Melo
Work in the sugarcane mills of São Paulo ........................................................................ 047
Evanize Sydow
Slave Labor and Promiscuity among Brazilian Authorities .......................................... 051
Ricardo Rezende Figueira
Quilombolas: Struggles and Resistance in 2007 .............................................................. 057
Roberto Rainha
Brazilian Quilombolas and reminiscences of the past ................................................... 063
Aton Fon Filho
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H UMAN RIGHTS IN BRAZIL 2007

The Guarani-Kaiowá Holocaust and Anti-indigenous Violence in Brazil ................ 071
Paulo Maldos
GMOs and the Rights of Growers .................................................................................... 081
Gabriel B. Fernandes
Putting Out Suns ....................................................................................................................... 085
Leandro Gaspar Scalabrin
The Right to Stewardship ...................................................................................................... 091
Jelson Oliveira
The complex situation of the human right to water ...................................................... 097
Roberto Malvezzi
The Shamelessness of Silviculture: Environmental Destruction and Human Rights
Violations .................................................................................................................................... 103
Jelson Oliveira

II. Human Rights in Urban Areas
Preliminary Conclusions of the Special UN Rapporteur on Arbitrary, Summary, or
Extra-judicial Executions in Brazil ....................................................................................... 113
Public Security in the State of Rio de Janeiro .................................................................. 121
Alessandro Molon
Walls of Shame ......................................................................................................................... 125
Luiz Bassegio e Luciane Udovic
Trafficking in Persons: advances in institutionalization and in critical thinking ........ 129
Marcia Sprandel
A brief sketch of urban policies on the promotion of the human right to
housing ........................................................................................................................................ 139
Nelson Saule Júnior e Patrícia de Menezes Cardoso

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Insecurity, Contradictions, and Risks of Nuclear Activity ............................................ 149
Zoraide Vilasboas
For Justice that Keeps Truth in Memory ........................................................................... 153
Suzana Angélica Paim Figuerêdo
The Right to Memory and the Truth .................................................................................. 159
Suzana Keniger Lisboa

III. Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights
Human Rights for Women and Violence Against Women: Advances and Limits of the
Maria da Penha Law ............................................................................................................... 167
Cecília MacDowell Santos
White rights. Black rights. Human rights ............................................................................ 177
Douglas Elias Belchior
Debate about Development in the Amazonian Context.............................................. 183
Lindomar Silva
The Right to Food ................................................................................................................... 193
Maria Luisa Mendonça
The Debate about the Education Development Plan ................................................... 199
Mariângela Graciano e Sérgio Haddad

IV. International Policy and Human Rights
Internal and External Public Debt as Impediments to the Achievement of
Human Rights ............................................................................................................................ 207
Maria Lucia Fattorelli Carneiro
UN Troops Accused of Human Rights Violations in Haiti ........................................ 217
Maria Luisa Mendonça

7

Preface

The annual Report of the Network for Social Justice and Human Rights represents
the work of several community-based organizations. This document includes monitoring
of public policies as well as proposals. These organizations are committed to the defense
of grassroots communities that suffer repression from State and private agents.
Awareness that “human rights” must be respected is growing on all continents and
constitutes one of the pillars for the construction of “another possible world.” In order
for this construction to come to fruition, it is necessary to define a “human right” as one
inherent in an individual, independent of nationality, social class, religion, and personal
condition. Even a criminal has human rights, without prejudice to any punishment he or
she may receive for a committed crime.
Being a universal right, its acknowledgment must be demanded worldwide. This
has begun to be a reality with the creation of the International Penal Court, although
care must be taken to prevent large powers, under the pretext of defending human
rights, to feel authorized to invade other countries in order to ensure the interests of
multinational corporations or their geopolitical strategies. The Report is, therefore, part
of a large social movement on a worldwide scale.
Its contents include: reports on violence, reproduction of statistics on the assassination
of indigenous peoples, on quilombolas (Afro-Brazilian rural communities) and on landless
workers, news on the usurping of the lands of indigenous peoples, denouncement of
illegal imprisonment and violent evictions, among many other issues.
In addition to these facts, which must shock well-educated consciences, each year
the document incorporates analyses of equally serious violations, with regard to which,
however, the social conscience has not yet awakened. Just as physical aggression and
assassination are grave offenses against human rights, an equal or even greater offense
lies in abuses committed by the State itself or by private enterprises that deprive entire
human groups of minimal conditions for survival. Included among these attacks are:
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H UMAN RIGHTS IN BRAZIL 2007

the devastating effect of agri-business on family-run agriculture; the perverse effect of
marketing water on the ways of life of the poor in the Northeast; the destruction of
riverside communities who have been forcibly displaced from their property in order
to make way for hydroelectric projects; the need of workers to make an exhausting
effort in order to receive starvation wages in the sugarcane fields to produce ethanol.
Until today these terrible human dramas have been debated on the deceptive level
of economic rationality, even being considered by many to be a price to be paid for
“progress” and “modernization” of society.
The Report, with its narratives of concrete cases, questions all of society with regard
to the negation of basic human rights for millions of Brazilians, including: the right to
plant and harvest on one’s own small property; the right to use seeds saved from the
planting; the right to live where one has always lived; the right to a salary sufficient for a
proper life, without reaching the point of compromising one’s health or even one’s life.
Through this wider window on reality, it can be shown, not without sadness and
indignation, that the human rights situation in Brazil keeps getting worse year after year,
and that 2007 was no different from previous years.
The great contribution made by the Network of Social Justice and Human Rights
to the Report’s readers is to provide this wider perspective, so as to help them position
themselves correctly in the hard and deceptive reality that surrounds them.

Plínio de Arruda Sampaio
Attorney and President of ABRA (Brazilian Association for Agrarian Reform)

10

Introduction

In its 29 articles, the 2007 Report on Human Rights in Brazil incorporates important
data and analyses. This year, the publication once again denounces what indigenous
movements are calling the Guarani-Kaiowa holocaust in Mato Grosso do Sul. “How
else can one explain a 70-year old Guarani-Kaiowa being assassinated by gunmen, or
another aged Guarani-Kaiowa, 107 years old, being raped and killed, or an 8-year-old
girl of the same group being attacked violently after leaving a children’s party?,” asks the
political advisor of the Missionary Indigenous People’s Council, Paulo Maldos, in his
article. He continues in his critique with: “How can one explain that gunmen under
orders from ranchers keep on killing the leadership with impunity in several states; that
a group of young men in Minas Gerais, two groups in Mato Grosso do Sul, one in
Pernambuco and yet another in São Paulo harass and kill both young and elderly indigenous
people in the cities, for no known reason or for supposed “entertainment;” that dozens
of people, many children and 13 and 14-year-old adolescents, the majority GuaraniKaiowa, continue to commit suicide and are encouraging other suicides; that illnesses are
spreading to entire populations in the Amazon region that, given the neglectfulness of
the State, can only lead to death and genocide?”
Traditional communities, indigenous peoples, and river dwellers are some of the
principal victims of the conflicts over land, advises the secretary of the National Pastoral Coordinating Commission for Land, Antonio Canuto, based on an analysis by Professor Alfredo Wagner de Almeida. “Soon after reelection, in November of 2006,
President Lula, speaking at the inauguration of an ethanol and sugar mill in Barra do
Bugres, Mato Grosso, suggested that environmentalists, Indigenous people, and
quilombolas are “impediments” against Brazil regaining economic growth. The President’s
speech seems to have furnished extra ammunition for those who have always considered
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H UMAN RIGHTS IN BRAZIL 2007

Indigenous communities, and more recently, quilombolas and environmentalists, to be
obstacles to development.”
With regard to the Brazilian quilombolas, attorney and Director of the Social Justice
and Human Rights Network, Aton Fon Filho, shows that, based on INESC data, the
federal government failed to invest about R$ 100.62 million in these communities. He
writes: “And it is exactly in the Brazil Quilombola Program that we find the biggest
bottleneck in the application of funds, given that of R$ 101.4 million provided for
program actions between 2004 and 2006, scarcely 32.3% (R$ 32.84 million) was used.
The biggest problem lies in providing titles for their territories. Of the amount budgeted
for Surveying, Establishment of Boundaries, and Title of the quilombo lands, only R$
5.94 million (53.97%) was spent out of a total of R$ 11.01 million.
Criticism is also the keynote of Gabriel Fernandes, Technical Advisor of Alternative
Agriculture Project Advisory and Services (AS-PTA). According to him, in the dispute
between different projects for the countryside, the experience of rural populations has
shown that the current agriculture policies cause greater land concentration, violence in
the countryside, rural exodus, urban unemployment, and unprecedented degradation
of biodiversity.
The Movement of Dam-Affected People (MAB) once again has a key place in the
Report, with an analysis of energy policies. According to an August 2007 survey by the
Minas Gerais Commerce Federation (Fecomercio-MG), the energy bill is already weighing
more heavily in the household budget of consumers than other essential items, such as
purchases at the supermarket, including food, hygiene, and cleaning supplies. Electric
energy represents 21.9% of household expenses, with food, hygiene, and cleaning coming
to 19.8%.
The right to water is another point discussed in this Report. Universal access to
water is already recognized as a fundamental human right by the United Nations. Such
recognition is contrary to the interests of transnational corporations, and other sectors
of the economy which view water as an asset for economic use. For example, Aracruz
Celulose Corporation obtained a grant for using water from the Rio Doce river to
produce eucalyptus in the state of Espírito Santo. The amount of water used by this
company could be sufficient to meet the daily needs of a city of 2.5 million inhabitants.
Data on slave labor in Brazil are also included in the 2007 publication. In his article,
Professor Ricardo Rezende Figueira, a member of the Contemporary Slave Labor
Research Group of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, analyzes the connection
between Brazilian authorities and the crime of slave labor, in addition to discussing the
number of workers freed in recent years, properties inspected, and the amount paid in
labor indemnification.
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I NTRODUCTION

With respect to the right to housing, researchers Nelson Saule Junior and Patricia de
Menezes Cardoso, both with the Polis Institute City Rights team, state that official (IBGE,
PNAD) data count a housing deficit of 7.9 million units in Brazil, with 96.3% concentrated
in the population with a income of up to five minimum salaries. The total housing
deficit in the west central region is 6.8%; 10.8% in the north; 11% in the south; 36.7% in
the southeast; and 34.7% in the northeast.
Public safety in the State of Rio de Janeiro is the theme of an article by Alessandro
Molón, President of the Commission for the Defense of Human Rights and Citizenry
of Rio’s Legislative Assembly. He writes: “In spite of a trivial reduction in urban violence,
Rio de Janeiro’s Public Security Department insists on staying the course. Statistics for
the first semester of 2007, recently released by the Public Security Institute, reveal a
significant rise in the number of deaths in alleged confrontations with the police –
33.5% more than in the first semester of 2006. By contrast, there was a reduction in the
number of detentions (-23.6%) and in the number of drug and weapon apprehensions
(respectively -7.3% and -14.3%). These figures reveal at the least the inefficiency of the
chosen method for fighting crime in Rio de Janeiro, not to mention all the lives lost in
the process.”
In urban centers, another question under debate is that of undocumented immigrants.
Estimates by the Latin American office of Migrant Pastoral show that there are today
more than 200 thousand Bolivians living in São Paulo. Of these, nearly 12 thousand are
in conditions of slavery. As they work illegally, Brazilian authorities do not have exact
information in order to quantify their numbers. The small sewing shops where Bolivian
workers are exploited produce clothing for famous stores. Organizations that attend to
migrants’ needs fear that cases of tuberculosis are increasing among the workers.
Human rights and violence against women are the themes of researcher Cecilia
MacDowell Santos, of the Social Studies Center of the University of Coimbra. For her,
there is no doubt that the Maria da Penha Law represents an important achievement for
the feminist and women’s movement, as it is a significant advance in Brazilian legislation
with regard to combating domestic and family violence against women. But this advance
should not lessen the need for adoption or reform of other laws and other public
policies aimed at combating the various forms of violence against women.
Marcia Sprandel, a member of the Ethnic and Race Relations Commission of the
Brazilian Anthropology Association, points out advances in the institutionalization and
critical thinking with regard to trafficking in persons. “The Ministry of Justice reaffirms
that confronting trafficking in persons falls under the integral protection of migrant
worker rights and defends ratification by Brazil of the International Convention on
Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and their Family Members. It is expected
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H UMAN RIGHTS IN BRAZIL 2007

that during discussion of the 2008-2011 Pluriannual Plan and the Union’s 2008 Budget,
our legislators will take action to guarantee programs aimed at combating trafficking in
persons in its various guises (slave labor, commercial sexual exploitation, and organ
trafficking).
Another issue regularly monitored by the Report on Human Rights in Brazil concerns
internal and external debt. According to Maria Lúcia Fattorelli, coordinator of the Citizens’
Debt Audit Group, the external debt rose substantially in 2007, in spite of the
government’s claims to the contrary. “It was US$199 billion in December 2006 and
increased 18% in the first seven months of 2007, reaching US$235 billion in July this
year. This increase did not appear in the data published by the government, since it
happened in the “private” part of the foreign debt – that part of the debt taken on by
national businesses with their foreign creditors. However the “private” foreign debt is
paid by the Brazilian people since it falls to the government to furnish the dollars for the
private creditors to pay their debts. Besides this, these “private” debts received the
guarantee of the government, so they were literally taken over by the Brazilian state.”

14

HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE COUNTRYSIDE

Workers at a coal mine in Mato Grosso do Sul

Agrarian policy, always subordinate to economic policy, barely fulfills its
role. On the one hand, it is submissive, timid, and inefficient regarding
landless workers and those resettled by agrarian reform. On the other, it
is innocuous for large landholdings, and useful for agribusiness’ interests.

The (Old) New Agrarian Issue, and Agribusiness
José Juliano de Carvalho Filho1
“More Victims of Armed Militia in Paraná”
[Press release from CPT-PR, Oct 22, 2007]
“Sygenta Hires Private Militia to Murder Rural Worker”
[Brasil de Fato, October 25-31, 2007]
“Sugar-Cane Workers Live As Little As Slaves in SP”
[Folha de S. Paulo, April 29, 2007]
“Death and Human Rights Violation in Ethanol Plants in São Paulo”
[Maria Luiza Mendonça, ALAI, in América Latina em Movimento, September 2, 2007]
“Too Much Work Kills Bóias-Frias* in Ribeirão Preto”
[Regional Labor Prosecutor Office for the 15th Region, Labor Attorney General
Office: Ribeirão Preto, April 25, 2007]
“Enslaved Youths Freed in Maranhão”
[Beatriz Camargo and Maurício Hashizume, Repórter Brasil]
“Government Stops Action Against Slave Work”
[Folha de S. Paulo, September 22, 2007]
1 Economist, retired professor from FEA-USP, and director of the Brazilian Association for Agrarian Reform (ABRA, Portuguese
acronym). Member of the Consulting Council of the Human Rights and Justice Social Network.
* Translator’s Note: Literally “cold-meals,” slang for temporary rural workers who take their own lunches to the field every day.

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H UMAN RIGHTS IN BRAZIL 2007

“Uncontrolled Foreign Invasion; Biofuel: Government Does Not Check Land
Acquisition by Large Multinationals”
[Cover story in Jornal do Brasil, September 28, 2007]
“Government Authorizes Sugar-Cane Plantations in Amazonian Deforested
Areas”
[Folha de S. Paulo, September 28, 2007]
“Agrarian Reform in 2006: Agribusiness Politics Won”
[Ariovaldo Umbelino de Oliveira, ANP, August 10, 2007]
The ten headlines that precede this text reveal the main characteristic of the agrarian
issue in today’s Brazil. What do they imply?
Outrageous labor exploitation, total capital domination, violence, environmental
devastation, the State’s collusion and inefficiency. All of them are related to agribusiness.

The Concept, and Something About the Past
In this article, the agrarian issue is analyzed from a labor perspective, not from that
of capital, i.e., from the viewpoint of the interests and destiny of populations victimized
by the advancement and increasing domination by capital. For capital, there is no issue to
be dealt with that might be an obstacle to its accumulation. In opposition, the issue very
much exists for exploited and impoverished populations, expelled or not, in the rural
areas of the country. In the world generated by financial capitalism, particularly here in
this subordinate periphery of the global system, there is no place for the great majority
of people – they are the remnants of the process, mere side effects of the capitalist
progress. To them, the agrarian issue is real, and it means survival.
At the end of the 50s and start of the 60s the so-called “classical debate” took place
about the Brazilian agrarian issue, with the participation of many important intellectuals
linked to diverse political powers in confrontation. It was the time of the “Basic
Reforms,” the agrarian among them. Brazilian Society, its origins and characteristics as
well as its future and solutions for the crisis, were in debate. There were many conflicting
opinions. They varied from an orthodox Marxist interpretation, and its critique within
the Left itself, to the structuralist position and the basic duality thesis to the conservative
and liberal position based on neoclassical economic theory, for which reform of the
Brazilian agrarian structure had no meaning for the future of the country, and was no
condition for capitalist development of agriculture.
With the military coup in 1964, the latter position prevailed. The country went through
a long dictatorship. Debate was suffocated. Peasant organizations and unions were strongly
repressed. The agrarian policy then implemented resulted in the so-called “Conservative
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THE (OLD) NEW AGRARIAN I SSUE, AND AGRIBUSINESS

Modernization” of the sector. There were technological changes and integration into
international markets but no changes in the agrarian structure.
In the second half of the 70s, the debate resurfaced with the need to explain the
nature of the transformation because, to the contrary of some hypothesis, capital had
dominated economic activity in the rural area. Modernization was induced by the State
and resulted in the deepening of the inequity in land distribution, revenue, and power.
Population exclusion reached high levels, generating rural-urban and rural-rural population
flows. Agrarian conflict and violence multiplied. Environmental impact was remarkable.
At that time, many decreed the death of the agrarian issue, and the inadequacy of
agrarian reform. Moreover, they forecast the impending disappearance of rural workers
and peasants; all would become proletarian or small entrepreneurs.
This vision has remained ever since, with some variants. Indeed, there was a “general
asepsis of the agrarian issue,” following the World Bank manual. Class struggle was thus
abolished from the Brazilian agrarian reality. In its place, in academe and in the media,
the “neoliberal-agrobusiness” vision dominated – with honorable, important, and
respectable exceptions.
The country went through different administrations, coming apparently from different
political options. But nothing changed. It is easy to note the consistency that aligns their
implemented economic policies – specially the sequence of Collor, FHC and Lula’s
administrations. These three presidents integrated and handed the country to neoliberalism,
i.e., to the interests involved in the financial capital globalization process, i.e., they were
obedient to capital’s designs.
What happened in the rural world was not much different. In the course of the
three administrations mentioned above, Brazilian agriculture was gradually integrated to
the logic of the large multinational companies that control the main chains of global
agribusiness. The process of integration into global trade started by the dictatorship was
exacerbated.
During the 90s, the doors to national agriculture and cattle breeding were totally
opened to international capital: the process of concentration, centralization, and
internationalization of capital was consolidated.2 Currently, the Brazilian government
accepts, smiling and shameless, the integration of the country in a subordinate role to the
new capitalist labor international division. It means specialization in primary products of
low aggregate value, where productive processes often use dirty technology. It also
means subjection of the Brazilian rural environment to the interests of a few huge
2 Benetti M.D.: “Reestruturação do Agronegócio no Brasil e no Rio Grande do Sul: Concentração, Centralização e Desnacionalização
do Capital”, in Economia Gaúcha e Reestruturação nos anos 90. Porto Alegre: Fundação Economia e Estatística, October 2000,
pp. 64-116.

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H UMAN RIGHTS IN BRAZIL 2007

transnational companies. As an example, see the purchase of lands by foreigners, and
the arrival of speculative capital to agribusiness activities.
Agrarian policy, always subordinate to economic policy, barely fulfills its role.. On
the one hand, it is submissive, timid, and inefficient regarding landless workers and those
resettled by agrarian reform. On the other, it is innocuous for large landholdings, and
useful for agribusiness’ interests. Always with much rhetoric – not to say far-fetched.

The Agrarian Issue Repositioned
The negative implications of the process of capitalist modernization in Brazilian
rural areas, by themselves, would justify the return of the agrarian issue to national
debate. However, those who indeed brought it back were the “sem terra,” landless
workers and peasants, who were discarded in advance by many. They simply did not
accept the destiny designed for them by Brazilian society. They confronted the agrarian
structure. They denounced injustices and the latifundia, they repositioned the agrarian
issue in the debate, and demanded reform. They built organizations and fought for their
rights. The Movement of the Landless Rural Workers, known by its Portuguese acronym
MST, was founded in 1984. Many other workers’ organizations came into being later
on, all now players in the struggle for the rights of populations victimized by the process
of transformation of Brazilian agriculture. The struggle is hard and unequal. Workers
face the so-called “ruralists,” who are always very close to power. They are the heirs of
the old truculent latifundia Right, now disguised as heroic and modern.

Current Agrarian Issue: Exacerbation
The headlines at the beginning of this article do not just insinuate, they confirm
the current character of the agrarian issue.
The prevalence of agribusiness – with no public control, and no connection to a
larger plan for the nation – will negatively impact the Brazilian agrarian issue. This statement
holds for the main productive chains in the country – soybean, eucalyptus, sugar-cane, etc.
There is evidence confirming the trend toward an exacerbation of negative impacts
on workers and the environment, the worsening of the conflict, and the usurpation of rights.
To inform on these matters, this article will highlight some evidence brought up
by recent research about the sugar-alcohol industrial complex, done by intellectuals linked
to the Brazilian Association for Agrarian Reform (ABRA).

Here are some highlights:
§ Professor Tamás Szmrecsányi, on the effects on land ownership concentration,
food security, displacement of cultures, and loss of biodiversity (in “Expansão do
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THE (OLD) NEW AGRARIAN I SSUE, AND AGRIBUSINESS

agronegócio e ameaças à soberania alimentar: o problema dos biocombustíveis,” to be
published n the next issue of the ABRA magazine):
“Back to agribusiness (…), I see in its current expansion an increase in our already
high land ownership concentration, for both productive and speculative ends, further
enlarging the extremely unequal levels of wealth and power distribution in the rural
environment. (…) in the case of ethanol, a technology well-known and used in the
country even though it is far from state-of-the-art. Concerning the sugarcane industry, its
most attractive features and motivation for the current process are land expansion and
speculation. The reason is that the most practiced sugarcane production method in the
country is extensive monoculture, where production grows more as a result of the
extension of cultivated areas than because of the increase of productivity per area. As a
monoculture, it by definition opposes biodiversity as well as polyculture, both of which
end up expelled and replaced by it. (…) the main threats to the food sovereignty of
those who actually have it come from, on the one hand, the expulsion of small independent
farmers, and, on the other, the increase of real or disguised unemployment in the cities
as well as in the fields. The former reduces the local food supply to the population and
causes a price increase, while the latter reduces the effective demand for food. Those
two factors end up requiring an expansion of compensatory welfare initiatives, and
become ipso facto a decrease of food sovereignty.”
§ Professor Maria Aparecida Moraes, on the worsening of work conditions, deaths
by exhaustion, repetitive effort, and migrant workers (“Atrás das cortinas do teatro do
etanol,” or Behind the Scenes of the Ethanol Theater, published in Folha de S. Paulo,
October 2, 2007):
“The majority of them are migrants coming from the Northeastern states, and
from Northern Minas Gerais (around 200,000, according to the Migrant Pastoral
Commission* ). They are young men between 16 and 35 years old. (…) For eight months
a year, they remain in dormitory-towns, staying in rustic inns (shacks) or in lodgings
placed amidst the sugarcane fields. (…) They endure harsh control throughout the
workday. They must cut around ten tons of sugarcane a day (…). The answer to any
kind of resistance, or strike, is dismissal. During the workday, they suffer excessive
perspiration due to high temperatures and excessive effort, as they must thrust a large
knife a thousand times for each ton of cane. Many suffer from “birola,” jargon for pain
* Translator’s Note: The Catholic Church in Brazil has community commissions that deal with major social issues in the country,
from the youth and the family to the land problem and urban street minors. These groups are called “Pastorals,” and consist of
nationwide social movements that involve lay as well as religious people, backed by the Church. The Migrant Pastoral is one of them.
* T.’s N.: Literally, “illness-aid.” It is a social security benefit for those who suffer some sort of chronic illness caused by or related to
work.
* Comissão Pastoral da Terra (CPT): Pastoral Land Commission.

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H UMAN RIGHTS IN BRAZIL 2007

caused by cramps. (…) Wages, at R$ 2.5 per ton (US$ 1.40), are insufficient to ensure
adequate nutrition (…). The consequences of this exploitation-domination system are: from 2004 to 2007, 21 deaths were allegedly caused by excessive effort during work
(…). I found the following health threatening situations: wear of the spine, tendinitis of
the hands and arms due to repetitive effort, respiratory diseases caused by cane soot,
foot deformation due to the use of large shoes reinforced with metal, and shortening
of the vocal cords due to the neck’s curbed posture during work.”
§ Professor Guilherme Costa Delgado, on labor market trends (in “Nota Técnica:
Desequilíbrios criados pela expansão do agronegócio – versão preliminar; 21/09/07,”
or Technical Note: Imbalances Generated by the Expansion of Agribusiness – Preliminary
Version, September 21, 2007):
“The consequences of [agribusiness] expansion for labor relations and employment
are problematic in many ways: 1) there is a reduction of total employment of the
workforce; 2) there is an increase of the “degree of formalization” of the workforce
involved in the productive process – which implies increase in “formal employment”
(with links to social security); 3) there is a dramatic increase of the “morbidity rate” in
formal labor relations as measured by an almost epidemic growth of auxílio-doença,*
correlated to osteomuscular illnesses.”
§ Agricultural Engineer Luiz Octávio Ramos Filho, researcher at Embrapa, on
environmental impacts (talk at the I Sugarcane Expansion Forum, in Presidente Prudente, SP, August 22, 2007):
“(...) the way in which sugarcane plantations have been expanding in the last three
decades, and its most immediate environmental impact on the local landscape, is very
worrisome, and representative of a larger reality (…) [the sugarcane expansion] generates
obvious contradictions: on one hand, it directly contributes to the increase of urban
areas, due to the rural population exodus as well as to the attraction of temporary labor
from other regions; on the other, it significantly reduces the pre-existing polyculture,
diminishing local supply of food, and also, due to the contamination of aquifers and the
reduction or absence of restoration of the forest on the edges of rivers, it generates a
reduction of drinking water needed by a growing urban population.”
§ Professor José Juliano de Carvalho Filho, on the agrarian policy of the Lula
administration (in the Social Justice and Human Rights Report for 2005, p.32.):
“The agrarian policy of the Lula administration, when compared to the proposed plan,
reveals a change in character – from structural to compensatory. (...) The aim of triggering a
structural change process to benefit populations that are vulnerable to the current model was
abandoned. Agribusiness prevails. (…) As did its predecessors, the administration continues
to simply react to social movements, and tries to appropriate them.”
24

THE (OLD) NEW AGRARIAN I SSUE, AND AGRIBUSINESS

§ Professor Ariovaldo Umbelino de Oliveira, on the agrarian policy of the Lula
administration (ANP,August 10, 2007):
“In my last article, I stated that although the Agrarian Development Ministry (MDA/
INCRA) announced the settling of 136,358 families in 2006, this was not true. In reality,
they keep adding up all different goals of the II National Plan for Agrarian Reform
(PNRA), and releasing the results as if all were new settlements (Goal 1). I also advised
that, when data were purged and reclassified, the results were: land resettlements – 165
families; land reclassification: 31,120 families; land regularization: 59,294 families; and
real agrarian reform (Goal 1 of the II PNRA) – 45,779 families. (…) The distribution
throughout Brazilian regions, and their respective states, reveals that the agrarian policy
of the Lula administration is characterized by two principles: do not do it in areas where
agribusiness dominates; and do it in areas where it can “help” agribusiness. In other
words, agrarian reform in Brazil is definitely connected to agribusiness expansion. By
the way – it is always good to remember this once more – that is why the decree
establishing new productivity indexes for rural properties was not yet signed.”
§ CPT,* on the conflicts in the countryside (in J. Pereira, “A repressão aumenta no
camp,” Brasil de Fato, April 17, 2007):
“Although the total number of conflicts in the countryside has diminished in 2006,
other data point to repression of rural workers. The number of murders grew from 38
to 39. By the same token, attempted murder of workers grew 176% compared to
2005; there were 72 attempts in 2006 compared to 26 in the previous year. (…) At the
core of violations of human rights in the countryside is the model of agribusiness and
expansion of agricultural borders. Jelson Oliveira, CPT-Paraná’s advisor, says, ‘the violation
of labor rights, as in the case of slave labor, is connected to the expansion of agribusiness,
which also damages the environment.”
§ Via Campesina, on a recent murder in the Brazilian state of Paraná (Press release,
October 21, 2007):
Deaths and Injuries in Attack by Syngenta Armed Militias – Syngenta used to
hire security services that acted in a irregular way in the region, articulated with the
West Regional Rural Society (SRO) and the Rural Producers Movement (MPR).
During a Federal Police operation in October, one of the directors of the NF
security company was taken into custody, and the owner escaped; illegal ammunition
and weapons were apprehended. There is evidence that the company is just a façade,
and that, when needed, more security agents were illegally hired, forming an armed
militia that promotes violent evictions, and attacks encampments in the region. Last
Thursday (18), Syngenta and SRO/MPR’s armed militias action in Paraná’s Western
region was once again denounced, during a public hearing organized in Curitiba-PR
25

H UMAN RIGHTS IN BRAZIL 2007

by the coordination of the Human Rights and Minorities Commission (CDHM) of
the Federal House of Representatives.
Land concentration, loss of biodiversity, polyculture reduction, exacerbation of
labor exploitation, slave labor, deaths by exhaustion, migration, sugarcane in the Amazon,
water and air pollution, rural militias at the service of national and international capital,
reduction of rural employment, increase in morbidity, land denationalization, speculative
capital, damage to food security, intensification of the agrarian conflict; health depredation;
public policies inefficiency, etc. The highlights speak for themselves.

26

An analysis by Prof. Alfredo Wagner de Almeida of the data on land
conflicts for the year 2006 found that around twenty percent of these
conflicts involved traditional communities, indigenous groups,
quilombolas (maroon communities descended from escaped slaves),
riverine communities, and other vulnerable populations. President Lula,
soon after he was re-elected in November 2006, in a speech given to
inaugurate an alcohol and sugar refinery in Barra do Burges, in Mato
Grosso state, suggested that environmentalists, Indians, maroon
communities, and the Public Ministry are “impediments” against Brazil
regaining economic growth. President Lula’s speech appears to have given
extra ammunition to those who always considered the Indians and, more
recently, the quilombolas and environmentalists, to be obstacles to
development. In 2007, some of the land conflicts with the greatest
repercussions were those involving environmentalists, maroon
communities, and Native Americans.

Agricultural Industries take over
new territory and feed violence
Antônio Canuto1
A partial improvement in the statistics for murders in rural areas in 2007 might give
us the impression that the situation of conflicts and violence is in some way improving.
From January through October, twenty-two murders of small farmers and rural workers
were registered—an alarming number, but fewer than in the same period of 2006,
1 Antônio Canuto is secretary of the National Coordinator of the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT).

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H UMAN RIGHTS IN BRAZIL 2007

when thirty homicides were recorded. But what at first glance appears to be a better
situation in respect to violence in the countryside, in the end leaves one worried, as no
qualitative change has occurred that might form the foundation for this “improvement.”
Violence in rural areas is structural. It is linked intimately to the unequal concentration
of land ownership; and agrarian reform or land reallocation, a process that would be an
effective instrument to democratize access to property, is not in any way a priority of
the current government. From the attitudes taken by the administration, it appears to
consider agrarian reform a thing of the past that no longer forms part of the national
agenda. This absence explains the existence of hundreds of camps near highways around
the country with families living in shacks made of plastic tarpaulins. The simple existence
of these camps and the conditions in which the families are living is, by itself, a great
violence and a disrespect of the fundamental human rights of all people. Thanks to the
creativity of the landless, the bitterness of the camps is transformed into a space of
citizenship with schools for the children, care for health, the organization of work groups,
and the like, activities nonexistent in many rural communities. These encampments,
however, demonstrate the extreme difficulty and the violations of human rights to
which the landless are subjected, and, on the other side, they reflect the urgent necessity
of agrarian reform.
But what is more worrying is that what little is done in the area of agrarian reform,
many times, is contaminated by corruption and by interests that are alien to the rural
workers. One example of this are the charges made against one of the supervisors of
INCRA (the government body charged with carrying out rural property reform), held
up as a model because of the number of settlements that he was able to accomplish, the
Superintendência (a supervisor responsible for a specific reason) of Santarém. The
accusations brought against this office of INCRA are based upon two separate issues.
The settlement projects did not have the necessary environmental licenses to be established,
and, in their creation, a spurious alliance was made with lumber companies to create
basic infrastructure, such as the opening of highways and the construction of schools
and other community facilities.
The Public Prosecutor, in making the accusations, alleged that the establishment of
the settlements better accommodated the interests of the logging companies than the
landless workers, because the approval of management plans for the removal of timber
from the settlements is much simpler. Prior to this, the Federal Court, on August 28,
2007, issued an injunction against ninety-nine settlement projects implemented by INCRA
in the area overseen by the Superintendência of Santarém, beginning in 2005, because
of the failure to receive the environmental licenses demanded by law. According to the
judge presiding over the case, INCRA has put at the disposition of the settlers “vast
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AGRICULTURAL I NDUSTRIES TAKE OVER NEW TERRITORY AND FEED VIOLENCE

pieces of federal land, carved from the Amazon with all of its coveted biodiversity,
without, however, conducting the necessary and careful examination of the effects that
might be generated by the settlements on the environment.”
The case achieved national repercussions after the television program Fantástico, on
the Rede Globo network, carried the judge’s statement with a denunciation from
Greenpeace that accused INCRA of facilitating the activities of logging companies in
rural settlement areas in the region. The reports in the media and the decision reached
by the courts found support in a denunciation issued by the employees of INCRA itself.
The Association of Agrarian Reform Service Workers (ASSERA) of Western Pará
gave public notice on August 21, 2007, saying: “The service workers in the last few
months have been overwhelmed by arbitrary and unilateral decisions in the creation and
abolition of settlements, in the freezing of areas, in the grouping together of beneficiaries
(many people without the appropriate qualifications were included), in the concluding
of agreements, in the liberation of financial credit, etc. This being so, innumerable
technical decisions have been made on the basis of political considerations, without
consulting the body of professionals of the institutions responsible and in direct violation
of the relevant rural legislation, environmental regulations, and even the internal guidelines
of INCRA itself. We have questioned since the first moment the proposal of a PublicPrivate Partnership between the members of the settlements and the timber industry, a
proposal advanced by the directory of INCRA as a new model of agrarian reform for
Amazônia. It is necessary to insist that the responsibility for all irregularities ought to be
assigned to the national directors of INCRA and of the Ministry for Agrarian
Development (MDA).”
The courts eventually found against the settlement communities, members of which,
in the middle of October, held demonstrations in Altamira and Santarém and closed
the Transamazonian Highway on the way out of Altamira in the direction of Itaibuna.
In these demonstrations they affirmed that, if there have been errors, those responsible
for the errors ought to be punished rather than the rural workers.
The corporations, on their part, criticized the decision of the courts, saying that the
cancellation of the settlements aggravated a crisis in the timber sector, which laid off
more than twenty thousand employees this past year: “The Union of Forest Industries
of the State of Pará (UNIFLOR) has complained that delays in the release of
management plans and transportation guides for forest products has already caused a
decrease of sales in the state. We say that the cancellation by judicial decree of INCRA’s
rural settlements in the west of Pará… worsened the situation of the crisis.” 2
2 Eco, O. – Salada Verde, Notícias do Meio Ambiente, 10/16/2007 http://arruda.rits.org.br/oeco/servlet/newstorm.ns.presentation.

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H UMAN RIGHTS IN BRAZIL 2007

The agrarian reform politics of the Lula government are contaminated, therefore;
in the words of Professor Ariovaldo Umbelino de Oliveira, “they are marked by two
principles: don’t conduct reform in areas of agro-industries and conduct it in areas
where it can ‘help’ the agro-industrials.” 3 This interpretation corroborates what has
been said by professors Carlos Walter Porto Gonçalves, Paulo Alentejano and Andressa
Lacerda of the Universidade Federal Fluminense after an analysis of the data on rural
conflicts, produced for the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), in 2006: “‘Agrarian reform’
is concentrated in the Amazon, in a process favourable to agribusiness, each time moving
to advance the agricultural frontier, with the settlers doing the dirty work of opening the
forest.” 4

Violence is much greater than it is possible to register
Violence of one form has been interrupted. The introduction to the report, Conflicts
in the Countryside Brazil 2006, emphasized that “it is necessary to highlight that this long
litany of conflicts and violence is only a pale portrait of the reality. It can be affirmed
with confidence that, in the case of slave labor, for every case brought to light, another
four will never reach the public eye. The same happens with too many cases of conflict
and violence. Those that are registered publicly do not represent even half of the cases
that occur in reality.” 5
This assertion by the Pastoral Land Commission is confirmed by stories in the
media such as an account that appeared in the Jornal Nacional of the Rede Globo
network, on August 31, 2007. The story reported that in a municipal action in Colniza,
Mato Grosso, the Civil Police and the Military Police of the state had arrested thirty-nine
people, among them loggers accused of environmental crimes, torture, and murder.
The story resulted in the imprisoned also being charged with associating with gunmen to
bring a climate of terror to the region. “In only one year, eight inhabitants were killed
and dozens tortured. The police seized more than forty firearms, along with hoods,
military uniforms, and ammunition,” the story reported. One of the witnesses agreed
to bring the police to the scene of the crimes where he indicated to the detective the
place where two neighbours had been murdered and buried.
These homicides and other acts of aggression never arrive to the documentation
sector of the Pastoral Land Commission. Like this one, many other situations happen
3 Oliveira, Ariovaldo Umbelino. – A Reforma Agrária para ao agronegócio; Crime à vista no Pará, in Radio Agência Notícias do
Planalto, 9/27/2007.
4 Lacerda, Andressa Elisa, Carlos Walter Porto-Gonçlaves, and Paulo Roberto Cardoso Alentejano – “A Geografia serve para
desvendar máscaras sociais!” in Conflitos no Campo Brasil, 2006, pp. 90-92. Comissão Pastoral da Terra, April 2007.
5 Conflitos no Campo Brasil, 2006, Apresentação, pg 7.

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AGRICULTURAL I NDUSTRIES TAKE OVER NEW TERRITORY AND FEED VIOLENCE

in a rural area, far from the eyes, not only of the authorities, but also of those who
defend human rights. The violence that does not reach public awareness is many times
greater that that which is denounced.

Economic interests speak more loudly than the lives and
rights of individuals
Violence in the countryside continues in Brazil because economic interests and private
ownership of land are many times considered more important than the life and fundamental
rights of human individuals. Landowners, plantation owners, and agribusiness, in addition to
counting on the support of the judiciary many times, continue to take the initiative of “doing
justice with their own hands” to defend their properties and their interests and to bar the
action of social movements in the country. This happens not only where the agricultural
frontier is advancing, but also in states considered more “developed,” such as Paraná.

Some examples of the forms of violence employed by this
sector in the state of Paraná are:
Murder: On October 21, in the experimental farm of Syngenta Seeds, in Santa
Tereza do Oeste, Paraná, in an attack by an armed militia with around forty gunmen,
Valmir Mora, a leader for the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST), was executed
at point-blank range, and another five people were wounded.
Expulsion: On January 16, hired guns drove around one hundred landless families
from the farm 3 J, property of the ex-federal representative José Janene, located in
Londrina, Paraná.
On April 21, the recently created Movement of Rural Producers (MPR) promoted
the expulsion from Gasparetto Farm, in Lindoneste, Paraná, of a settlement occupied
by sixty families of the Movement of the Liberation of the Landless (MLST).
Armed Aggression: On March 9, heavily armed gunmen wounded three workers
who were on the Videira Farm, located in the municipality of Guaircaá, Paraná.
Pressuring and intimidation: Around eight hundred families that occupied the Mestiça Farm, in the municipality of Rio Branco do Ivai, in the central region of Paraná, on
September 1, 2007, suffered extreme pressure from the farmers of the region who
occupied the hotel of the city and, during the early morning, intimidated and threatened
to evict the encamped families by their own means.

Cases of violence in Rio Grande do Sul
In the state of Rio Grande do Sul, the large landowners have positioned themselves
in opposition to a peaceful march organized by the Movement of Landless Rural Workers,
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H UMAN RIGHTS IN BRAZIL 2007

which left in three separate columns from three different regions of the state on September
11, 2007. The march headed toward Fazenda Guerra, municipality of Coqueiros do
Sul, in the northern region of the state, demanding the release of the area—enough to
settle five hundred families—which had already been occupied eight times in the last
three years. Among other acts of aggression, the farmers of Bagé sought out many
ways to intimidate the landless families. On the night that they were to spend in the city,
the electrical box of the high school where they were to be housed was destroyed and
attempts to repair it were impeded by the farmers who camped outside of the school.
Brother Wilson Zanatta, of the CPT of Rio Grande do Sul, was threatened along with
having the windows of his automobile broken and his tires slashed.
The threats and aggression continued all along the route of the march and the judge
of Carazinho, on October 1, issued a judicial order demanding that the Military Brigade
prevent the march from arriving in the region near Fazenda Guerra. Not even a
committee formed by members of parliament and representatives of diverse
organizations could succeed in getting this decision lifted.

Violence against indigenous peoples and quilombolas
An analysis of data on conflicts over land in 2006 by Professor Alfredo Wagner de
Almeida found that around twenty percent of these conflicts involved traditional
communities, principally Native Americans, descendants of maroons or escaped slaves,
and river dwellers.
President Lula, soon after he was re-elected in November 2006, in a speech given to
inaugurate an alcohol and sugar refinery in Barra do Bugres, in Mato Grosso, declared
that environmentalists, Indians, maroon communities, and the Public Ministry were all
“impediments” against Brazil regaining economic growth. President Lula’s speech appears
to have given extra ammunition to those who have always considered Indians, and
more recently, have begun to consider quilombolas and environmentalists, to be
“impediments to development.”
In 2007, some of the conflicts with the widest repercussions involved
environmentalists, maroon descendants, and indigenous peoples. The great dispute is
over territory. The agricultural industries advance quickly, taking over new areas and
their natural resources. The official policy of the government, which has designated the
agricultural industry to be the flagship of national development, with a special emphasis
on agriculturally-derived fuel (ethanol and bio-diesel), has stimulated the spread of
monoculture to new areas. Due to this policy, the pressure on the agricultural sector has
increased to secure greater territory for the production of biofuels. In keeping with this
policy, indigenous peoples and the descendants of escaped slaves, as they struggle for
32

AGRICULTURAL I NDUSTRIES TAKE OVER NEW TERRITORY AND FEED VIOLENCE

their lands, and environmentalists, because they defend the natural environment, end up
becoming “impediments” to the advance of monoculture over areas of the forest and
grasslands.
On July 8, the Indian Ortiz Lopes, leader of the Guarani-Kaiowá people in Mato
Grosso do Sul, was killed by gunshots. Before he took aim, the assassin was heard to
say: “The farmers have ordered that accounts with you be settled.” Ortiz Lopes had
participated in the retaking in January of the indigenous lands, Kurussu Ambá, in the
municipality of Coronel Sapucaia, on the border with Paraguay. On that occasion, the
Indians were violently expelled, the religious leader Xurete Lopes (70 years old) was
executed in his shack in front of his family, and a young man, Valdeci Ximenes (22 years
old) was shot.
In the state of Maranhão, on October 15, fifteen armed men invaded the village
Lagoa Comprida in the indigenous land of Araibóia, in the municipality of Amarante;
they killed Tomé, a Guajajara Indian, and left two others with gunshot wounds. Days
earlier, the Indians had seized trucks that were being used to remove wood from their
forest reserve.
In Juína, in Mato Gross state, on August 19, farmers, supported by the mayor
and council members of the city, had prevented members of OPAN (Operation
Native Amazon) and Greenpeace, accompanied by two French journalists, from visiting
the indigenous area of the Enawenê-Nauê Indians. The groups were to have
accompanied the Indians in a visit to an indigenous area invaded by the farmers. The
members of the groups were threatened and harassed and ended up retreating inside
the hotel where they were staying, passing the night completely surrounded by the
farmers. On the following day, forty of the farmers’ small trucks followed the vehicle
of the activist group, honking, as the group drove itself to the airport to leave the city.
There, the farmers still threatened to set fire to the airplane if the group did not take
off quickly.
The Indians did not demand the return of this area by accident; rather, it was one of
the places where traditional sacred sites had suffered the most due to deforestation in
the month of July, in Mato Grosso.6
In the state of Roriama, in the indigenous area Raposa Serra do Sol, already declared
in 2005, seven large rice farms, led by Paulo César Quariero, refused to leave the area
even though they have already been compensated for the land by FUNAI, the Brazilian
National agency for Indians. Their removal by the police, planned for the middle of the
year, was postponed due to threats, which have generated additional conflict, with acts
6 O Globo, 20/09/07, O País, p. 14.

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H UMAN RIGHTS IN BRAZIL 2007

of arson and the contracting of hired gunmen, who travel throughout the communities
on motorcycles, shooting guns in the air to intimidate the indigenous people.

Ideological war against maroon communities
In 2007, one of the primary concerns has been to attempt to disqualify the groups
that define themselves as quilombolas. The central focus of this dispute, however, is
territory. Along with physical violence, the violence against quilombola communities has
acquired an ideological character and has developed along four principal fronts:
First, this ideological violence has gone on through media of social communication,
carrying on a campaign against the self-recognition of the community, with an eye toward
creating a public opinion against them and isolating the public organs responsible for
them. For example, a story carried by Jornal Nacional on May 14 and 15 of this year,
with the headline, “Crime in the Quilombo — suspected of fraud and the extraction of
lumber from the Atlantic Rainforest,” against the quilombo community São Francisco
do Paraguassu, is a minor example of the ideological war that is brought against them
and of the disrespect with which these Afro-Brazilian communities are treated.
Second, this violence is carried out in the Parliament, through a legislative decree
already in process in the Chamber of Deputies, authored by Deputy Valdir Colatto, the
PMDB party representative of Paraná state, which is intended to halt the application of
Decree 4887/03, the decree that established the recognition process for quilombo
communities.
Third, the campaign is carried out in the judiciary, through a Direct Action of
Unconstitionality, a proposal put forward by the former party PFL, now the Democrats,
before the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court, with the objective of declaring the decree
for recognition unconstitutional.
Finally, in the Executive branch, efforts against the quilombo communities have
taken the form of a new decree being processed in the Civil House of the Presidency
that would modify Decree 4887/03. There is also pressure on the Brazilian National
Congress not to approve the Statute of Racial Equality that would regulate the question
in more permanent form.7
Violence in the rural countryside is not being overcome. Actually, it tends to increase
given the voracity with which capital attempts to increase its profits, stimulated by the
high priority given to industrial agriculture in the government’s rural policies. A note
from the National Coordinator of the Pastoral Land Commission, issued soon after
President Lula’s comments about the “impediments to development” in Mato Grosso,
7 Honorato, Maria José, and Marta Anjos. – Empresários e latifundiários usam a mídia contra comunidades tradicionais – In
Pastoral da Terra, year 32, edition 189 – July and September 2007, p. 3.

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AGRICULTURAL I NDUSTRIES TAKE OVER NEW TERRITORY AND FEED VIOLENCE

affirms: “With the speech of the president, land swindlers, loggers, and plantation owners
disguising themselves as agricultural companies feel supported and considered, those
who deplete our natural resources, invade indigenous reservations, quilombo communities,
and areas of environmental preservation, and who exploit the workers of this country,
many times submitting them to conditions analogous to slavery.” 8 The cases reported
above support this judgment.

8 “Os ‘entraves’ para o desenvolvimento, segundo o presidente Lula.” Public note dated December 1, 2006.

35

The government estimates that more than 90 million hectares of Brazilian
land can be used to produce agrofuels. In Amazônia alone, the proposal
is to cultivate 70 million hectares with palm oil. This product is known as
the “fuel for deforestation”. Its production has already caused the
devastation of huge parts of the forest in Colombia, Equador, and
Indonesia. In Malaysia, the major producer of palm oil in the world, 87%
of the forests were devastated. In Indonesia, the government intends to
expand the production of palm oil to 16.5 million hectares, which can
result in the destruction of 98% of the forests. Various environmental
organizations are calling attention to the fact that expansion of
monocultures in forest areas represents a greater risk to global warming
than the carbon emissions that come from fossil fuels.

Agro-energy: Myths and Impacts
Maria Luisa Mendonça 1 and Marluce Melo2
Brazil is the world’s fourth largest emitter of carbon gas into the atmosphere.
This happens mainly as a result of the destruction of the Amazon forest, which
represents 80% of the country’s carbon emmissions. The expansion of monoculture
to produce agrofuels makes this problem worse, putting ever-greater pressure on
the agricultural frontier of the Amazon region and of the Brazilian Cerrado (area
of open pasture).
The acceleration of global warming is a fact that puts the life of the planet at
risk. However, we need to demystify the main solution that is currently put forward,
1
2

Maria Luisa Mendonça is the co-director of the Social Network for Justice and Human Rights
Marluce Melo is a coordinator of the Pastoral Commission on Land

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H UMAN RIGHTS IN BRAZIL 2007

publicized through the supposed benefits of agrofuels. The idea of “renewable”
energy must be discussed, starting with a broader vision of the negative effects of
these energy sources.

The production of ethanol from sugarcane and corn
In the case of ethanol produced from sugarcane, the cultivation and processing of
the cane pollutes the soil and the sources of potable water because they use a great many
chemical products. Each liter of ethanol produced in a mill, in a closed circuit, consumes
around 12 liters of water. This quantity does not include the water used in the cultivation
of sugarcane, which in the case of irrigated monocultures consumes much more.
Therefore the production of agrofuels presents a risk of greater scarcity of natural
springs and aquifers.
The process for distilling ethanol produces a residue called vinhoto (stillage). Ten to
thirteen liters of vinhoto are produced for every liter of ethanol. A part of vinhoto can
be used as fertilizer, if diluted in water. However researchers advise that this substance
contaminates rivers and sources of underground water. If the annual production of
ethanol in Brazil is 17 billion liters, it means that at least 170 billion liters of vinhoto are
deposited in the sugarcane growing regions.
Burning the cane makes it easier to harvest, besides the fact that manual labor is
cheaper to cut burnt cane. However this practice destroys a large part of the microorganisms in the soil, pollutes the air, and causes respiratory illnesses. The processing of
cane in the mills also pollutes the air through the burning of the bagasse, which produces
soot and smoke. The National Institute of Special Research has decreed a state of alert
in the cane growing regions of São Paulo (the largest producer of cane in the country)
because the fires take the relative humidity of the air to extremely low levels, between
13% and 15%.
In the case of ethanol production from corn, the main problem is the risk that this
project represents for food sovereignty. The difference in relation to other plants is that
corn is one of the main grains that form the basis of human nutrition and its use as a
fuel can cause a rise in the price of various food products.
Recently, the government of the United States announced that it intends to substitute
20% of gas consumption with ethanol. Currently corn is the base for the production of
ethanol in the United States. The goal of the Bush government is to reach an annual
production of 132 billion liters of ethanol by 2017. For this, the US (greatest producer
of corn in the world), would have to use all its current production (268 million tons of
corn) and still need to import around 110 million tons – the equivalent of all of Brazil’s
annual production of corn.
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AGRO-ENERGY: MYTHS AND I MPACTS

In 2006, the price of corn on the world market rose by 80%. In Mexico, the increase
in exports of corn to furnish the ethanol market in the US caused an increase of 100%
in the price of tortillas, which represents the main food source for the population. In
China, foreseeing a problem of nourishment, the government prohibited the production
of ethanol from corn.
The March 2007 issue of Globo Rural magazine contains an article that says: “In
world-wide terms, the cultivation of corn must advance over areas planted with soy,
wheat, and cotton, which is going to cause a general rise in these prices of these products
in a true domino effect.” The prices of wheat and of rice have already gone up, since
the demand for these grains increases as the population seeks alternatives to corn.
The high price of corn must also affect the cost of raising poultry, cattle, and pigs,
since it represents 75% of all the grains used in animal feed. This would cause an increase
in the price of derivatives, such as milk, eggs, cheese, butter, etc. According to the
director of the Brazilian Union of Poultry Raisers, Clóvis Puperi, “no grain would be
able to be substituted for corn rapidly without causing an earthquake in the market.”
Another threat is the large amount of water used in the production of corn.
According to Professor David Pimentel, from Cornell University in New York, for
each kilo of corn produced, 500 to 1500 liters of water are needed. And to produce a
liter of ethanol from corn, 1200 to 3600 liters of water are needed. Besides this, the
mills are powered by coal or gas, which results in major emissions of carbon into the
atmosphere.

The production of vegetable diesel from soy and palm oil
In the case of soy, the most optimistic estimates indicate that the balance of renewable
energy produced for each unit of fossil energy used in the cultivation is .4 units. This is
because of the high consumption of oil used in fertilizers and in farm equipment. Besides
this, the expansion of soy has caused enormous devastation of the forests and of the
open pasture (or savannahs), destroying biodiversity in various countries including Brazil.
Even so, soy has been presented by the Brazil government as the main plant for
agrofuels by the fact of Brazil being one of the main producers in the world. “The
cultivation of soy is presented as the jewel in the crown of Brazilian agribusiness. Soy
can be considered the wedge that will allow the opening of the biofuels market”, state
the researchers from the Brazilian Company for Farming Research (Empresa Brasileira
de Pesquisa Agropecuária, or EMBRAPA).
The government estimates that more than 90 million hectares of Brazilian land can
be used to produce agrofuels. In the Amazon alone, the proposal is to cultivate 70
million hectares with palm oil. This product is known as the “fuel for deforestation”. Its
39

H UMAN RIGHTS IN BRAZIL 2007

production has already caused the devastation of huge parts of the forest in Colombia,
Ecuador, and Indonesia. In Malaysia, the major producer of palm oil in the world, 87%
of the forests were devastated. In Indonesia, the government intends to expand the
production of palm oil to 16.5 million hectares, which can result in the destruction of
98% of the forests. Various environmental organizations are calling attention to the fact
that expansion of monocultures in forest areas represents a greater risk to global warming
than the carbon emissions that come from fossil fuels.
Besides the destruction of farm lands and forests, there are other polluting effects in
this process, such as the construction of the transport and storage infrastructure, which
requires a great deal of energy. It would be necessary also to increase the use of farm
machinery, of inputs (fertilizers and agrotoxins), and of irrigation to guarantee the increase
in production. In the case of palm oil, a study by the Delft Hydraulics Institute stated
that each ton produced represents 33 tons in carbon dioxide emissions. However, the
plant-based fuel pollutes ten times more than common diesel.

The production of biodiesel from castor oil plant and from
Barbados nut
The Brazilian Biodiesel Program includes the castor oil plant and the Barbados nut
as possible plants for the production of agrofuels, mainly involving small farmers.
However, there are serious doubts about the viability of these projects. According to
analysis, the castor oil plant is economically more viable for other things, such as the
production of lubricating oil for the aviation sector and for high-performance
automobiles.
As for the Barbados nut, researchers from EMBRAPA emphasize that there is no
reliable technical knowledge that ensures the viability of this plant in sufficient volume
for the Biodiesel Program. They state that “a large part of the information published
about this plant comes from sources that are not reliable, mainly from the internet, on
web sites of private companies where the advantages of the plant are exaggerated.”
And they add that “there are no well established studies of at least five years where its
productivity and yield can be confirmed. Whether in Brazil or in other countries, there
are no reports of long-term scientifically valid experiments.”

The production of biomass from cellulose material
New studies intend to introduce into the world market the so-called “second
generation” of agrofuels, developed from cellulose materials that would be available in
about ten years. Based on this, the idea emerged that the agrofuels developed from
food sources would be quickly substituted, putting off the risk of the impact on security
40

AGRO-ENERGY: MYTHS AND I MPACTS

and food sovereignty. However, if the current rate of expansion of farming of
corn, cane, soy, and palm (which are currently the main source material for agrofuels),
within ten years we would already be impacted in a major way.
According to the International Food Policy Research Institute, the price of food
can rise from 20% to 30% by 2010 and from 26% to 135% by 2020 if the current
expansion of production of agrofuels continues. According to the FAO, currently
around 854 million people do not have access to adequate nourishment. This number
can rise to 1.2 billion as a result of a rise in the cost of food.
Another myth in relation to agrofuels from cellulose is that farm lands would
not be used and that organic residue of corn, cane, etc. would be used. First of all,
what they call organic residue are natural fertilizers that serve to protect the soil. If
this material is used for another purpose, it would be necessary to apply petroleumbased chemical fertilizers, which would cancel the positive effects related to global
warming. Biomass from cellulose material is being developed mainly through
genetically modified species of trees and this presents a big danger of contamination
of other plans because it is practically impossible to control its pollination besides
the risk of contaminating the forest areas.

Transgenic agrofuels
Businesses for genetically modified organisms (GMOs) or transgenics are
beginning to develop types of non-edible plants for the production of agro-energy.
Since there are no ways to avoid the contamination of GMOs in native farms, this
practice places food production at risk and can aggravate the problem of hunger in
the world.
In the United States, the production of ethanol is already done through a type
of non-edible GMO corn. The farmers themselves admit that there are no ways to
control contamination since they are cultivating corn for ethanol and for human
consumption at the same time.
The expansion of the production of agro-energy is of great interest for GMO
companies such as Monsanto, Syngenta, Dupont, Dow, Basf, and Bayer, which hope
to gain greater public acceptance if they publicize GMOs as sources of “clean”
energy.
In Brazil, the Votorantin Group has developed technology for the production
of GMO sugar cane to produce ethanol through two companies, Alellyx and
CanaVialis, which recently entered into a partnership with Monsanto. This agreement
will allow Alellyx and CanaVialis to have access to GMO soy and cotton genes
developed by Monsanto and to apply this technology in studies of GMO sugarcane.
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H UMAN RIGHTS IN BRAZIL 2007

Destructive effects for agrarian reform and for the rural
workers in Brazil
In many regions of the country, the increase in the production of ethanol caused the
expulsion of small farmers from their lands and created dependency on the so-called
“sugarcane economy”, where there are only very precarious jobs in the sugarcane fields.
The monopoly of the land by the sugarcane mills prevents other economic sectors
from developing, creating unemployment, encouraging migration and the submission
of workers to degrading conditions.
Despite the propaganda of “efficiency”, the agro-energy industry is based on the
exploitation of cheap manual labor and even slave labor. Workers are paid by the amount
of cane they cut, not by the hours worked. In the state of São Paulo, the largest producer
in the country, the goal of each worker is to cut between 10 and 15 tons of cane per day.
Workers receive R$2.44 for each ton of cane cut and stacked. To receive R$413 per
month, the workers have to cut an average of 10 tons of cane per day. To achieve this,
30 blows of a knife are needed per minute, during eight hours of work per day.
According to Professor Pedro Ramos of the University of Campinas, during the
decade of the 80s, the workers cut around 4 tons and earned the equivalent of R$9.09
per day. Currently, to earn R$6.88 per day they need to cut 15 tons. New studies with
GMO sugar cane, lighter and with more sugar, means bigger profits for the mill owners
and more exploitation for workers. According to a study by the Ministry of Work and
Employment, “before, 100 metres of cane equaled 10 tons; now 300 metres are needed
to get 10 tons”.

Slavery and death of workers
This pattern of exploitation has caused serious health problems and even worker
deaths. Between 2005 and 2006, the Pastoral Migrant Service registered 17 migrant
worker deaths in the sugarcane fields of São Paulo. In 2007, five deaths of migrant
workers by overwork in the cane fields were registered.
On March 28, 52 year old José Pereira Martins died of a heart attack after working
in the sugarcane fields in the city of Guariba. He had migrated from the town of
Araçuaí in Minas Gerais. On April 24, 20 year old Lourenço Paulino de Souza who had
migrated from Tocantins, was found dead in the São José mill in Barretos. On May 19,
34 year old Adailton Jesus dos Santos died; he had migrated from Piauí to the cane
fields of São Paulo. On June 20, 33 year old José Dionísio de Souza died; he had
migrated from Minas Gerais. On September 11 in the town of Guariba, 28 year old
Edilson Jesus de Andrade died. He had come from Bahia but his body was buried in
São Paulo.
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AGRO-ENERGY: MYTHS AND I MPACTS

Besides these cases, there have been other accidents and worker deaths in the sugarcane
region of São Paulo. In 2005, the Regional Worker Delegation registered 416 deaths in
the state’s mills, a majority by work accidents and as a result of illnesses such as heart
attack and cancer, along with cases of workers overcome by smoke in the burning of
the fields. Maria Cristina Gonzaga, a researcher from Fundacentro, a group within the
Labor Ministry, estimates that 1,383 sugarcane workers have died in a similiar situation
between 2002 and 2006.
On April 15, 2007, a worker in the Santa Luiza mill in the town of Motuca died of
asphyxiation and another was seriously wounded when they were burning the cane and
the flames reached them. Adriano de Amaral, 31 years old, died when water ran out in
the fire truck that he was driving to control the fire. He was the father of a seven year
old and a 20 day old baby. The other worker, 44 year old Ivanildo Gomes, had burns
on 44% of his body.
Slave labor is common in the sugar cane sector. The workers are generally migrants
from the Northeast or from the Vale do Jequitinhonha in Minas Gerais enticed by
intermediaries or “cats” who recruit manual labor for the mills. In 2006, the Attorney at
the Public Ministry inspected 74 mills in the state of São Paulo and all were fined. In
March 2007, inspectors from the MTE rescued 288 workers in slave conditions at six
mills in São Paulo. In another operation carried out in March, the Inspection Group for
the Regional Labor Police Headquarters in Mato Grosso do Sul rescued 409 workers in
the sugarcane fields of the Centro Oeste Iguatemi alcohol mill. Among them was a
group of 150 Indians.
In July 2007, Ministry of Labor inspectors freed 1108 workers who were harvesting
cane for the Pagrisa Pará Pastoril e Agrícola S.A farm, in the township of Ulianópolis
(Pará), located 390 km from Belém.
The International Labor Organization (ILO) states “According to labor inspector
Humberto Célio Pereira, there were workers who received less than R$10 per month,
after illegal deductions by the company used up almost all of their wages. The inspector
states that the food given the workers was spoiled and there were various people suffering
from nausea and diarreaha. Water to drink, according to what the workers reported,
was the same used to irrigate the sugarcane and so dirty that it looked like bean soup.
Housing, according to Humberto, was overcrowded and the sewer overflowed. The
majority coming from Maranhão and from Piauí, there was no transportation for the
workers to go from the farm to the center of Ulianópolis, 40 kilometers away.
Every year, hundreds of workers are found in similar conditions in the sugarcane
fields: without work registration, without protective equipment, without water or adequate
food, without access to bathrooms and living in precarious housing. Often the workers
43

H UMAN RIGHTS IN BRAZIL 2007

need to pay for their equipment such as boots and knives. When accidents happen, they
don’t receive adequate treatment.
In the state of São Paulo, the largest producer of ethanol in the country, it is estimated
that half of the manual labor in the mills comes from migrant workers who are mainly
from the Northeast and from Minas Gerais, living in a very vulnerable situation. The
workers spend around half their wages to survive in the cane fields and not much
remains to send to their families who also depend on these funds for their survival. At
the end of the harvest, many migrants don’t have enough money to return to the places
they came from. The minimum salary on average is R$413 per month and the workers
end up spending R$250 monthly to cover their costs of food, water, and housing, in
extremely precarious conditions.
“The employer does not offer a place to rest and take a meal, does not offer
adequate sanitary conditions for the workers’ needs, does not furnish adequate work
tools, does not respect rest breaks required by Regulation 31 and does not furnish work
clothes for the cutters”, states Labor Prosecutor José Fernando Ruiz Maturana. He
adds, “Without shade for shelter or chairs to sit on, there is no alternative for the workers
but to take their lunch sitting on the ground under the hot sun.”
The Public Ministry intends to investigate the impact of environmental conditions
(exposure to strong sun, heat, dirt and ash) and of the use of agro-toxins on the workers’
health. Another area for investigation will be the calculation of the “payment for
production”, since the workers do not have control of the weight of the cane that they
cut. This year more than 40 public civil actions for violations of labor laws were brought
by the Attorney General for Labor of the 15th Region against mill owners and those
who supplied and contracted manual labor from São Paulo.
In August 2007, solicitors of the region of Bauru found out about a document
scheme to defraud rural workers by a fake company called Escritório Contábil Avenida
in Lençóis Paulista. The “fraud kit” contained blank documents that the businesses forced
the workers to sign in order to be hired. “The kit was composed of irregular
documentation such as a request to be terminated, terms by which the labor contract
could be rescinded, work registration, receipts for equipment, contract for the period
of the harvest and a contract for determined stated period, all of them blank for the
workers”, states the document published by the Public prosecution service. The Labor
Attorney Luis Enrique Rafael estimates that “thousands of workers may have been
victims of the fraud.”
In September 2007, the Public Ministry suspended cane cutting in the township of
Mineiros do Tietê, in the interior of Sao Paulo state until the mills straighten out the
workers’ situation. One of the difficulties in punishing the mills is the fact that contracts
44

AGRO-ENERGY: MYTHS AND I MPACTS

can be carried out by intermediaries or “cats” whose function is to entice the mainly
migrant workers, who often do not even know who the employers are. For this reason,
the Public Ministry began to adopt punishments for the whole chain of production. In
practically all the investigations carried out in the mills of São Paulo, violations of labor
laws were noted.
Frequent accusations of violations of workers’ rights in the mills has led the sugar cane
industry to speculate about the possibility of increasing mechanization in the sector. However
there are doubts about this possibility because the low salaries and bad working conditions
makes it more profitable for the businesses to use manual labor than to invest in machinery.
At present, more than 60% of the cane harvest is done manually in Brazil. Since the
colonial period, this sector has depended on exploiting manual labor, on a great deal of
public funding and on violating environmental laws in order to keep going.

Food Sovereignty and Peasant Agriculture
The experiences of small farmers in the production of source material for agroenergy show the risk of depending on large farm businesses that control prices, processing,
and distribution of production. The small farmers are used to give legitimacy to
agribusiness through the distribution of certificates of “social fuel”. Besides this, the lack
of a policy of supporting the production of food can lead small farmers to substitute
agrofuels for their food crops and thereby compromise food sovereignty. In Brazil, the
small and medium producers are responsible for 70% of production of food for the
internal market.
Researchers at the University of Minnesota call attention to the fact that to fill up a
tank it’s necessary to use the same amount of grains that can feed a person for one year.
Francisca Rodriguez, leader of La Via Campesina, denounces the fact that “the big
estates (latifúndios) are going to control land to feed motors and not people”. And she
adds, “Faced with these challenges, we have to defend our commitment to the land,
encourage a serious discussion about the current model of consumption and energy
production. We want to avoid the destruction of our lands since we know what extensive
monoculture means in our countries.”
A change in the patterns of consumption is essential, since no source of alternative
energy would be capable of supplying current demand. In the meantime, the choice to
reduce consumption is practically excluded from the official debate when it’s a question
of discussing means to lessen atmospheric pollution. The first step in this direction
would be a massive investment in public transit along with rationalization, an end to
wastefulness, energy saving and implementation of a diversity of alternative and truly
renewable sources of energy.
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H UMAN RIGHTS IN BRAZIL 2007

We need to strengthen the organizations of rural workers, wage earners, and small
farmers to build a new model based on peasant agriculture and on agro-ecology, with
diversified production. We need to ensure policies of subsidies for the production of
foods that come from small farmers.

References/Bibliography:
Colonialismo e Agroenergia, Maria Luisa Mendonça and Marluce Melo, América
Latina en Movimiento, No. 419, ALAI, Quito, April 2007.
O Mito dos Biocombustíveis - Edivan Pinto, Marluce Melo and Maria Luisa Mendonça, Brasil de Fato, February 2007.
Expansão da Cana no Brasil: Conseqüências e Perspectivas, Plácido Junior, Comissão Pastoral da Terra, March 2007.
Trabalhadores Rurais: A Negação dos Direitos, Maria Aparecida de Moraes Silva,
Seminario Sobre la Industria de la Caña de Azúcar en América Latina, São Paulo- Brasil,
February 2007.
How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor, C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer, Foreign
Affairs, May/June 2007.
If we want to save the planet, we need a five-year freeze on biofuels, George
Monbiot, The Guardian, March 27 2007.
Especialista: etanol no Brasil é banhado de sangue, http://noticias.terra.com.br/
brasil/interna/0,,OI1457398-EI306,00.html
Blitz vê condição degradante na produção de álcool em SP, Folha de S. Paulo,
March 21, 2007.
La soberanía alimentaria, en peligro por el auge de los biocombustibles, La Jornada
(México), February 2007.
Cornell ecologist’s study finds that producing ethanol and biodiesel from corn and
other crops is not worth the energy, By Susan S. Lang
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/July05/ethanol.toocostly.ssl.html

46

Data from the Pastoral Migrant Service and the Public Ministry of
Labor show that there were 22 deaths by exhaustion in the sugar cane
fields from 2005 to 2007. The cutters died because they could not
withstand the more than 10,000 swings of the machete per day needed
to cut at least 10 tons of cane. But there are also cases of work
accidents and deaths of sugar cane workers as a result of illnesses
such as heart attacks. In 2005 alone, the Regional Police Department
for Work reported 416 deaths in the São Paulo mills. In October
2007there was a case of a worker from the Dois Córregos mill, 73
kilometers from Bauru who had two legs ground to powder by a machine
that grinds the sugar cane.

Work in the sugarcane mills of São Paulo
Evanize Sydow1
Two mills in the interior of São Paulo are opposites in respect to the situation
of sugarcane cutters: the Ester Mill and the Furlan Mill. The first is located in
Cosmópolis, the so-called City of the Universe, 142 kilometers from the capital
city. The second is in Santa Bárbara d’Oeste, 130 kilometers from São Paulo. Both
are in the region of Campinas.
Carlita da Costa, the president of the Syndicate of Rural Workers of Cosmópolis,
was a cane cutter in the Ester Mill from 1983 to 1986. Those were difficult years. The
workers were like slaves: they worked during heavy rains, they couldn’t drink water
1 Evanize Sydow is a journalist with the Social Network for Justice and Human Rights and has a masters in Contemporary
History, Culture and Social Projects from the Center for Research and Documentation of Contemporary History of Brazil of the
Getúlio Vargas Foundation.

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H UMAN RIGHTS IN BRAZIL 2007

when they were thirsty, they didn’t get any extra hours, they didn’t have protective clothing
and they had no control over the payment they received. “This work motivated me to
do something else”, she says.
This “something else” today means that the Ester Mill is one of the best in the
conditions that it offers to workers in the region. But Carlita emphasizes that this is not
the result of the owners’ consciences but rather the confrontations by the workers’
organization and the struggles carried out by the union.
Currently, the cane cutter who works in the Ester Mill has a good basic food basket,
help with costs of medicine, and control of the cane that he cuts. According to Carlita,
it is the only place in Brazil where the worker himself has this control. Generally, the
mills pay the worker on the so-called “champion” system, which is named after the
truck that carries the cut cane to the scale, where an estimate of the worker’s payment is
made. “It’s the most fraudulent system that exists”, states a union member.
In Cosmópolis, the method of the closed square was developed. With this method,
the cut cane is collected from one enclosure and carried to the scale, where three
inspectors paid by the union take turns from one Sunday to the next during the harvest
monitoring the weight. Each truckload of cane that comes in is registered by the mill
and the bill of sale is conferred by the inspectors. The data is entered into a computer.
The control of the production of cane, therefore, is very strict. Spread sheets are
issued weekly with the squares identified by letters, the weight estimated in each one,
the work day and how many meters of cane were cut by day and by week; besides
this, the number of tons of the total harvest is registered in the square and the actual
weight by meter.
This form of monitoring of production is part of the Collective Work Agreement.
For the mill to begin cutting cane, the union imposes conditions. But, as was stated
earlier, it was not always like this. This agreement went into effect in 1998. “We had to
carry out many complicated struggles. There were strikes met with violence in which we
had losses, but also wins. And one of the major wins that we had was respect”, says the
president of the Union of Cosmópolis, who was often threatened during those times.
Today, Carlita can go to the Ester Mill to meet the workers with asking authorization of
the director of the business.
In 1991, the first agreements were made in Cosmópolis. From 1986 to 1991there
were many fights, without negotiation. Starting with a big 21 day strike in 1991, which
resulted in the defeat of a directorship –a process of dialog began with the union. In
1994, the agreement included a basic food basket for the workers. During this period
until 1998, the union tried to get the workers to control the production of cane. This
was because they were paid by weight.
48

WORK IN

THE SUGARCANE MILLS OF

S ÃO PAULO

Under threats by the workers to occupy the lands of the mill, the directors had to
dialog with the union. After trying other methods of controlling the cutting of cane,
such as following the trucks – and after a general strike in 1998, when cutting was
brought to a complete halt, the mill agreed to hear the workers and there was just one
demand – the monitoring of the weighing of cane. One cutter had the idea of the
closed square enclosure, in other words, the evaluation of all the cane harvested in one
square enclosure. The mill agreed, providing the documentation so that the maps of the
enclosures and the spreadsheets could be produced. The earnings of each worker then
increased by more than 30%.
The decrease in the number of workers – the Ester Mill had 2000 cutters in 1988,
today there are around 1500—can be explained by mechanization. “The mills don’t
want to abide by the labor laws. So from year to year they increase mechanization
because it is more in their interests to mechanize than to be in the headlines as exploiters
of workers”, Carlita analyzes. They don’t want to give what the workers should have as
a right. It seems that for the mill owners, it’s a point of honor not to obey the law. The
bosses’ way is to break the law.”
Proof that the mill owners do not respect the workers is the inspection by the
Public Ministry of Labor in August 2007, at the Furla Farm S/A, where there were
various irregularities. These included lack of protective clothing like protective glasses
and safety boots, an overly-long work day, no bathrooms or breaks for rest or meals.
The workers’ housing had no showers or toilets. With no cupboards to keep their
belongings, the workers had to leave their belongings such as pots on the floor with the
rats and cockroaches. Besides this they were not given drinkable water or sheets or
pillows.
Deficient nourishment was another problem found at this site. The workers had to
buy overpriced food of very poor quality and not enough was served to meet their
daily needs. All they had to eat was rice, beans and some giblets; meat was served
sporadically. At times the food was spoiled. As though the food situation wasn’t bad
enough, the workers had to take their meals seated on the ground, since there was no
place to sit down for meals.
The barracks that served as housing for the workers was improvised and in very
bad condition, without comfort or hygiene. There was no lighting, windows, tables, or
chairs. There were no bathrooms or partitions, or adequate cooking space.
The president of the Union of Cosmópolis, who took part in the activity – since
the union is also sought after by cutters in other cities of the region to denounce bad
treatment and irregularities in pay – found four workers from the Furlan Mill in such a
serious condition that she is overcome with emotion on remembering it. “There were
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H UMAN RIGHTS IN BRAZIL 2007

four men in a cubicle where there was just one mattress. They slept with part of their
bodies on the mattress because they were afraid of catching pneumonia. Their legs
stayed on the floor.” She says that one of the men cried on telling how the rats would
not let him sleep because they were crawling on top of the men’s bodies.
Working until death: 10,000 machete blows per day – data from the Pastoral Migrant
Service and the Public Ministry of Labor show that there were 22 deaths by exhaustion
in the sugar cane fields from 2005 to 2007. The cutters died because they could not
withstand the more than 10,000 swings of the machete per day needed to cut at least 10
tons of cane. But there are also cases of work accidents and deaths of sugar cane
workers as a result of illnesses such as heart attacks. In 2005 alone, the Regional Police
Department for Work reported 416 deaths in the São Paulo mills. In October 2007,
there was a case of a worker from the Dois Córregos mill, 73 kilometers from Bauru,
who had two legs ground to powder by a machine that grinds the sugar cane.
According to Professor Maria Aparecida de Moraes Silva, of UNESP, “the growth
of productivity levels can be seen by means of the following data: in 1980, the average
requirement in cutting cane was around 6 to 8 tons per day; in the decade of 1990s, this
rose to 10 tons and starting in 2000, from 12 to 15 tons.” In relation to salaries, she
reports that calculations from the Union of Salaried Workers of Bebedouro show that
before 1988 the wage level corresponded to 2.5 times the minimum wage. After that,
these values fell to little more than one minimum wage (R$410 in 2006).

50

Among Brazilian politicians, some are suspect of ties to the crime of
slave labor and others support companies accused of such crime, for having
received financial support from these companies during their electoral
campaigns.

Slave Labor and Promiscuity
among Brazilian Authorities
Ricardo Rezende Figueira1
Even a casual survey2 shows that the Brazilian press published, between January and
October 2007, many news stories regarding slave labor. From this material, for example,
we can see that the Federal Government freed, in the rural area, 260 workers on four
properties in Goiás; 168 workers on five properties in Maranhão; 67 workers on two
properties in Mato Grosso; 1,439 workers on 23 properties in Pará; and one case in
urban Rio de Janeiro, which involved 60 workers. 3 In ten months, 2,014 people will
have been freed in five states.
In fact, the national press continues to reserve space for claims pertaining to slave
labor. Assuredly not at the growth rate noted by the International Labor Organization
(ILO) between 1999 and 2003, which was 1,900%.4
1 Ricardo Rezende Figueira is a professor in the School of Social Service of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (ESS/UFRJ),
a member of the coordinating body of the Contemporary Slave Labor Research Group of UFRJ’s Study Nucleus for Public Policy
Studies (GPTEC/NEPP-DH), and a member of the Board of Directors of the Network for Social Justice and Human Rights.
2 Survey carried out by Sinara Rubia Ferreira at GPTEC.
3 “Three men accused of forming a gang to exploit slave labor in Baixada Fluminese were imprisoned(…). The gang is accused of
maintaining 60 street vendors, brought from Pombal (PB) with promises of employment selling hammocks, carpets, and pans in
exchange for housing” Folha de São Paulo (17 Oct 2007) http://www.adpf.org.br/modules/news/article.php?storyid=37613.
4 Ricardo Rezende Figueira. “A escravidão por dívida: novidades e persistências” in Direitos Humanos no Brasil 2006: Relatório da
Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos. São Paulo, Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos, 2006: p. 63; http://
www.reportersocial.com.br/noticias.asp?id=561&ed=trabalho, 26 May 2004.

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H UMAN RIGHTS IN BRAZIL 2007

In addition to the information on the occurrence—date, name of production unit,
owner, number of persons involved, etc.—there have also been attempts in the press to
understand the problem by means of articles signed by prestigious writers who, although
representing differing viewpoints, have one thing in common: a critical view of the
situation. One of the relevant aspects pointed out by them is the close relationship
between certain authorities and these crimes. This fact makes it difficult to change laws
and apply existing laws, and obstructs investigations.
In October of this year, jurist Dalmo Dalari published in the Jornal do Brasil (20
Oct 2007: p. A 11) that there was a “slave bank” in the Brazilian Congress, creating
difficulties for the eradication of slave labor. Two days later, in the same newspaper (22
Oct 2007: p. A 2), Mauro Santayana noted the existence of a “ruralist party,” a party
which, he found it strange, did not exist formally, was not provided for in electoral
legislation, was not known to the Electoral Court, but had about 120 members in the
legislature. Many of these were large landowners, such as the senators for Tocantins,
Leomar Quintanilha 5 and Katia Abreu, and the federal deputy for Goiás, Ronaldo
Caiado. One of the characteristics of this “party” of landowners and politicians elected
with funds from agri-business is to block approval of the Constitutional Amendment
Bill (PEC 438/2001) which provides for loss of property involved with slave labor.
Another journalist, Miriam Leitão, has regularly written on slave labor. At the beginning
of the year, she wrote in her column (O Globo, 13 Feb 2007) entitled “The Downside
of Things” that Brazil was strange: the new governor of Rio de Janeiro, Sérgio Cabral
(PMDB/RJ) sponsored for the Commission on the Constitution and Justice, the Federal Chamber’s most important commission, the controversial deputy and landowner
Leonardo Picciani (PMDB/RJ). This legislator and his father, Jorge Picciani (PMDB/
RJ), the latter being President of the Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro and the
“terror of the sertão”6, are accused of using slave labor in Mato Grosso as well as of
environmental crimes.
In fact, many things are strange in our country. In the text that I wrote for the Social
Network’s Report in 20067, I stressed that, among the businessmen accused of the
practice of slavery, some exercised or still exercise public roles. At that time there was
even an accusation against a university chancellor. Some of the accused resided outside
the state where the crime took place. There were authorities from Pernambuco, Pará,
Alagoas, Minas Gerais, Maranhão, Tocantins, Paraná, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba,
5 President of the Senate Ethics Council. He was active in Arena during the dictatorship, later with the PDC, PMDB, PCdB, and
once again PMDB.
6 According to Marcos Sá Correa in an article entitled “Picciani, o derrubador” in NoMínimo (12 Sep 2004).
7 Direitos Humanos no Brasil: 2006; Report of the Social Network for Justice and Human Rights (org. Evanize Sydow and Maria
Luisa Mendonça; photos: J. Ripper). SP, Social Network for Justice and Human Rights, 2006: 61-66 (www.social.org.br).

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S LAVE LABOR AND PROMISCUITY AMONG BRAZILIAN AUTHORITIES

and Rio de Janeiro. The authorities included mayors, judges, legislators, and secretaries
of state.8
The situation doesn’t seem to have changed in 2007, as shown by the authors cited
at the beginning of the article. And, in fact, on September 14th, a judge from the Imperatriz, Maranhão, District, for example, was accused of such crime. On a ranch owned
by him, 25 persons, including one minor, were freed by the Movable Group of the
Labor and Employment Ministry. Again, in 2005 and 2006, at locales under the Court
of Justice of the State of Rio de Janeiro, labor was used under conditions that the
Labor and Employment Ministry considered to be analogous to slavery. In the first
case, in Cabo Frio, the workers were from Bahia, São Paulo, and Minas Gerais.
The same magistrate, Humberto Célio Pereira, who coordinated the September
th
14 operation in Maranhão, coordinated another inspection, this time at the Pagrisa
ranch in Ulinópolis, Pará. There, the Movable Group carried out one of the largest
operations involving freeing workers: 1,064 persons. 9 The property owners did not
exercise any public role, they were not authorities. Nevertheless, the showed great capacity
for mobilizing the authorities from the State of Pará and other regions. To wit: the
enterprise’s director, Marcos Villela Zancaner, accompanied by Pará federal legislators,
got an audience with the Minister of Labor and Employment, Carlos Lupi. The retinue
complained about the rigor of the inspection and and cast suspicion on the results.
To the surprise of the organizations involved in combating this crime, the legislators
present included, besides senator and sponsoring leader Fernando Flexa Ribeiro (PSDB)
and rancher and federal deputy Giovanni Queiroz (PDT), federal deputy Paulo Rocha
(PT/PA), one of the supporters of PEC 438/2001’s approval. A few days later, five
senators from the “ruralist contingent” and members of the Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB) and the Partido Democrático (DEM), in the name of the Senate’s
External Commission, were at the ranch, decided that the treatment received by the
workers was in their view adequate, joined together with the property owners, and
requested that the Federal Police begin an inquiry into the actions of the Movable Group.
According to these senators, authorities who fulfill their responsibilities should be
investigated, and accused parties should be protected.
Pará Governor Ana Júlia Karepa (PT), who as a senator had supported approval
of PEC 438 along with Deputy Paulo Rocha, complained that she had not received
prior notice of the Movable Group’s operation at the Pagrisa Mill. This was surprising,
8 There is a list in GTEC files of almost thirty authorities or ex-authorities who were in some way accused during these last few years
of involvement in the crime of slave labor. Among them, in addition to some deputies and senators, there were nine mayors, two
ministers, one secretary of state, one chief judge and two judges.
9 This explains in part why Pará by itself had, as seen in the first paragraph herein, 71% of the cases involving freeing workers in
Brazil between January and October 2007.

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H UMAN RIGHTS IN BRAZIL 2007

since the success of the Movable Group inspectors’ activities depends on the secrecy of
their operations. In the face of disqualification by the Senate’s External Temporary
Commission, Ruth Vilela, Secretary of Labor Inspection, temporarily suspended the
actions of the Movable Group.
Among Brazilian politicians, some are suspect of ties to the crime of slave labor
and others support companies accused of such crime, for having received financial
support from these companies during their electoral campaigns. 10
The example cited of what unfolded in the Pagrisa case has precedents. One such
case is that of Luís Pereira Martins, known as Luis Pires. He was accused of slave labor
on several ranches in the state of Pará over consecutive years. 11 Finally, after an incidence
unearthed by the Movable Group, the government decided to expropriate the property.
Immediately, the ruralist contingent from Tocantins, where Luís Pires lived, joined forces and put pressure on the Federal Government on behalf of the landowner. Thus, the
property was appropriated in 1997, but the landowner received compensation considered
to be well in excess of the market value of the property. Several human rights organizations
condemned the fact that, instead of being punished, Pires received an award.
There was another case in 2005, that of the Gameleira Distillery in Confresa, Mato
Grosso, which saw the liberation of more than 1,000 people. At the time, the enterprise
was controlled by a businessman who was the brother of Federal Deputy Armando
Monteiro (PTB/PE)12 and a relative of José Múcio Monteiro Filho (PTB-PE), Leader
of the House. The President of the House of Representatives, Severino Cavalcanti (PPPE) interfered on behalf of the enterprise when the country’s principal fuel distributors,
such as BR, Ipiranga, Shell and Texaco, resolved, in the face of the accusation, to suspend
ethanol purchases.
Even caught in the crossfire—sometimes quite literally, such as happened during an
investigation in Mato Grosso, where the Military Police attacked the Movable Group—
not all is lost. There are positive signs. The governor of Pará signed a decree creating the
State Commission for Eradication of Slave Labor (COETRAE-PA). Earlier, Tocantins
and Maranhão had done the same. And, at the suggestion of the ILO, Governor Ana
Júlia Karepa proposed a Federative Pact to the states of Pará, Piauí, Maranhão, Tocantins,
10 Such as Deputies Inocêncio de Oliveira (2002)(PL/PE), August César Farias (2003)(PTB/AL), Jorge and Leonardo Picciani
(2004)(PMDB/RJ), Senator João Ribeiro (2006)(PL/TO), and the Unai Mayor José Braz da Silva (2002)(PTB/MG). Others
are in solidarity with and in some way support the accused—Deputies Ronaldo Caiado (DEM/GO), Moacir Micheletto (PMDB/
PR), Abelardo Lupion (PFL/PR), Senators Flexa Ribeiro (PSDB/PA), Kátia Abreu (DEM)(TO), Cícero Lucena (PSDB/
PB), Romeu Tuma (DEM/SP), Jarbas Vasconcelos (PSDB/PE).
11 For example, he was accused of crimes committed at ranches in Pará: Santa Fé, in 1981, 1982, 1996, and 1997; Rio Negro in
1994; Lagoa das Antas, Umuarama and Flor de Mata in 1997.
12 He was President of the Federation of Industry of the State of Pernambuco and of the National Confederation of Industry.

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S LAVE LABOR AND PROMISCUITY AMONG BRAZILIAN AUTHORITIES

Bahia, and Mato Grosso, in which the most serious slave labor cases have happened. Of
these, Piauí, Maranhão, and Tocantins have already written and enacted laws that prohibit
the government from contracting the services of enterprises accused of using slave
labor on the so-called “dirty list” of the Ministry of Labor and Employment. The pact
was consolidated at the swearing in of COETRAE-PA in October 2007.

By Way of Conclusion
There are great difficulties in implementing the National Plan for Eradication of
Slave Labor as a result of pressure from the rural oligarchies. 13 José de Souza Martins,
writing about the interests of large landowners and conflicts with the Church’s pastoral
actions in Amazonia, explains that these form the essential basis for the national economic
and political system: “No political pact has been agreed to in this country, since
Independence in 1822, until the recent 1988 Constitution, that did not make ample
concessions to the interests of large landowners.” Some members of this rural oligarchy
act like a gang and are accused of other crimes that, in general, are connected to slave
labor, such as tax evasion and environmental crimes.
The existence of the promiscuous relationship between crime and the authorities
refers us to the study developed by Professor Adriano Oliveira, author of Tiros na
Democracia.14 Reflecting on organized crime in other areas, such as trafficking and
corruption, he shows that such has its origin in some way in the State, thanks to the
actions of certain public servants who promote crime or are negligent in the investigation,
accusation, and sentencing. Oliveira considers that, in these cases, crimes originate within
the State.
With regard to crimes involving the use of slave labor, certainly, if it weren’t for
the presence of politicians who are directly or indirectly involved, the efficiency of
operations of the Special Group for Movable Inspection would be greater and the
possibilities of suppression would increase. It is clear that the solution will require more
than correction and the impartiality of the authorities. We must go to the root of the
problem: social inequality, concentration of income and land ownership. The National
Plan for Eradication of Slave Labor must be put into application, as President Lula
promised at the beginning of his first term.

13 O Poder de Atraso: ensaios de sociologia da história lenta. São Paulo, Ed. Hucitec, 1994; p. 96.
14 O Globo, 28 Oct 2007, p. The Nation 15.

55

With the decision to recognize the applicability of the ILO Convention
169 with regard to quilombola peoples, we have an excellent indicator
that besides the political struggle of the quilombolas in defense of their
ethnic territory, a legal battle must also be fought to seek respect and
practical effectiveness for quilombola rights, seeing that the number of
actions before the Judiciary pertaining to quilombola rights is quite low
in the face of the enormous violations throughout the country.

Quilombolas: Struggles and Resistance in 2007
Roberto Rainha1
Four facts stand out in the realm of quilombola communities in 2007. 1) a judgment
by the Federal Justice Court in São Luis, in Maranhão, recognizing the applicability of
the International Labor Organization’s Convention 169 for Indigenous and Tribal peoples
to quilombola peoples; 2) opinion by the Federal Public Ministry in Opposition to
Legislative Decree Draft – PDL no. 44, of 2007, authored by Federal Deputy Valdir
Colatto; 3) the recovery of territory as a form of fighting for quilombola peoples in
Espírito Santo; 4) a hearing at the Interamerican Commission for Human Rights of the
Organization of American States (OAS) covering the situation of quilombola peoples
in Brazil.
The present article discusses these events in the context of the struggle against the
conservative forces that oppose recognition of their rights as conferred by the 1988
1

Roberto Rainha is an attorney with the Social Network for Justice and Human Rights

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H UMAN RIGHTS IN BRAZIL 2007

Federal Constitution, by the ILO Convention 169, and by various presidential decrees.
They also represent the fact that, as a result of the national networking and mobilization
of these communities, their demands are getting more support from other Brazilian
organizations.

1) ILO Convention 169: a concrete case
On the way to Maranhão, in September 2006, in order to provide continuity for the
teaching and training workshops with quilombola communities in the municipality of
Alcântara, attorneys from the Social Network for Justice and Human Rights obtained
form the leaders of the Movement of those Affected by the Space Base (MABE), the
information that:
- on March 9, 2006, military personnel destroyed the fields of the workers
Raimundo Petronílio, known as Dico, and José Carlos Araújo Neves, known as Carrinho, both of the village of Trajano, and the workers were restrained;
- on June 20, 2006, a quilombola youth—João Batista, known as Teco—and another
youth (a minor) were detained by military personnel at the Alcântara Launch Center
(CLA), in the community of Manival. The youths were working at removal of rocks
for sale in order to gain their livelihood;
- in the village of Pepital, 65 families are being pressured to leave the land holdings
that are essential for their very subsistence, because the military arbitrarily stipulated
August 15, 2006, as the deadline for removal, threatening to destroy the fields should
that not occur by the deadline.
Keeping in mind that this authoritarian attitude of the CLA military disrespects the
negotiation process underway in that ethnic territory and places the quilombola families
in the position of risking their lives, the Social Network attorneys drafted an injunction
to file with the Federal Justice Court in São Luis, with the aim of guaranteeing the right
of the quilombola families to enter in the planting area called Pepital Velho and harvest
what they had planted, and to, furthermore, prepare new fields for later planting.
Due to the large number of claimants (47 quilombola workers) the injunctions were
broken down into five actions. The claims were granted on September 22, 2006, and
CLA was barred from prohibiting the quilombolas from harvesting their fields and
preparing the area for new planting until judgment was passed on all the writs.
The CLA Command, on being advised of the decisions, through the General
Advocacy of the Union (AGU), presented, for each claim, an appeal before the 1st
Region Federal Regional Court – TRF1, seated in Brasilia. However, prior to hearing the
appeals, there was, in the first instance, a sentence of merit on the injunctions, which
resulted in negating the continuance of the Union’s appeals, due to loss of purpose.
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QUILOMBOLAS: STRUGGLES AND RESISTANCE IN 2007

In the sentence the Federal Magistrate guaranteed the quilombola rights and recognized
the applicability of ILO Convention 169. The judicial decision, on recognizing the applicability
of ILO Convention 169 as guaranteeing quilombola rights, solidifies the understanding of
civil society that, since the Convention came into effect in the Brazilian legal framework
(July 25, 2003), has been fighting for this important instrument to be respected whenever
administrative measures (public or private) affected quilombola communities.
With the decision, we have an indication that, besides the quilombolas’ political
struggle in defense of their ethnic territory, a legal battle must also be fought to win
respect and practical effectiveness for quilombola rights, seeing that the number of
actions before the Judiciary Branch regarding quilombola rights is quite low in the face
of the enormous violations throughout the country.

2) Decree 4887/03
Brazilian ratification of the ILO Convention 169, in 2002, and internal effectiveness
as of July 25, 2003, made the Federal Government issue, on National Black Consciousness
Day, Decree 4887/03, which regulates the procedures for identifying, recognizing,
delimiting, demarcating, and titling of lands occupied by the heirs of quilombola
communities dealt with in Article 68 of the Transitory Constitutional Dispositions Act,
granting to the Ministry of Agrarian Development – MDA, through the National Institute
for Colonization and Agrarian Reform – INCRA, jurisdiction over dealing with issues
related to quilombola land.
This document contained many of the claims made by the quilombola movement.
Based on Decree 4887/03, mirrored in the text of the ILO Convention 169, the criterion
for recognizing a quilombola community is self-identification. The same decree provided
a new way to deal with the quilombola land issue, tying the delimiting of territory to
physical, social, economic, and cultural reproduction of the community involved, which
included not only the area for dwellings, but also for planting, hunting, fishing, agriforestry, religious ceremonies, etc.

3) Reclaiming land in the state of Espirito Santo
Another important event in 2007 was a massive campaign to recover quilombola
territory in the state of Espirito Santo, as established in the Federal Constitution, the ILO
Convention 169, and Decree 4887/03. The main actions of this campaign were organized
by the Quilombola Ethnic Territory Sapê do Norte, which comprises the municipalities
of Conceição da Barra, São Mateus and Aracruz.
The Sapê do Norte region came to be inhabited by nearly 12,l000 quilombola
families, with an average of 60,000 being of African descent, up through the end of the
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H UMAN RIGHTS IN BRAZIL 2007

1960s. Then, with the arrival of Aracruz Celulose Corporation, which appropriated
these areas, the number was reduced to 1,200 families, who to this date live in small
communities in the middle of the company’s eucalyptus trees.
The first recovery action occurred in April 2006, when the members of various
communities decided to concentrate their forces and remove the eucalyptus trees planted
in an area of the quilombolo community of Linharinho, where, in the past, there was a
cemetery for the community’s members, today overtaken by eucalyptus plantations.
After that action, the Courts of that state quickly decided to return possession of the
land to Aracruz Celulose.
However, this action put the community in the limelight and resulted in INCRA speedily
publishing Order No. 78, recognizing the area as quilombolo territory. This Order
represented a great victory for the quilombolas, aside from bringing into play the ILO
Convention 169 for Indigenous and Tribal peoples. But the good news didn’t go beyond
publication, seeing that, after this proceeding, the definitive titling work for the area did not
advance, and the quilombolas continued to be exploited by Aracruz corporation.
On July 23, 2007, about 500 quilombola workers from the Sapê do Norte
communities, supported by Via Campesina, the Landless Workers Movement (MST),
and the Small Farmers Movement, retook the area of the Linharinho “Quilombola
Community, invaded by the Aracruz Celulose Company. In this new recovery, they
were able to resist for 16 days, before the Courts once again give Aracruz Celulose
possession over their land.
But for the quilombolas, the new way of struggling, consisting of the massive
recovery of their territories, became an important instrument for applying pressure to
make sure that their claims stay on the national agenda.

4) Quilombola rights at the OAS’ Interamerican
Commission on Human Rights
The OAS’ Interamerican Commission on Human Rights (CIDH-OEA), at a hearing
in Washington, on October 10th, heard accusations regarding the violation of the rights
of Brazilian quilombolas.
Representatives of Brazilian social organizations denounced before the Interamerican
Commission the infractions perpetrated by the Brazilian State against the rights of
traditional communities, whether when acting directly, displacing them from their
territories, or when by acts of omission in the face of discriminatory acts against the
quilombolas by multinational corporations and large landowners.
The hearing was requested by the National Coordinating Office of Quilombola
Communities (CONAQ), the Social Network for Justice and Human Rights, the Center
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QUILOMBOLAS: STRUGGLES AND RESISTANCE IN 2007

for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), the Federation of Educational and Social
Assistance Organizations (FASE) and the São Paulo Pro-Indian Commission.
A representative from CONAQ, Jô Brandão, pointed out the importance of the
hearing before the OEA for the defense of quilombola rights. She stressed that the
Brazilian State doesn’t know who the quilombolas are, how many there are, or where
they are. She further noted the inefficiency of the State in defending their rights. The
Special Rapporteur on African Descendants of the Interamerican Commission on Human
Rights, Clare Roberts, affirmed that, on a visit to Brazil, had the opportunity to see the
reality of the quilombola communities, and agreed with the situation exposed by the
petitioners.
“We recognize the attempts on the part of the Brazilian government to take on this
question. However, I personally visited these communities and witnessed their living
conditions. Therefore, I know exactly what the petitioners are saying. One problem is
the bureaucracy involved in complying with the law for titling of lands. This process
should be shorter, because titling is urgent in order to improve the Quilombolas’ living
conditions,” said Roberts.
The Rapporteur concluded: “In addition, it is necessary to create economic
opportunities for these communities. There are government programs in this regard,
but there seems to be a problem in their execution, as scarcely a small part of the funds
for these programs is utilized. This is one of the obstacles for effective implementation
of these policies. Therefore, there are two areas of intervention that the government
should focus on: the land question, which is central. The titling processes must be quickly
carried out; the implementation of projects guaranteeing social justice for quilombola
communities, which is theirs by right.”
The members of the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights signed a
commitment to monitor the issue with recommendations and demands made to the
Brazilian State for effective implementation of policies for quilombola communities. A
Press Release (No. 54/07) summarized the work of the 130th Session Period:
“The CIDH wishes to particularly point out the hearing on the Status of the
descendants of runaway slaves from the Colonial Period (‘Quilombolas’) in Brazil, an
example of the attention and close follow-up given by the Commission regarding the
situation of the descendants of Africans in the region.”

61

According to INESC studies, of the R$ 202.5 million authorized in the
budget between 2004 and 2006, the federal government failed to invest
nearly R$ 100.62 million in promoting the rights of quilombola
communities. And it is exactly in the Brazil Quilombola Program that we
find the biggest bottleneck in the application of funds, given that of the
R$ 101.4 million provided for program actions between 2004 and 2006,
scarcely 32.3% (R$ 32.84 million) was used. The biggest problem lies in
providing title for the territories. Of the budget amount for Surveying,
Demarcation, and Titling of quilombo lands, out of a total of R$ 11.01
million, only R$ 5.94 million was spent (53.97%).

Brazilian Quilombolas and reminiscences of the past
Aton Fon Filho1
Due to the interests of the company Aracruz Celulose, a TV and press campaign is
presenting Decree 4887/2003 of the Presidency of the Republic, which established the
procedure for titling quilombola territories, as a threat to the Nation. The choice of the
Decree as the main target is understandable, because without it the associated right becomes
unrealizable. Art. 68 of the Transitory Constitutional Dispositions Act establishes that “for
the remainder of the quilombo communities that are occupying their land, such is recognized
to be their property, and the State shall issue the respective titles to them.”
This created expectations, the rule didn’t bother large property owners, based on
the allegation that it would not be self-applicable and on the state’s inertia, for just as
how the devil can be in the details, it is in the interpretation of the details that he robs us
1 Aton Fon Filho is an attorney and director of the Social Network for Justice and Human Rights

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H UMAN RIGHTS IN BRAZIL 2007

often of the right written into the rule. The fruit of this was merely 71 areas titled since
then, some of them with unrecordable titles.
The discussion covered the content of the term quilombo, and from the start the
resultant understanding was that only areas occupied by quilombos in 1888 and occupied
by their descendants as of October 5, 1988,2 should be granted title.
Self-applicability of Art. 68 of the ADCT was signed by President Fernando Henrique
Cardoso, with issuance of Decree 3912/2001. But the defenders of this criterion were
caught in a spider web, because their thesis threatened the very reason for the constitutional
order. In the end, why guarantee the quilombolas ownership of the area that required
occupation for 100 years, 4 months, and 22 days, when they could have the same title,
under the 1916 Civil Code, if occupation was for 20 years?3
In mid-discussion, the National Congress ratified, in 2002, Convention 169 of the
International Labor Organization, which went into effect on July 25, 2003, under President
Lula. The Convention adopted the concept for traditional populations:
“…whose social, cultural, and economic conditions distinguish them from other
sectors of national collectivity, and which are governed wholly or in part by their own
customs or traditions, or by special legislation.” 4
And, along with other important rights, it established that they would have ownership
and possession of their territories, comprehending the lands that they traditionally occupy
and lands that may not be exclusively occupied by them, but which, traditionally, have
provided access for their traditional and subsistence activities. 5
Into this ethnic mold formulated by the ILO Convention 169, without any
adjustments, once can fit the quilombola communities that possess undeniably
differentiated roots and for their social, economic, and cultural conditions—in particular the collective and traditional mode of tenancy and exploitation of the land—
distinguishing them from other sectors of the national collectivity. In the end, the
Convention left the self-applicability argument aside, because, on being allowed in the
internal order, such suppressed the need for regulatory law for the constitutional
disposition which it envisaged.
Decree 4887, thus, adapted the titling process ordered by Art. 68 of the ADCT to
the determinations of the ILO Convention 169. It provided, in conformance with
2 Article 1, sole paragraph, Para. I and II of Decree No. 3912 of September 10, 2001.
3 The 2002 Civil Code reduced this extraordinary prescription term to 15 years.
4 Art. 1, a of ILO Convention 169.
5 ILO Convention 169 – Article 14.1. The right to ownership and possession is recognized for the people concerned with regard to the
lands they traditionally occupy. Additionally, in appropriate cases, measures shall be taken to safeguard the right of the people concerned
to the use of lands that are not exclusively occupied by them, but to which, traditionally, they have had access for their traditional and
subsistence activities. In this regard, particular attention shall be paid to the situation of nomadic peoples and itinerant agricultural
workers.

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BRAZILIAN QUILOMBOLAS AND REMINISCENCES OF THE PAST

Art.1.2 of the Convention, that consciousness of quilombola identity constitutes the
fundamental criterion for its recognition and protection and emphasized the second rule
by which quilombola areas should be considered, in satisfaction of the objective of
guaranteeing the physical, social, economic, and cultural reproduction of the community.
Denial of the quilombola right centered on one thing: the right to affirm their identity.
That which entrepreneurs or the adepts of a religion recognize for themselves, the
foes of quilombola rights deny to those who wish to affirm their ancestral status, their
culture, their identity, which is a condition for application of the standard and for attribution
of the right. Exclusion of social identity entails the legal repercussion of exclusion of
rights granted, so as to impair at one time the condition for title under ILO Convention
169 and Art. 68 of ADCT.
Such actions do not prevent this right of the quilombolas from being recognized
judicially, whether by denial of the challenges by Aracruz Celulose against the process of
granting title to quilombola communities in Espírito Santo, whether by the preliminary
rejection in ADIN of a proposal made by the Liberal Front Party against Decree 4887,
whether by the sentences that, with the support of ILO Convention 169, recognized the
rights of the Alcântara quilombolas to plant inside the area expropriated by the Aerospace
Launch Center.
Defeated in the Judicial realm, the anti-quilombola forces focused their efforts on
media and legislative action. A draft was presented in the Chamber of Deputies for
Legislative Decree No. 44, of 2007, by Deputy Valdir Colatto (PMDB/SC), aimed at
stopping application of Decree No. 4887, as well as all administrative acts based thereon.
The chief failing of the draft legislation, as pointed out in the opposing opinion, by the
6th Chamber of the Federal Public Ministry, is that its author is unaware or pretends to
be unaware of the fact that Decree 4887/2003 is based on ILO Convention 169, and is
not dependent on the mood of a congressman. Lacking legal purpose, the draft legislation
in question was finally shelved, preventing further restrictions by both the proponent
and the Brazilian State itself.
In the area of propaganda, however, the efficacy of money enabled the participation
of celebrities from the sports and cultural worlds, including a Minister of State, affirming
that the companies in conflict with the quilombolas are the good guys. It should be
noted that celebrities were chosen also for their racial traits, as they would thus be more
effective in confronting the quilombola status as descendents of enslaved Africans.
Nothing, however, caused greater impact and problems than the anti-quilombola
campaign disguised as news by the television media. Led by the principal television network
in Brazil, it began to contest the quilombolo self-identity criterion, particularly attempting
to impugn it with accusations that the declarations had been, in some cases, falsified.
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H UMAN RIGHTS IN BRAZIL 2007

Put on the defensive in the face of the alliance between the legislative opposition
and media opposition, the Federal Government took several steps backwards, giving
ground it didn’t have, with regard to quilombola rights. Initially, the Palmares Cultural
Foundation—whose previous role had been the merely decorative one of certifying the
existence of self-identification declarations by quilombola communities, and which later
came to be considered the entity responsible for certifying the very existence of those
communities—decided to suspend issuing those certificates, although nothing authorized
the Foundation to stop doing its job.
A certificate issued by the Palmares Cultural Foundation stating that a given quilombola
community had declared their status, being logically expendable, came to be, thanks to the
bureaucratic ties of the Brazilian State, required for concretizing innumerable rights and access
to public policies. Suspension of their issuance, therefore, gave rise to difficulties and violated
the rights of many communities who found themselves unable to receive funds and establish
partnerships, among others, with the National Health Foundation – FUNASA. Proof of the
falsity of the television accusations restored the certificates, but, as such was not made known
to the public, the anti-quilombola spirit was still on an upswing.
The most notable writers of the extreme right also garnered space in the press, all
poisoned against the titling of quilombola territories. Having abundant resources, this
group ended up promoting the resurgence of old actors in the now-called Peace in the
Countryside Movement, which paraded forth its objections to quilombola populations,
and in propaganda dressed in blue and white uniforms, lead by an heir to the Brazilian
throne—whatever that means in a republic.
All these elements resulted in the coercion of the government, which was shaking
from fear of the press, to establish a new Working Group, this time coordinated by the
General Advocacy Office of the Union, to face the threat of further aggression in the
press and indeed against Decree 4887/2003. This Working Group was formulating, at
the end of 2007, a new proposal for standardized instructions to replace No. 20, currently
in force, which governs INCRA actions in titling quilombola areas.
Since the very idea of replacing Standardized Instruction No. 20 is harmful, as its
admission would imply the reopening of terms and the need to redo acts in progress in
the titling proceedings, or even those already completed, since no one yet has gotten to
the point of issuing property titles. Thus, such modification could reflect a suspect
protection of Aracruz Celulose Corporation, which would have the title proceedings
reopened with regard to its having been recognized as occupying part of the Linharinho
quilombola community’s territory, in the Sapê do Norte region of Espírito Santo.
If this were not enough, several points are immediately indicative of the fear
experienced by GT members:
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· Exclusion of reference to Convention 169 from among the legal references of
the proposal;
· Exclusion of the term territory from its articles;
· Introduction of the requirement that the FCP issue a certificate of self-identification
asd a pre-condition for the titling procedure;
· Establishment of a new appeal, previously not provided for, after judgment is
made on disputes
· Introduction of limitations on INCRA’s actions, before other entities, particularly
the Executive Secretary of the National Security Council.
It can be seen, without closer examination, that none of the proposed changes are
aimed at protecting the rights of quilombola communities, all of such changes having
been designed to create for opponents the possibility of legal challenges through new
procedural acts that were not previously provided for, through the possibility of meddling
by military authorities averse to recognition of the human rights of the quilombolas, as
already demonstrated in the Alcântara and Marambaia cases and through the withdrawal
of rights provided for in Convention 169, such as the right to title to territories and not
just to dwelling places.
This proposal shall be, under the terms of ILO Convention 169, submitted to an
inquiry at which the quilombola communities shall appear. And here again we already see
a violation of rights in the proceeding which the federal administration intends to use.
This past November 21 st the Working Group set a meeting to which quilombolas
would have access, and would be taken as the Inquiry mentioned in Convention 169. An
attempt was thus being made to avoid the necessary proceedings, substituting the Inquiry
with a mere meeting, failing to hear all interested parties, in order to give voice to only a few.
Deceptive and worrisome, with respect to the process of titling territories, the picture
is not much different with regard to public policies. With admirable constancy, a provision
was included in Decree 4887, of November 20, 2003, for a Managing Committee to
draft a plan of ethnodevelopment composed of representatives of 18 ministries and
secretariats with ministerial status, plus the Civil House of the Presidency of the Republic.
In the text of the same Decree, however, the very government ignores the
determination under ILO Convention 169 – art. 6, 1, a and b – which mandates that
interested populations be consulted whenever legislative or administrative measures are
anticipated which might affect them directly, as well as establish the means by which they
can participate in decisions regarding these programs.
It is not surprising, therefore, that although mention is expressly made in the National
Quilombola Program to the need for participation by those populations in all phases,
this rarely is a reality, as there was no provision made for how to achieve this. By way of
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example, we have INCRA Standard Instruction No. 16, as well as No. 20, which
succeeded it, that contain Article 27 stating:
Art 27. The heirs of quilombolo communities are assured participation in all phases of
administrative proceeding, as well as follow up on regularization processes underway with
the Regional Superintendency, directly or by means of representatives indicated by them.
This right is, however, not realizable in practice, since the proceedings are held at the
administrative seats of INCRA, far from the quilombola communities, which are almost
always rural. Whether due to distance or lack of resources, such a provision guaranteeing
a right ends up being more than anything a mere nod to what might be, but never
comes about. And thusly an important feature, that pertaining to social surveillance and
control of public policies, is prevented from being realized.
The effort to achieve a dialogue with the communities is not ignored, so that they
can at least be partially listened to, nor are the difficulties that they themselves face in
following the discussions and programs. But state intervention to improve the quilombola’
capacity for participation is very necessary in order to make up for this lack and realize
the potential for representation.
One way or another, given the historically accumulated social debt, the advent of
the Brazil Quilombola Program, the result of the work of that Managing Committee,
created the possibility of substantially advancing the situation of the quilombo peoples.
Prioritizing the land issue met the most important demand of the communities, but
the entire program, in a general way, made for positive expectations, even though
innumerable demands may arise, which seems normal in the face of a plan laid out on
general lines that must be made more specific on projects that involve both the states
and municipalities.
At the beginning of 2007, another Presidential Decree, No. 6040 of February 7,
2007, established the National Policy on Sustainable Development of Traditional
Communities and Peoples, aimed at indigenous and quilombola peoples, incorporating
elements, directives, and objectives from the Brazil Quilombola Program.
The allocation of resources to concretize the program also seemed adequate, perhaps
because it was the first time they were made explicit in the Pluri-Annual Plan, or because
the nominal volume of funds was considered sufficient for the purposes. The undeniable
legislative advances and the formulation of the program of action, however, did not
prove sufficient to substantially alter reality. After three years, it grows more likely that
the Brazil Quilombolo Plan runs the risk of dying on paper.
The difficulties seem to arise not only from unresolved operational challenges, such

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as “political interests that make it difficult to recognize the rights of quilombola
populations.” 6 According to INESC studies, of the R$ 202.5 million authorized in the
budget between 2004 and 2006, the federal government failed to invest nearly R$ 100.62
million in promoting the rights of quilombola communities. 7
And it is exactly in the Brazil Quilombolo Program that we find the biggest
bottleneck in the application of funds, given that of the R$ 101.4 million provided
for program actions between 2004 and 2006, scarcely 32.3% (R$ 32.84 million)
was used. Within the Program, the biggest problem lies in providing title for the
territories. Of the budget amount for Surveying, Demarcation, and Titling of
quilombo lands, out of a total of R$ 11.01 million, only R$ 5.94 million was
spent (53.97%), and out of the funds for payment of indemnity to occupants of
demarcated and titled lands, R$ 56.53 million, only 11.65%, R$ 6.58 million, were
spent in three years.
With reference to support of sustainable development for quilombola communities,
of the R$ 3.15 million authorized for 2004/06, R$ 2.26 million were spent (71.83%),
leaving a balance of R$ 888.68 thousand. To foster local development, a program
under the auspices of the Special Secretary for Policies Promoting Racial Equality (Seppir),
performance was less than expected: of the R$ 21.73 million authorized for the period,
there remains a balance of R$ 9.86 million. The Ministry of the Environment also failed
to spend the funds available for environmental management on Quilombola Lands,
about R$ 445.92 thousand.
In the realm of the Afro-Brazilian Culture program, under the auspices of the
Ministry of Culture (Minc), Ethnodevelopment of Communities Derived from
Quilombos had about R$ 3.31 million allocated for the 2004/2006 period, with
expenditure of R$ 2.64 million. A total of R$ 11.86 million, however, failed to be
utilized for activities pertaining to local development of quilombola communities.
INESC itself showed that up until June 2007, of the R$ 92.475 million budgeted
for the year, only R$ 5.90 (6.39%) had been used. Given that of the R$ 31.80
million destined for regularization of Quilombola Lands within the Brazil
Quilombola program, little more than R$ 444 thousand had been spent, or 1.40%
of the total.
From among the totality of rural communities, traditional populations,
marginalized and discriminated against due to origin and race, the quilombola
populations are out of step with Brazilian society to a degree that requires radical
measures to rectify the situation.
6 INESC – Instituto de Estudos Sócio Econômicos, Technical Note No. 126. July 2007, attachment.
7 Idem

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The communities themselves relate that, among quilombola children of up to
five years of age, 76% suffer from malnutrition, more than 90% com from families
with an income less than R$ 400.00 per month, and 97% of them live in dwellings
without a public sewer system.8
As stated by the CONAC Coordinator, Jhonny Martins, all funds destined for the
quilombolas take a long time to come. “For that reason, we are fighting for the
communities themselves to take the lead with their own resources and organize such
transfers.” This brings us, once again, to the realm of observing the right of quilombola
populations to participate in the definition of public policies and the execution and
monitoring of actions.
The incapability of the federal administration to meet its obligations on human
rights with regard to quilombola communities presents a worrisome picture for 2007.
This is true with regard to public policies destined for such communities, even when
there is a nominally sufficient allocation of funds for the measures that could guarantee
the start of overcoming the historic social abyss. This is true with regard to the titling
processes pertaining to the territories of what is left of quilombos, even though the
conclusion of the titling process of the Linharinho area may have given rise to positive
expectations at a certain point of the year.
The means employed by the Working Group under the coordination of the General Advocacy of the Union, with the gently restricted agreement of SEPPIR, FCP and
INCRA, acknowledge the urgency which is stimulating government actions, seeking to
appease the hunger of the legislative opposition, landowners, and media lions, even
though this may involve feeding them by throwing into the arena the bodies of the
quilombola communities’ rights.

8 Report presented during the I Quilombinho – National Meeting on Quilombola Children and Adolescents

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This article narrates the holocaust of the Guarani-Kaiowá people in the state
of Mato Grosso do Sul. How else can one explain a 70-year old GuaraniKaiowa holy person being assassinated by gunmen, or another aged GuaraniKaiowa, 107 years old, being raped and killed, or an 8-year-old girl of the
same group being attacked violently after leaving a children’s party; rapes
and assassinations of women in Amazonia during daylight hours; the invasion
of a community in Maranhão in which several people were injured and an
elderly man was assassinated in by armed men associated with logging
companies; the invasion of another community in that State by businessmen
who burnt houses, spread terror and assasinated one person; gunmen under
orders from ranchers keep on killing the leadership with impunity in several
states; that a group of young men in Minas Gerais, two groups in Mato
Grosso do Sul, one in Pernambuco and yet another in São Paulo harass and
kill both young and elderly indigenous people in the cities, for no known
reason or for supposed “entertainment;” that dozens of people, many children
and 13 and 14-year-old adolescents, the majority Guarani-Kaiowa, continue
to commit suicide, which provokes other suicides; that illnesses are spreading
to entire populations in the Amazon region that, given the neglectfulness of
the State, can only lead to death and genocide?

The Guarani-Kaiowá Holocaust and
Anti-indigenous Violence in Brazil1
Paulo Maldos2

I – INTRODUCTION
We are now officially entering the 21st centry and the beginning of this milennium is
marked as a period in the history of Latin America in which many popular governments
are bing elected: in Bolivia, Evo Morales was the first indigenous president elected; in
1 This report is made possible by research, investigation, and classification of material from the press; from reports from the teams of
the Regional Cimi; and from reports from indigenous people, communities, and organizations. The investigation was carred out by
Leda Bosi Magalhães and Aida Marise Cruz, from the Documentation Section of Cimi.
2 Paulo Maldos is a Political Advisor of the Indigenous Missionary Council (Cimi).

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Ecuador, Rafael Correa was elected and is a presdient with a social base among indigenous
people; in Venezuela, the discourse of Hugo Chávez is strongly pro-indigenous; in Brasil, the reelected president Luis Inácio Lula da Silva criticized his own government
about the debt owed by the Brazilian government to indignous people; he promised to
recover lost time and created the National Commission for Indigenous Policy (CNPI).
This year, 2007, with the active contribution of Brazil, the United Nations approved the
UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.
Yet, if we were to categorize the information about the current situation of indigenous
communities in Brazil, we would find that the indigenous communities have suffered
from violence throughout this year, and we can certainly confirm that the colonial barbary
in our country continues to repeat itself, and with it, a roll call of pain and death.

The Guarani-Kaiowá Holocaust
We would like to focus here on the holocaust of the Guarani-Kaiowá people in Mato
Grosso do Sul, a genocide we point out year after year, and one that is continually confirmed
in newspapers almost every day. It is difficult to understand how this cruel extermination of
an entire population can continue even today while the entire country, including the federal
and state governments, the institutions of the Republic, and the indigenous agencies are
watching, with no effective measures being taken to solve this problem.
We cannot understand the coldheartedness of such silence when we are surrounded by
the agony of a people whose rights have continually been violated. It is difficult to understand
the very brutality of the crimes that have continued to occur up to the time at which we
completed this analysis – at the end of October 2007 – against the Guarani-Kaiowá people
in Mato Grosso do Sul in particular and other indigenous peoples in Brazil.
How else can one explain a 70-year old Guarani-Kaiowa holy person being assassinated
by gunmen, or another aged Guarani-Kaiowa, 107 years old, being raped and killed, or
an 8-year-old girl of the same group being attacked violently after leaving a children’s
party; rapes and assassinations of women in Amazonia during daylight hours; the invasion
of a community in Maranhão in which several people were injured and an elderly man
was assassinated in by armed men associated with logging companies; the invasion of
another community in that State by businessmen who burnt houses, spread terror and
assasinated one person; gunmen under orders from ranchers keep on killing the leadership
with impunity in several states; that a group of young men in Minas Gerais, two groups
in Mato Grosso do Sul, one in Pernambuco and yet another in São Paulo harass and kill
both young and elderly indigenous people in the cities, for no known reason or for
supposed “entertainment;” that dozens of people, many children and 13 and 14-yearold adolescents, the majority Guarani-Kaiowa, continue to commit suicide, which
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ANTI-INDIGENOUS VIOLENCE IN BRAZIL

provokes other suicides; that illnesses are spreading to entire populations in the Amazon
region that, given the neglectfulness of the State, can only lead to death and genocide?
The Brazilian colonial matrix, with its burden of brutal and disjointed violence, is
alive and present, and produces crimes that are infinitely repeated with impunity. This
same ideological matrix generates violence against workers, campesinos, black people,
poor people, slum dwellers, and marginalized people in this country. This is the ancient
and barbaric violence of the elite – and of the State at the service of the elite – against
the people, that repeats itself in time and in space, making us question the meaning of
the existence of our society and our country.

II – VIOLENCE AGAINST INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IN 2007
1. Assassinations
This year, 58 indigenous people were assassinated. Thirty five of these assassinations
ocurred in Mato Grosso do Sul, and all except one were Guarani-Kaiowá people. The
other states in which assassinations ocurred were Pernambuco, with 9 assassinations,
Maranhão with 2, Amazonas with 2, and Bahia, Ceará, Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais,
Mato Grosso, Paraná, Roraima, Rio Grande do Sul and São Paulo each with one
assassination.
It is important to point out the age of the victims, many of them were adolescents
or elderly victims.
Some examples include: an elderly Guarani-Kaiowá of 107 years of age who was
raped and assassinated in her own home in Mato Grosso do Sul; another GuaraniKaiowá man, 76 years old, who was beaten to death on a road in the interior; a 70 year
old holy person, also Guarani-Kaiowá, Xuretê Lopes, was killed by gunmen that attacked
a peaceful encampment; a 60 year old Guajajara from Maranhão who was killed by a
group of loggers that invaded his village.
On the other hand, 13 youths ranging in age from 14 to 20 years old were killed. Of
these, 12 were Guarani-Kaiowá and one was Bororo. All were from Mato Grosso do
Sul and all were killed this year.
Among the 58 victims, 12 were women and 46 were men. Among the women,
many cases of rape were followed by death, such as in two cases in the São Gabriel da
Cachoeira Amazon region. This is also confirmed or suspected in many cases in Mato
Grosso do Sul.
Among these cases, there have been several assassinations ordered of indigenous
leaders such as Ortiz Lopes, a Guarani-Kaiowá leader who had participated in taking
back the traditional territory of Kurusu Ambá in Mato Grosso do Sul. When the gunman
pointed the gun at him, he said: “The landowners ordered us to settle accounts with
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you”. Helenildo Bataru Egiri, an indigenous leader of the Bororo people in the Jarudori
region of Mato Grosso do Sul, was also killed when his land was invaded by ranchers,
as was José Lindomar Santana of the Xukuru people in Pernambuco and son of Chico
Quele, a leader of Pedra D’Agua who was assassinated in 2001 by people who invaded
his indigenous land.
Among these cases, many were motivated by hate and prejudice prevalent in national
society. This includes loggers and businessmen that invaded indigenous villages to terrorize
and assasinate the people, and groups of people who attacked indigenous people in the
cities, resulting in serious injuries or assassinations. Here we point out the case of Avelino
Nunes da Costa, an indigenous Xakriabá man who was assassinated in Pedrinhas, Minas
Gerais by a group of young people, two of whom were underage. They stated that
they wanted to “have fun” with an indigenous person by taking off his clothes and
beating him to death. Cases like these have occured in the city of São Paulo (1), in
Santarém do Pará (1), in Mato Grosso do Sul (2) and in Pernambuco (1).
It is important to point out the number of assassinations committed against the
Guarani-Kaiowá people in Mato Grosso do Sul: a total of 35 assassinations of GuaraniKaiowá people out of 58 in the entire country. As in previous years, it is important to
note the increasing number of aggressions followed by deaths amongst the indigenous
peoples themselves. In the majority of these cases, close relatives like husbands, wives,
parents, children, cousins and friends (many of whom were adolescents) were involved.
The context of these crimes is extreme poverty, a lack of land and work, absence of
traditional territory, abandonment and overpopulation of indigenous reservations,
coupled with an increasing use of alcohol and drugs. As in previous years, the superficiality
of the conflicts that generate such deaths stands out; many times these deaths occur as a
result of small fights and misunderstandings.

2. Assasination attempts
In 2007, 36 indigenous people were the victims of assasination attempts throughout
the country. Of this total, 26 of the victims were from Mato Grosso do Sul, 5 from
Maranhão, 3 from Ceará and 2 from Bahia.
These assasination attempts targeted the Pataxó Hã Hã Hãe people in Bahia, the
Tapeba people in Ceará, and the Guajajara people in Maranhão and say something
about the violence evidenced by ranchers and other invaders of indigenous lands, invading
communities and attacking people with impunity. Communities in the Northeastern
states were invaded, terrorized and threatened by armed gunmen. In Maranhão, the
Guajajara community was invaded, their houses burned and their heritage destroyed by
the invaders.
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In the case of Mato Grosso do Sul, 13 of the 26 agressions, at least half, involved
indigenous people against indigenous people. The proximity of the victim to the aggressor
is alarming, these being children, husbands, wives, or cousins. It is also important to note
the apparent superficiality of the motives, for example, adolescents might have arguments
about “who cuts more sugar cane.” The most common social context is that of extreme
misery, excessive use of alcohol, and strenuous work in the sugar cane mills.
The violence against children is surprising: an eight year old Guarani-Kaiowá child
was attacked after a children’s party; another 12 year old Guarani-Kaiowá child was
attacked by friends after a dance in which all of the children were drunk,;and even
more surprising is the case of a 1 year old Guarani-Kaiowá baby (whose mother was
only 17 years old) who was a victim of gunshots that hit three other people in the same
family while they were sleeping. Just hours before this brutal violence ocurred, a 16 year
old adolescent committed suicide by hanging himself.
Of all the victims of assasination attempts, nine were children and adolescents ranging
in age from 1, 8, 12, and up to 16 and 17 years old.

3. Suicides
In the year 2007 there were 27 cases of indigenous people who committed suicide.
Twenty of these were Guarani-Kaiowá people from Mato Grosso do Sul and 7 were
Tikuna people from the Amazonas. While this is a chronic and ancient situation amongst
the Guarani-Kaiowá people, suicides amongst the Tikuna people have been becoming
more frequent in recent years, with the largest incidence amongst adolescents.
Looking at the suicide statistics, it is surprising that 15 of the 27 victims were between
the ages of 13 and 18.
Family members continue to say that “there was no reason” for the victim to commit
suicide. In reality the suicides often occur in the middle of everyday activities, when the
victims are acting normally: two adolescents who go out to gather wood, later on one
of them hangs himself; a family leaves their house and the father seems okay, when they
come back they find that he had hung himself. Other times, small arguments, sadness,
depression, concern about unemployment, loss of a boyfriend or girlfriend, jealousy, or
anything else becomes a detonator for suicide. Alcohoism is yet another symptom and
less of a cause, and is many times part of the context of indigenous suicides.
In the stories of suicides from this year, which are similar to stories from previous
years, we have found that having had contact with suicide victims, with other people
who are suicidal, with funerals of those who committed suicide, family members
or close friends who committed suicide, as well as suicides in the home or
neighborhood, are all factors that are potentially capable of provoking other suici75

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des. Suicides by the Guarani-Kaiowá people many times present themselves as a
series that self-stimulate more suicides within family, friend, and community circles:
one adolescent commits suicide upon returning from school; the next day a friend
from school commits suicide; two days later one of his cousins hangs himself; a
few days later, this girl’s boyfriend kills himself. Things continue this way until one
series of suicides slows down and another series begins with a new and unexpected
suicide, such as a man who argued with his wife because there was not enough food
in the house. With this, another series of suicides begins, of realtives, friends, or
neighbors.
For years the public powers have been trying to understand and intervene in
these processes in order to stop them from ocurring: anthropologists and
psychologists have been contracted since 1992 by the Ministry of Justice and by
Funai with the hope of putting an end to these suicides. The fact is that these
investigations have been unsuccessful, mostly because the reality of these populations
remains the same: more than 100 indigenous territories continue to be invaded by
landowners and by agrobusinesses, and the communities that live on these lands
continue to be pushed off their land and confined to overpopulated spaces. They
do not have land to cultivate, forest, or any internal equilibrium within the community
and with the environment. In short, without their tekoha, or terroritory, in which
they can live in the way the Guarani people are accustomed to living.

4. Deaths due to Neglect / Neglect of Healthcare
There were at least 19 cases of deaths reported in the first semester of this year due
to neglect, and among these were the Kulina people in Vale do Javari, in Amazonas.
Among the causes were serious illnesses like hepatitis, viral hepatitis, malaria, yellow
fever, tuberculosis, and malnutrition. According to reports, the Funasa (National Health
Foundation) does not have the minimal personnel, resources, equipment, and boats to
attend to this indigenous population.
Deaths were documented in 11 indigenous regions of the DSEIs (Special Indigenous
Health Districts) out of a total of 30 regions, due to illnesses like syphilis, STD/AIDS,
and hepatitis.
Another population that has been greatly affected by deaths due to the lack of
adequate medical attention in the region is the Kaxinawá people in Acre, with deaths
related to malaria, yellow fever, typhoid fever, viruses, and infant malnutrition.
Cases of death have also been documented due to medical negligence, such as in the
case of a community leader in Kaingang, Santa Catarina, and in the case of a young 24
year old who was giving birth in the town of Xokó, Sergipe.
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According to information from the DSEIs, there are cases of syphilis that has
spread in the indigenous populations in all regions in Brazil. One hundred sixty six cases
were documented, 64 of these in Mato Grosso do Sul.
The DSEIs also documented 48 cases of HIV in 10 regions of Brazil. Of these, 17
were registered in Mato Grosso do Sul. In addition, according to the DSEIs, 64 cases of
hepatitis were diagnosed in 15 regions in Brazil; 30 of these cases were in Vale do Javari.
According to a survey by Funasa, of the 300 indigenous people from Vale do Javari
in the study, 169 people, or 56.6% had contact with the hepatitis B virus. This number
is alarming since this illness is highly contagious and according to the World Health
Organization an accepetable perentage is 2%.
The Zoé people, an isolated ethnicity in Pará, has a population of 238 people and
80% of these people have been infected with malaria. The devastation of the matas in
their territory and the presence of invaders is clearly the cause of this tragic contamination.
Many complaints have also been filed about the precarious situation and high rate
of infection with bilharziasis by the Potiguara people in Paraíba, and the lack of medical
attention to the Munduruku people in Pará. Reports during the last year speak of delays
of 2 to 6 months to get access to medical attention, overpopulation and little food in
hospitals, disrespect and abandonment of patients, and constant cases of losing test
results by staff that “forgot” to look for them, thus paralyzing treatments and requiring
that the tests be done again. This only increases the suffering of the population that
should be attended to.
The abandonment and neglect of indigenous populations is reflected in the reports
that have been filed, such as the contamination of streams that are used to prepare food
by the Guarani-Kaiowá people in Mato Grosso do Sul; the cutting of 11,000 basic
food baskets by the State government that were delivered to 8,000 Guarani-Kaiowá
families, and the existence of entire families of this population that are wandering about
the cities in Mato Grosso do Sul, looking for leftover food scraps in trash cans. According
to Funasa staff, cutting the basic food baskets has resulted in an increase in infant
malnutrition.

5. Infant Mortality
Reports of cases of infant mortality occured in the states of Amazonas (4), Mato
Grosso do Sul (8), Rondônia (1) and Tocantins (1).
In Amazonas, the people that have been affected by infant mortality were the Pirahã,
Kanamari, Kulina and Tikuna people. These children suffered from dehydration, birth
complications, pneumonia, tuberculosis, hepatitis, gastroenteritis, and hydrocephalus.
According to the reports, medical attention for these children was lacking and Funasa
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was indifferent about these concerns. Each report refers to an undetermined number
of children. Many other children continue to be poorly attended to, or are not attended
to, and therefore run the risk of death, inclduing in the House of the Indian, in Manaus.
In Mato Grosso do Sul, the population affected was the Guarani-Kaiowá people.
The reports that have been filed show that there are about 8 children between the ages
of 0 and 2 who suffer from malnutrition. According to the reports and evaluations of
the Funasa staff, the root causes of these deaths and of malnutrition are poverty, lack of
land, work, and lack of sustainability in the Guarani-Kaiowá communities. All of the
children died when they were in hospitals in Mato Grosso do Sul.
In Rondônia, three deaths of children were reported without references to the
population they came from or the age of the victims. According to the reports, there is
no transportation to take the medical team to the villages, nor to transfer the sick to
hospitals or health centers.
In Tocantins, the ancient people that live here are the Apinayé people. These reports
refer to the deaths of three babies, with symptoms of vomiting, diarrea, and malnutrition.
According to these reports, in the Apinayé villages the hygienic conditions are precarious,
since adults, children and animals live in the same environment and drink and use the
water from the same streams for all community activities.

6. Malnutrition
There have been several reports of malnutrition amongst indigenous children that
could lead to death. There were two reports in Mato Grosso do Sul and one each in
Acre, Mato Grosso and Tocantins.
In Mato Grosso do Sul, research revealed that 76.3% of the children from these
two villages suffered from malnutrition; in Aldeia de Jaguapiru there were 36 children
who were hospitalized with malnutrition and another 19 children were being treated at
home for the same illness. According to Dr. Zelik Trajber, Coordinator of Indigenous
Health for Funasa, there are 322 children from ages 0 to 5 in Dourados who are at risk
of malnutrition and are being treated by the institution. According to Dr. Zelik, the
greatest concern is not the cases of children who are hospitalized but those that are
living with families considered to be at risk, and these are calculated to be 80 groups.
These families have serious problems like alcoholism, and the community does not have
the possibility of living sustainably in their territory.
Amongst the Xavante people in Mato Grosso, 250 children were found to be in a
critical situation, 84 of which suffered from malnutrition. These are children of families
that live in an unsustainable situation in their territory and without government support
in order to survive.
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AND

ANTI-INDIGENOUS VIOLENCE IN BRAZIL

In Tocantins, the Apinayé population reports 19 children hospitalized in the municipal hospital with malnutrition. According to the report the cause is the lack of hygiene in
the villages.

7. Other Reports
In Mato Grosso do Sul, there was one report of illegal imprisonment of indigenous
persons, unjustly accused by landowners of stealing a tractor, an event that never occurred.
In reality, this is a region that is in conflict, many communities have taken back their
traditional territory and these accusations are pretexts for the imprisonment of indigenous
leaders of these movements.
Also in Mato Grosso do Sul, there were reports of invasions of soy plantations that
occupy large regions in the Indigenous Reservation of Dourados. These plantations
harm the community and the environment with the intensive use of agrotoxins.
In Ceará, the Pitaguary people denounced the invasion of the village, extraction of
sand from the community, and the death of animals in a recently demarcated territory.
In Bahia, the Tupinambá de Olivença people denounced the local town government’s
failure to pay indigenous teachers in the municipality from March to June of this year.
In Santa Catarina, businessmen extorted 29 indigenous persons in Aldeia de Guarita. These
indigenous people were in debt to local businessesmen, and were forced to sign a statement
that would give these criminals the right to to control their bank accounts and their social welfare
benefits. Also in Santa Catarina, the journalist Paulo da Costa Ramos was denounced for racism,
having published a text about the Guarani de Morro dos Cavalos community, stating that it had
been formed by “foreigners and opportunists, that were successful in life at the expense of
others and that used prerogatives to undermine the National State”.

III - Conclusion
The picture of violence against indigenous populations in Brazil continues to be
shameful.
In order to sincerely look for a way to reverse this critical and permanent situation,
it is necessary to change the actions of the three branches of the State in order to defend
the constitutional rights of indigenous peoples with the participation of indigenous
communities, organizations, and entities and all the allies of this cause.
To this end, the effective creation of the National Indigenous Policy Council is
important. The Council has been under discussion and the proposal for same has been
drawn up by the National Commission on Indigenous Policy.
It is likewise important to advance approval of the Indigenous Peoples Statute, held
up in the National Congress 13 years ago. But it is important that the Statute be consistent
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with the Federal Constitution and the international instruments signed by Brazil such as
the 169th Convention of the World Labor Organization and the recently approved UN
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.
The demarcation, sanction, and protection and guarantee of all of the indigenous
territories in Brazil is fundamental yet today and constitutes an enormous debt owed by
the Brazilian State to the indigenous people, particularly since promulgation of the 1988
Federal Constitution in 1988 which set a term of five years for completion of the
demarcation of all indigenous territories.
It is urgent and necessary to construct a high quality indigenous policy and specific
policies on health, education, and self-sustainability of the communities. An indigenous
body worthy of its own name is also necessary, a body that has access to the human
resources, financial resources, and sufficient material required to provide essential services
to the indigenous communities in our country.
It is most important to end the impunity of aggressors against the indigenous peoples,
in order to fight violence at the root and punish those guilty.
It is also important that national society and the Brazilian state as a whole – including
the press and the educational system – review our relationship with indigenous populations,
so that we can move in the direction of respecting their culture, their way of life, and
their leadership role in building the present and the future, once and for all breaking with
the prejudice, hate, and discrimination that are the principal causes of violence against
the indigenous communities in our country.

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In the dispute between various projects for the countryside, the experience
of the rural population demonstrates that the agri-business model is the
principal factor responsible for concentration of land, for violence in the
countryside, for the rural exodus, for urban unemployment, and is even
associated with the unprecedented depletion of biodiversity, soils, and
water. The predatory manner in which agri-business occupies land,
promoting its physical destruction, is also a grave threat to rural
populations.

GMOs and the Rights of Growers
Gabriel B. Fernandes1
The fight against Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) ended 2007 with a very
violent episode. In March 2006, Via Campesina activists occupied the Swiss company
Syngenta Seeds’ experimental farm in Santa Tereza do Oeste, Paraná, to expose the
existence of illegal experiments with GMOs near the National Park of Iguaçu.
The company was fined R$1 million by Ibama and the State Governor, Roberto
Requião, accepted the movement’s demands and issued a decree expropriating the area
for the creation of a center of agro-ecological production. However, after a judicial
order that admitted appeal by the company, the nearly 70 families who were camped in
the area left the site.
As of today, Syngenta has not paid the fine and, at the end of October 2007, the
Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) and Via Campesina decided to encourage a new
occupation of the area, where for over more than a year the families had worked to
1 Technical Advisor to Alternative Agriculture Project Services and Advice (AS-PTA).

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rescue and propagate local seeds, and reforest the area with native species. During the
sixteen months they were encamped, the families received messages of solidarity from
more than 300 organizations in Brazil and other countries, and from dozens of scientists
and celebrities.
Shortly after the new occupation, a bus with nearly 40 gunmen stopped in front of the
property and opened fire on the workers. Valmir Mota de Oliveira, 42 (known as Keno),
MST leader in the region, was executed at close range with two shots to the chest.
Together with other MST and Via Campesina leaders, Keno had received death
threats in the region by members of the Western Region Rural Society (SRO) and agribusiness leaders from western Paraná.
Syngenta used the services of an armed militia, working through the firm NF Segurança, together with the Western Region Rural Society and the Rural Producers Movement
(MPR), with links to local agri-business. In a deposition to the police, NF Segurança’s
owner confirmed having been contracted by Syngenta to render security services on the
experimental farm.
Likewise reinforcing the connection, the Secretary of Security for Paraná divulged
that security force personnel imprisoned after the confrontation with the landless workers
confirmed having been contracted by the Rural Producers Movement to remove anyone
who tried to enter the area.
In some ways, the crime was foreshadowed. Besides the death threats to local leaders,
legislators from the Commission on Human Rights of the Federal Chamber participated,
a few days before the crime, in a public hearing in Paraná’s Legislative Assembly dealing
with the formation of rural militias in the state. At the time, agri-business representatives
affirmed that they were going to contract security forces to encourage the eviction of
the families who occupied unproductive land.

A dispute between agricultural models
In the dispute between various projects for the countryside, the experience of the
rural population demonstrates that the agri-business model is the principal factor
responsible for concentration of land, for violence in the countryside, for the rural
exodus, for urban unemployment, and is even associated with the unprecedented depletion
of biodiversity, soils, and water. The predatory manner in which agri-business occupies
land, promoting its physical destruction, is also a grave threat to rural populations.
The case of Syngenta in Paraná goes to the extreme of this dispute, which also
involves control of genetic resources. With the advent of transgenic usage, the companies
found a technical-scientific justification for seeking monopoly control of seeds through
their patenting.
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The subject of access to seeds as a basic right of growers is on the organizations’
agenda. Their recent public demonstrations do not separate the right to seeds from the
recognition and exercise of other related rights that have to do with full access to
biodiversity resources. Privatization of an asset held by rural organizations at the same
time as material and economic resources and cultural assets violates the conditions of
their very existence.
The current formulations centered on the people’s right to their territories unify the
historic fight of peasants for the right to express their socio-cultural identity: the right to
work; the right to access to and permanence on the land; their right to access to and
availability of potable water; the right to preserve their cultures, their ways of life, and
their practices regarding handling natural ecosystems.

Contamination by GMOs
The support of the Brazilian government for commercial planting of transgenic
seeds is an enormous threat to biodiversity resources and the rights of growers. The
inevitable genetic contamination is being imposed on farmers, and tends to increase
with the release of transgenic corn or with the continued negligence of the State, which
has shown itself to be in acquiescence with contraband and illegal diffusion of transgenic
seeds. Genetic contamination may result in the loss of a variety of seeds, and exposes
farmers to judicial penalties for patent infringement. With the contamination of seeds,
farmers don’t have the right to choose what to plant. Consumers also don’t have the
right to choose organic food.
To facilitate even further the entry of transgenic products into the Brazilian market, the
Bio-Security Law of 2005 was amended by the government. However, civil society is trying,
through the Campaign for a Transgenic Free Brazil, to halt release of transgenic seeds.
In 2007, commercial planting of a variety of transgenic corn by Bayer, Monsanto,
and Syngenta was authorized by the National Technical Biosecurity Commission
(CTNBio), but later suspended by the Federal Justice Department, as a result of a civil
suit by AS-PTA (Alternative Agriculture Project Services and Advice), the National
Association of Small Farmers, and the Brazilian Consumer Protection Institute (IDEC).
With this decision, the Justice Department recognized the illegalities committed by CTNBio
in the analysis and decision process regarding the commercial release of GMOs.
If on the one hand these suspensions denote a victory, on the other they represent a
new and quite concrete challenge for rural organizations. Seeing how soy and cotton
were introduced into the Country—illegally and without prior health and environmental
impact studies—it is not difficult to imagine that pressure will now grow for this scenario
to repeat itself with corn, given the frustration of the biotechnology companies.
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Peasant organizations, especially in the agro-ecological field, in defense of a new
plan for the countryside and in defense of their seeds, have before them the job of
monitoring the illegal entry and diffusion of transgenic corn seeds, filing complaints
about irregularities and taking direct action to call society’s attention to the subject. They
must continue to confront the impact of corporations that wish to control seeds. The
chief peasant resistance strategies reside in strengthening local experiments in sustainable
use of biodiversity resources, and in demanding public policies to support ecological
agriculture.

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While energy companies hold onto energy so they can sell it later at a
higher price, Brazilians are already paying top price to energy distributors.
According to Minas Gerais Federation of Commerce (Fecomércio-MG)
research from August 2007, the electricity bill already costs more in a
consumer’s domestic budget in Belo Horizonte than supermarket
purchases, including food, personal items, and cleaning supplies. Electric
energy represents 21.9% of domestic expenses, surpassing those for food,
personal items, and cleaning supplies, which represent 19.8% of expenses.

Putting Out Sun
because
unlike the solar system
these systems
do not sustain the sun but rather
bodies
that spin around it:
they do not sustain the table
but rather hunger
they do not sustain the bed
but rather sleep

they do not sustain the bank
but rather unpaid work
And this is the reason that
when people leave
(like in Alcântara)
they put out the suns...
FERREIRA GULLAR
Dirty Poem

Leandro Gaspar Scalabrin1
This is the reason that, when people who are affected by dams left their land and
homes, as in Itá (the Itá dam – Santa Catarina) and Itueta (the Aimorés dam – Minas
Gerais) – cities that were totally submerged by water from hydroelectric plants, they put
out the suns that sustained these cities. Only the church towers from the “old” Itá emerged
1 Leandro Gaspar Scalabrin is a lawyer from the Movement of those Affected by Dams (MAB)

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from the artificial lake; in Itueta, only rubble was left. When the people who are affected
by the dams leave, the systems that they maintain stop. And this is why even the vendors,
like those in Machadinho, in Rio Grande do Sul, took to the streets to protest being
affected by the dam after it was built, because they did not have anyone to sell their
merchandise to.
The existing system in the affected areas, whether that of the soapstone artisans in
Diogo de Vasconcelos and Mariana, affected by the Fumaça dam in Minas Gerais, or
the fishermen and river dwellers on the Tocantins River, affected by the Tucuruí dam in
Pará, or yet the system of small farmers in Severiano de Almeida and Natuba, affected
by the Machadinho dam in Rio Grande do Sul and the Acauã dam in Paraíba, do not
sustain Cemigs, Tractebéis, Eletronortes or Novelis with energy. In order to create this new
system of production, or of electrical energy generation, that will sustain the profits of
these and other companies, it is necessary to destroy the affected population’s way of
life and the environment.
The profitability of this system is so great that the energy and gas companies established
in Brazil were the second largest segment to send profits out of the country in 2006:
$1.378 billion (close to 10% of total remittances), just behind banks, who sent $1.404
billion to their foreign partners, and ahead of car manufacturers, who sent $1.318 billion.
In the second quarter of 2007 (April, May, and June) alone, electric energy production
in plants operated by Tractebel Energia (a subsidiary of the French-Belgian multinational
Suez-Tractebel)—the largest private energy generating company in Brazil—was 9,017 GWh;
the Cana Brava Plant produced 364.23 GWh (4.04%) of that total. In the same period, the
company earned a net profit of R$229.5 million. In proportion to produced energy, it can
be said that the profit earned from the Cana Brava Plant in those three months was R$9.18
million. According to the complaint being investigated by a special commission from the
Council for the Defense of Human Rights (CDDPH), many people lost their activities,
land, or homes because of this dam. As a compensatory measure, the company and the
federal government plan to create a Regional Development Fund, using R$5 million,
which is close to half the net profit earned from this plant in three months.
There is an immense social and ecological divide in Brazil and a record of human
rights violations due to the construction and operation of dams. The social and
environmental costs of hydroelectric plants are being paid by the population in the
affected areas and by Brazilian society in general, which is left, among others, with a
burdensome inheritance: the flooding of forests, a reduction in biodiversity, the loss of
landscape, and the death of many of our principal rivers and hydrographic basins that
give way to immense artificial lakes. The astronomical company profits that are sent
abroad are paid for by electric energy consumers.
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The way in which environmental licensing, the construction of dams and their
effect on local populations and Brazilian society as a whole has occurred has sidestepped
many normative procedures regarding the right to adequate housing, a healthy
environment, human dignity, work, the avoidance of a worsening standard of living,
information, not meddling in people’s private lives, popular participation, and the
protection of human rights defenders. Furthermore, it has violated international treaties
and constitutional and infra-constitutional Brazilian legislation.
The social and ecological cost of these dams should be absorbed by the companies
that profit from these enterprises. The Brazilian government should guarantee respect
of human rights in the process of hydroelectric plant development.
Among the dams with an open-ended social and environmental debt, among
innumerable others and in addition to the aforementioned Cana Brava, we can cite the
Barra Grande case2 , where 350 inhabitants in the municipalities affected by the plant
occupied, in March of this year, a lumber business in Anita Garibaldi (Santa Catarina)
that was accused of participating in a scheme to reallocate wood. The objective of the
lumber yard occupation was to reinforce the claim that 10,785 trees had been diverted
from the selective logging destined to construct 400 low-income houses in the region.
The construction of these houses was designated by contract by the Agreement Terms,
in December 2004, and involved Consórcio Baesa, the Public Federal Ministry, the
Movement of People Affected by Dams, IBAMA, FATMA, COHAB and the Ministry
of Mines and Energy.
Despite the enormous social and ecological debt and the innumerable cases of
human rights violations that were never addressed, the federal government insists on this
model for constructing dams. Currently, the following hydroelectric plans (with their
respective budgets) make up PAC—the Growth Acceleration Program, and are in the
construction phase:
- UHE Estreito (Tocantis/Maranhão) – R$2 billion;
- Eclusas da UHE de Tucuruí (Pará) – R$611 billion;
- UHE Foz do Chapecó (Rio Grande do Sul/Santa Catarina) – R$2.2 billion;
- UHE São Salvador (Tocantins/Goiás) – Tractebel - R$424 million,
- UHE Serra do Facão (Goiás) – R$707 million;
- UHE Salto Pilão (Santa Catarina) – R$352 million;
- UHE Castro Alves (Rio Grande do Sul) – R$47 million;
- UHE 14 de julho (Rio Grande do Sul) – 72.7 million.
2 At this dam, fraud was discovered when the reservoir was filled: close to 5,000 hectares of Mata Atlântica forest would be flooded. This
impact was not analyzed, nor even noted, in the Environmental Impact Study.

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With these projects alone, close to 20,000 families will be affected and will be required
to relocate. In other words, they will be obliged to abandon their traditional way of life,
land and houses because these were declared “in the public interest” for “hydroelectric
use.” In Foz do Chapecó (where the construction site was occupied twice this year),
5,000 families on small farms will be relocated to other lands. The majority of these will
receive a so-called credit card as compensation, which is used by the affected family to
buy some small rural property (which is usually difficult due to lack of availability of
property), or a house in the city, which ends up causing a rural exodus. There will be
5,000 more families without homes in Rio Grade do Sul and Santa Catarina in the next
two years as a result of this dam. This is the same number of families that was settled by
the agrarian reform in Santa Catarina as a result of 20 years of struggle by the Landless
Workers’ Movement.
In UHE São Salvador, where Tractebel is the majority shareholder, the dredgers,
gold miners, and garbage collectors in the municipality of Minaçu are losing their work
without any compensation under the allegation that they are not licensed laborers. These
laborers will lose their means of making a living because of the dam lake formation
without compensation of any sort, which has caused many conflicts in the region. On
September 10th MAB occupied the plant’s construction site. In the month of October,
three members of the movement were arrested.
In Minas Gerais, where so-called small hydroelectric power plants caused big social
problems, the affected inhabitants had a “camp in” from May 26 to June 29, 2007, to
demand their rights from the Novelis company, owner of the “Small” Hydroelectric
power plants of Fumaça, Brito and Brecha (Guaraciaba) and also to protest new projects
by the same company: Jurumirim, Cantagalo and Bom Retiro. In Minas as well, 80
families camped for two months on the future construction site of the Baguari dam,
planned on the Rio Doce, and the site was occupied on October 16, 2007. The Furnas,
CEMIG and Neoenergia companies (the latter a transnational) formed a consortium to
build the dam, in accordance with the Federal Government’s PPP (Public-Private
Partnership) criteria.. The camped families were removed with the use of violence and
heavy weapons on May 8th.
In Pará, those who were affected by lock construction at Tucuruí occupied the plant
in May, which had national repercussions and was treated as a police case. In October,
the construction site was occupied in order to demand compensation for the inhabitants
of the Matinha neighborhood who would be displaced because of the construction.
The Brazilian energy model is the cause of human rights violations: the rivers are
public, the construction concession process is public, environmental licensing is public,
but the profits are private. So many concessions have been made to so-called independent
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energy producers (like Tractebel Energia). Independent producers are the owners of
energy that they produce and they have the liberty to sell this energy on the “free market.”
This model, which transforms energy into merchandise, gives rise to speculation within
the so-called law of supply and demand. Since the prediction is that there will be a
shortage of energy in the next few years, independent producers do not want to sign
long-term contracts for the supply of energy. The consequence is that some free
consumers will have to buy energy upfront on the market and be subject to short-term
prices, where variation is greater. This fact is recognized even by the president of the
Energy Research Company (EPE), Maurício Tolmasquim: “The position of some
producers who are waiting for the shortage of energy in the next few years has been to
hold onto the supply and sell energy at a higher price in the future.” To avoid this, the
government is obliged to encourage the construction of new hydroelectric plants without
even having a concrete need for energy. There is no solution to the problem since
speculators will also be bidding on the new plants, such as those in Jirau and Santo
Antonio in Amazônia. In other words, the government is a hostage of the model that it
itself created.
While energy companies hold onto energy so they can sell it later at a higher price,
Brazilians are already paying top price to energy distributors. According to Minas Gerais
Federation of Commerce (Fecomércio-MG) research from August 2007, the electricity
bill already costs more in a consumer’s domestic budget in Belo Horizonte than supermarket
purchases, including food, personal items, and cleaning supplies. Electric energy represents
21.9% of domestic expenses, surpassing those for food, personal items, and cleaning
supplies, which represent 19.8% of expenses
For this reason, the Movement of those Affected by Dams created a campaign
entitled “The Price of Energy is Robbery.” The campaign held many marches in Brazilian
capitals this year, and one of its proposals is to provide 100Kw/h of electric energy to
Brazilians at no cost. In Minas Gerais, in May, the Movement of those Affected by
Dams and the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops, together with a group of
other organizations, declared a protocol in the State Legislative Assembly, called the
Dom Luciano Mendes de Almeida Popular Initiative Bill which requests this exemption.
The bill, which required 10,000 signatures to move through the Legislative Assembly,
gathered more than 130,000 in the entire state. Minas Gerais is the Brazilian state with the
most expensive electrical energy rate, reaching $R670.00 per MW. While a family pays,
on average, a 30% tax on energy, companies pay only 18%. Approval of this bill would
benefit 2.5 million families.
The National Bank for Social and Economic Development (BNDES) has had a
prominent role in human rights violations in hydroelectric plant development, in that it
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does not demand that the financiers respect international pacts that Brazil has signed.
BNDES approved $R8.3 billion in financing for the electric energy sector in the past 12
months, which was a 156% increase from the approved amount from the year before.
Disbursements for that period grew 15% to R$4 billion—a record number. BNDES
reduced the costs covered in their PAC project financing in the area of energy by 60%
to try to stimulate investments in that sector. The basic rate for hydroelectric plant projects
fell from 2.5% in 2005 to 1% in 2007. The reduction in rates affected 80% of the cases
involving financing hydroelectric plants with a generation capacity of more than 2,000
MW. One of PAC’s main measures was to permit BNDES to finance up to 80% of
hydroelectric projects and increase the payment time for financing to up to 20 years.
The high price of electric energy provided to residential consumers, the mandatory
displacement of thousands of families by dams, and the destruction of the environment
has caused a deterioration in the quality of life of those affected by these projects,
consumers of electric energy, and Brazilian society in general. Article 11 of the International
Pact on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (PIDESC), recognized by Brazil, as a
member state, recognizes the right for continued improvement in the quality of life for
all persons. Having access to electric energy is not a luxury—it is the right of every
citizen. The price of energy has obliged needy families to eat less, have less leisure time
and have worse living conditions, which is a clear deterioration in their quality of life.
Two people died, one in Ceará and the other in Rondônia, both ill, who had their
electricity shut off because they did not have the means to pay their electricity bills. The
population affected by hydroelectric construction owned land, worked, had housing
and had leisure activities fitting with their lifestyles before the construction began. After
construction, their situation in life worsened in clear violation of the right to improved
quality of life established in Article 11 of PIDESC.
Those affected by dams, organized in a movement, need and will continue to demand
responsibility from the State to comply with national and international documents that
guarantee the defense and promotion of human rights. This especially applies to the
State’s obligations under PIDESC, which refer to the guarantee of continuous
improvement in the quality of life for the Brazilian population.

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Government practices have been characterized by authoritarianism, by
repression and prejudice, as if these populations needed supervision and
could not, through their own organizations, exercise their right as citizens
to participate in the decisions that affect them. Victimized by the
“zoological” model of the reservations and discriminated against because
of their identity, these populations have insisted on their own models for
sustainable reproduction of living conditions in their ecosystems, and
have fought desperately against the advance of the monoculture agribusiness model that exports sugarcane, soy, wood, and corn. This predatory
economic model has forced these communities from their territories.

The Right to Stewardship
“I love the land with an old love consecrated
over generations of rural grandparents”
(Cora Coralina)

Jelson Oliveira1
One of the conditions for the existence of biodiversity is social diversity. Genetic
diversity is very closely tied to the ethnic diversity of our peoples; it is not by coincidence
that countries such as Brazil, that possess the greatest diversity in plant life, also have the
largest number of ethnic groups. Seeds, which are responsible for proliferation and
reproduction of biodiversity, are of great symbolic value for social groups and carry
1 Jelson Oliveira is a member of the Pastoral Land Commission/PR and a professor of philosophy and ethics at PUC/PR. He is
co-author of Ética de Gaia: ensaios de ética socio-ambiental (Gaia Ethics: Essays on Socio-Environmental Ethics) (SP:PAULUS,
2008).

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the cultural values that identify them; they are a “burden from the past in the present, and
a bridge to the future,” a symbol of mysterious and occult forces that create a people’s
culture. In this amalgam of people, animals, and plants, culture is formed and the embryos
of cultural and social values translate diversity and harmony over the planet. This is
because the various cultures historically become protectors of life, with their myths and
values. The more pluri-ethnic a people are, the greater are their chances to live together
in a sustainable manner with natural resources, because their tastes and imagery contribute
to saving seeds, plants, and animals. On destroying the peoples’ variation as a result of
elevating a life style said to be ideal, contemporary civilization contributes to the debilitation
of immense socio-cultural richness and, thusly, compromises maintaining biodiversity.
There is a reason that, insofar as we are living with the expansion of agricultural
models based on monoculture, we also see many conflicts between this model and
traditional populations. To be effective as an economic model, monoculture land
ownership causes death and isolation of social groups known as traditional communities.
We are dealing with a conflict between plantations and territories. The first model is
based on concentration of land, exploitation of natural resources and human labor, and
large scale production for export; the second is based on collective use of the land,
associative forms of occupation and restricted use of natural resources, the latter being
a condition for the preservation and expansion of a given population’s life.
As provided for in Paragraph 1 of Art 231 of the Federal Constitution, the territories
are recognized as “traditionally occupied territories.” The concept restored to these
areas a sense of tradition also present in Art. 14 of the 169th OIT Convention, which
guarantees to the respective populations the right to the territory that they have
“traditionally” occupied and to which they should have the right to return in the event
they might have been forced out or robbed of them (cf. Art. 16). For this very reason
such territory, due to its non-mercantile nature, has been characterized as an obstacle to
expansion of areas reserved for rural commodities. More than a few times the
communities’ tradition is falsely juxtaposed against the “modernity” of the agro-export
monoculture model.
Many of these communities have been neglected historically by public policies, despite
the fact that they represent an enormous cultural richness (socio-diversity) that is directly
linked to the immense network of biodiversity and environmental stewardship in various
regions of Brazil. Indigenous peoples, quilombolas, seaside dwellers, squatters, gatherers,
nut harvesters, fishermen, coconut shellers, rubber tappers, wood gatherers, river dwellers,
and other cultural groups today claim the right to participate in making public policy on
environmental protection. These communities are often marked by something close to
symbiosis with natural cycles and resources, given that their way of life is quite different
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TO

S TEWARDSHIP

from the model in force in the capitalist world, the latter being marked by subjection
and exploitation of nature as an inert thing at man’s service. Their intimate relationship
with nature makes it possible for these communities to have a wide knowledge of
natural processes, a fact that assures them of sufficient and sustainable handling of
resources and their patrimony. Such knowledge, accumulated orally through myths and
sacred things makes up an intense cultural experience that allows them to transform land
into a place, a “topofilia” (topos meaning place and filia meaning love). This has to do
with seeing nature and the land not as mere goods for use and consumption, but as
places that symbolize the reproduction of life. In the words of the geographer Yu-Fu
Tuan: “Place is an archive for affective memories and splendid realizations that inspire
the present; place is permanent and for this reason has a calming effect on man.” In this
case, the homo moralis complements and surpasses the homo oeconomicus: “he doesn’t
see the land as an object for work, but rather as an expression of a morality; not its
exterior as a factor in production, but as something though and represented in the
context of values” (Klaas Woortman).
The permanence of this place-of-life (which is therefore a moral place) makes these
communities true “guardians of life”: over several successive generations, in veneration
of what has gone before, and by the respect shown for traditional means of economic
and cultural production and reproduction, community members place greater value on
relations with family and friends than on commercial ones, less value on accumulation
and more on egalitarian division of riches, which, in turn, has less impact on the
environment, due to the smaller need to accumulate material goods.
Pestles, graters, and sieves, canoes, hammocks, straw houses, jointly held lands and
itinerant ones, the burning of pasture land, and techniques and snares for hunting and
fishing, bathing and collective forms of organization such as mutual aid, in addition to
innumerable uses and customs dealing with food, are part of the Brazilian heritage of this
type of knowledge derived from traditional communities, principally the indigenous ones.
If Brazilian society wants to combat deforestation and take care of biodiversity, it is
necessary to guarantee sustainability for the traditional peoples on their lands and to
return to them the lands from which they were forcibly removed. Amazonia, brushland,
wetlands, Atlantic forest, savanna, and the Pampas will be preserved to the degree in
which rights are guaranteed for the populations which traditionally inhabit these areas
and develop therein experience in managing their own territories. Official data recognize
that there are traditional dwellers in the majority of the so-called conservation units. We
must stop treating these communities as “national folklore,” or as representatives of
backwardness and exclusion (non-integration) and recognize them as citizens of the
Brazilian State. This was the rallying cry of the forest peoples at their 2nd National
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Meeting, held in Brasilia in September 2007, in memory of the twenty years since the
assassination of Chico Mendes. On this occasion the National Rubber Tappers Council
(CNS), the Coordinating Body for Indigenous Organizaitons of Brazilian Amazonia
(Coiab), and the Amazon Working Group network (GTA) demanded that the federal
government take effective actions aimed at guaranteeing the right of these populations,
both with regard to being affirmed as identities with their own rights, which includes
possession of their territories, and with regard to effective economically and culturally
viable actions, which includes canceling the infrastructure mega-projects that threaten
and weaken these communities. Only thus will these populations be recognized as
something positive in life and not as victims of backwardness and lack of development.
If the so-called environmental question leads to recognition of these populations, given
that it puts the idea of productivity in second place, highlighting the need for sustainable
handling techniques, the leadership role of these populations must be recognized, at the
cost of [otherwise] once more using their knowledge to preserve a parasitic way of life.
We are not, therefore, trying to romantically go back to Rousseau’s myth of the
“noble savage” or the like, or even to appeal to those experiences to safeguard our selfdestructive lifestyle. To the contrary, we are talking about learning the knowledge acquired
by these communities, regulated by custom and common usage, and relying on their
testimony to show the need for change in capitalist ways of life that are proving to
bankrupt our civilization. We are dealing with valuing socio-cultural experiences with
regard to occupying space and using natural resources, whether they come from
indigenous races and quilombolas that are spread throughout Brazilian culture as a whole,
or are peculiar to the peoples of the nation’s interior regions.
The example of Brazilian Amazonia is unique: besides its biodiversity, this immense
territory which covers 59% of Brazil and contains 30% of all the species of fauna and
flora of the world, contains an immense socio-cultural network, with a population of
23 million inhabitants. Amazonia is formed of organized populations, not just animals
and plants as is commonly seen in the media. The forest is also a place for people and,
above all, for people who have contributed historically to the maintenance of this
enormous network of biodiversity, because they understand themselves to be a part of
this biome and have learned to relate to it in a sustainable, respectful, and loving manner.
The same is true for all other national biomes.
Therefore, the people claim their right to stewardship. But to this end, in the first
place they demand their right to information and clarification, to cognizant and organized
participation, to recognition of their demands and opinions. In other words, we are
dealing with recouping the leadership role of local communities who demand
explanations by the government regarding the true interests and motives behind the
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S TEWARDSHIP

large works and development projects that have such immense social and environmental
impacts and costs.
It is organized people that will be stewards for Brazil. These are the indigenous
peoples that, in spite of our being unaware, have inhabited these lands for at least 12
million years and are united in innumerable organizations outside Brazil; they are the
peoples who are descendants of Africans, organized into the National Coordinating
Body for Rural Quilombola Communities; they are the more than 400,000 women
working as babaçu coconut shellers, organized in a large national movement; they are
the river dwellers protecting the more than 2,000 sanctuary lakes; they are the rubber
tapper organized into the Peoples’ Forest Alliance; those affected by dams who are
linked by MAB (Movement of Those Affected by Dams); the workers on the land and
the landless of the Sustainable Development Projects; the fishermen in their innumerable
cooperatives; the squatters who are “not contaminated by the private property virus.”
Government practices have been characterized by authoritarianism, by repression
and prejudice, as if these populations needed supervision and could not, through their
own organizations, exercise their right as citizens to participate in the decisions that affect
them. Victimized by the “zoological” model of the reservations and discriminated against
because of their identity, these populations have insisted on their own models for
sustainable reproduction of living conditions in their ecosystems, and have fought
desperately against the advance of the monoculture agri-business model that exports
sugar cane, soy, wood, and corn. This predatory model has forced these families from
their territories. Unfortunately, in this fight there are more than a few cases of poverty,
indigence, and marginality suffered by these communities. The Brazilian government
cannot continue to ignore the potential of these communities, and must act to give them
the right to make decisions about policies that affect them.
A new popular conscience must be formed so that the practices of stewardship
regarding the environment do not disappear. If we wish to preserve what is still left to
us, the State must ally itself with its people and provide them with the means to participate
in the development of public policies. Either the State relies on its people, or it really
won’t have the means to take care of its territory, thus giving up its sovereignty and
providing incentive for internationalization, disorderly occupation, drug traffic, bio-piracy,
dominion over water resources and all natural wealth.

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Water is already recognized as a fundamental human right. This recognition,
however, runs contrary to the financial interests of transnational water
companies and of those sectors of the economy that see water as an asset
for economic use. For the production of eucalyptus, the company Aracruz
Celulose in Espírito Santo secured a water allocation from the Rio Doce
(Sweet River) sufficient to supply the daily water needs of a city of 2.5
million inhabitants. It is evident that Aracruz’s use of water is for economic
ends. As the Rio Doce is a federal river, authorization for the concession
came from the National Water Agency, therefore, with the recommendation
of the Committee for the Rio Doce Basin.

The complex situation of the human right to water
Roberto Malvezzi1
Perhaps this is the most complicated moment to talk about the human right to
water, above all when we talk about the terrible dispute over the waters of the São
Francisco River. This dispute, however, is not over who will be allowed to drink the last
twenty-six cubic meters that remain to be allocated. If it were a project to quench the
thirst of people, there would be no opposition, as there never is. Our problem is to
know, beforehand, that this water will be used either for shrimp farming for export, for
fruit growing for export, or for the steel industry of Porto de Pecém, to the detriment
of the populations that most need it.
If the government’s objective was to satisfy the thirst of those who most need it, the
government would have taken notice of the proposal put forward by the Network of
the Semi-Arid (ASA) for rural areas—to invest heavily in a network of small projects to
1 Roberto Malvezzi is a member of the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT).

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capture rainwater for household and productive use—and by the National Water Agency
(ANA), organized in the Atlas of the Northeast, which envisions urban supply services
for 1,112 towns of more than five thousand people, benefiting nine states of the Northeast,
with a total of 34 million people.
It becomes stressful to repeat this information with every sentence that we write,
but the water that remains in the São Francisco River will be “drunk” by economic
projects. “Do you have something against economic development?” the government
officials ask us. No, we don’t have anything against development. It is only that the first
priority for water should be to supply humans and for the provisioning of animals; only
after these needs are met should it be available for economic ends. Moreover, no clear
debate was held about the use of water for economic gain in the semi-arid regions.
What has happened is that powerful national and international economic groups
have shaped the use of water to conform to their interests. The poorest populations in
the Northeast, who also need the water to drink and to produce, are already excluded
from using the water for domestic purposes, let alone for economic endeavours.
Therefore, the current water project is imposed against the will of the population living
along the São Francisco and also fails to meet Brazil’s own environmental and water use
laws. It is no coincidence that, in the end, the movement of water wound up militarized
as the initial work was also carried out by the engineering unit of the Brazilian Army.
Is water already recognized as a human right? That depends. Water is included
among the human rights in the 15th General Comment of the United Nations Committee
on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. To specialists in the area of Economic,
Social, Cultural and Environmental Human Rights, like Flávio Valente, International
Director of Foodfirst Information and Action Network (FIAN), the commentary is
not binding, but if the right to water is included, it is because of its relevance. Therefore,
at least politically, a fundamental human right to water has already been generally recognized.
In this case, is not Brazil, as a signatory to the relevant documents on Economic,
Social, Cultural and Environmental Human Rights, also subject to international monitoring
of these rights? In fact, it is. In spite of this, when the Brazilian National Bishops’
Conference proposed that a right to water be inscribed in our laws as a human right, the
message from the President of the Republic to the National Secretary of Water Resources
was emphatic: “Water as a human right—no.”
Today, looking at the economic ends to which Brazilian water is being put, it becomes
evident that this emphatic rejection was not merely a detail of the moment, but was a
profound reading of the implications of recognizing water as a human right. Effectively,
recognition as a human right opposes the interests of transnational water corporations
and of those sectors of the economy that see water fundamentally as an asset for
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economic use. They want, in practice, to steal away from human consumption and use
by animals the priority for the water supply. The recognition that water is a right—just
as we recognize that this right is violated every day—constrains companies that use
water simply as a commodity for the generation of profit. The problem is not the
violation of human rights, but to have the company’s brand linked to the violation of
these rights. In other words, to recognize water as a human right disturbs the
commercialization of water.
The crucial question in this debate about the human right to water is this one: to
what extent is water a human right? Is water merely for domestic use (forty or fifty litres
per day)? Or is water a right at all levels and quantities, including its economic use?
The question is pertinent because today, everything is a minimum: the state, salary,
the ‘basic basket’ of goods, one’s daily water, energy, income, etc. It is evident that on
the other end is the maximum, capital, which devours our natural goods and the riches
we produce. To guarantee the minimum to the masses is merely the other side of the
coin to guaranteeing all rights of accumulation to capital.
It so happens that small farmers, above all others, need water to produce with the
goal both of survival and also of economic gain. In Brazil, we all know, it is family
farming that puts food on the table—according to the most recent data, 65% of all
food. Our small farmers, except in the states of Rio Grande do Sul and Espírito Santo,
use very little irrigation. More often medium- and large-sized farms use irrigation intensely,
as is the case in the Valley of São Francisco, above all in fruit farming. Therefore, in this
case, the use of water becomes a fundamental element in the production, even if this
fruit is produced for desserts or for exportation. In whichever case, the production of
fruit is a noble goal.
But how is it when this water is used for the intensive irrigation of cane, with the
goal of producing sugar and ethanol? Or when the water is used intensively by companies
for the production of aluminium for export, or likewise in the brewing of beer or
manufacture of soft drinks? In the production of beer and soft drinks, water represents
around 99% of what is sold to the consumer. In this case, it is not possible to talk about
this use of water as a human right.
There are other cases that are still more illustrative. To produce eucalyptus, the
company Aracruz Celulose in the state of Espírito Santo, acquired an allocation of
water from the Rio Doce (Sweet River) sufficient to supply the daily needs of a city of
2.5 million inhabitants. Clearly, the use of water by Aracruz is for economic ends. Being
a powerful company, it is able to put its technicians and lawyers to work searching
through legal and political channels to free up this volume of water. As the Rio Doce is
a federal river, the authorization emanated from the National Water Agency, therefore,
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with the recommendation of the Committee for the Rio Doce Basin. Was it not then a
democratic decision? While it might be legal, it was hardly democratic. Who controls
the Committee for the Rio Doce Basin?
This is the question asked by the small farmers, producers of irrigated coffee, in the
rural areas of Espírito Santo. They have been planting irrigated coffee for decades,
without license or water allotment, and they now fear they will lose access to the water
because they have difficulty getting access to the water allocation they need, and fear that
they have arrived too late, after a huge company has already gained a large portion of
the allocatable water. In this sense, water concessions might act to discipline the use of
water from designated sources—a necessity—but they do not guarantee the social equality
of that use. Access will be facilitated for those who have economic and political power.
Although technicians and the government deny it, the allocation of water is one way to
privatize its use, above all economically. As we have been arguing for years, much to the
irritation of many technicians and intransigent defenders of Law 9.433 on Water
Resources, the allocation process is a black box of water management. This law was
demanded by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to normalize
the use of Brazilian water as a function of capital, although hydrological specialists, with
an eye on public opinion, have successfully avoided the excessive privatization intended
by these multilateral financial institutions. The concession process is a mechanism
advocated by companies. After all, they are now acquiring the right to an allocation for
thirty years, renewable for thirty more, of a determined volume of water, from a
designated source, and for their exclusive use.
What is in play from the point of view of human rights, then, is no longer water to
securely sustain human life (four litres per day to drink) or for domestic uses (forty litres
per day for each member of a household), but the economic use of water. The former,
personal uses are recognized as a fundamental human right even by the Brazilian
government. My personal thesis is that, for small farmers, who will have their subsistence
and productive activities rendered unviable due to a lack of water, water for productive
ends should also be secured as a human right. When the use of water becomes corporate
or industrial, for purposes of profit, this no longer is a human right, and companies
should have to pay a progressive fee based upon their profits with the use of the water.
In this way, we might attempt to guarantee a minimum of social equality in the economic
use of water.
Even under this system, there ought to be a limit to the allocation of water to a
single company. The case of Aracruz Celulose ought to serve as an example of what
we should not and cannot do. The company uses one quarter of all the allocated water
in its region of the Rio Doce. There ought to have been a proportional limit much
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lower than this amount, even if the other allocatable water had not yet been given in
concession. To limit the percentage of the total resource to a single company means
opening opportunities for access to small companies and small irrigators. In the final
analysis, it would provide access to many users, avoiding oligopolies or even monopolies.
This risk is still greater when the concessionary law opens the possibility of
“preventative allocation”; that is, a juridical or physical entity can purchase a determined
quantity of water allocation from a particular source, not to use, but to have the possibility
of future use. Water, then, would turn into a way of storing value or wealth. Some
even call for the creation of a market in water concessions, where allocations might be
sold without first returning to their true owner, that is, the Brazilian state. This would be
the most complete commodification of water. Until now, due to resistance from the
National Secretory of Water Resources, this legal mechanism has not yet passed. As the
old adage says, “The devil is in the details.” With this legal opening, the commercialization
of Brazilian water would be complete.
In the transfer of the São Francisco River, a case already crystallized, we will see the
first privatization and commodification of a great volume of water in Brazil. These are
the sordid hidden truths that are part of the price of this process. The mechanism for
the commercialisation of water will be to turn the sale of water from the São Francisco
over to the receiving states through the CHESF ÁGUAS, that is, CHESF (the HydroElectric Company of São Francisco) will cease to be exclusively a producer and seller
of energy to become also a retailer of water. The participating states will have
companies—public or private—that will buy the water from CHESF and sell the water
to their users, whether they be in industry or agriculture or companies in a branch of the
sanitary supply. Only then will water, particularly in the sanitary supply, arrive to the end
consumer. This whole process will follow the rules of the market. Only through this is
it possible to perceive the final cost of this water to human consumers.
The waters of the São Francisco will be stored in the same reservoirs that hold
rainwater. Soon, these companies will also appropriate rainwater, without cost, which
until this time has been the patrimony of the people, at least in principle. In this way, we
are seeing the first privatization of the waters of an entire region in Brazil, precisely
where the resource is most scarce. It will be one of the greatest privatizations of water
in the world.
As we see crystal clearly, the defense of water as a human right gradually gives
ground to large economic interests. The transfer of the São Francisco is the most
complete example of this reality in progress. The true battle for the right to water is in
its economic use, even though 1.2 billion people in the world do not have daily access to
potable water.
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The case of Aracruz provides a good example. A world leader in the
production of the white pulp of eucalyptus cellulose (controlling 31 percent
of the world supply), this corporation exports 95 percent of what it produces
in Brazil. This one company alone owns 252,000 hectares of eucalyptus
plantation in the states of Minas Gerais, Bahia, Rio Grande do Sul, and
Espírito Santo, and holds an additional 71,000 hectares managed by other
agriculture firms in these states. Besides repressing and assassinating
indigenous people, quilombolas (Afro-Brazilian rural communities) and
other traditional populations, this company has left local populations without
water by consuming on a daily basis the equivalent of 2.5 million people,
that is, the same as the entire population of Espírito Santo.

The Shamelessness of Silviculture: Environmental
Destruction and Human Rights Violations
Jelson Oliveira1
“The Lumber Corporation will turn and already is in the process
of turning our lands, our green plateau into a desert. The day will come
when one who goes looking for a pine tree will not find even one.”
(Spoken by Brother José Maria, in the novel Demônios do Planalto
(Demons of the Plateau), by Aracyldo Marques)
Fueled by the unsustainable and irresponsible level of consumption maintained
by a segment of the world’s population, the expansion of tree monoculture for paper
and cellulose has become one of the gravest threats to the human rights of people in
1 Jelson Oliveira is a member of the National Land Pastoral Commission/Paraná and a Professor of Philosophy at PUC/PR. He
is co-author of Gaia’s Ethics: Essays on Socio-Environmental Ethics (SP: PAULUS, 2008).

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various Brazilian states. It is an agro-exporting model of immense environmental and
social impact, promoted nowadays by green slogans that aim to hide the economic, social,
cultural, environmental, and political injustices that it results in.
This predatory and exclusive model of planting forests of pine and eucalyptus
results in the expulsion of traditional communities and substitution of vegetal covering,
consequentially leaching the soil, reducing biodiversity to practically nothing, raising
pollution, clogging rivers with silt, spreading disease, causing biological contamination
and putting at risk the health and cultures of surrounding populations. By altering wind
speed and air temperature, these forests modify the climate and transform countryside
into veritable green deserts contaminated by indiscriminate use of agro-toxins and by soil
leaching. Lacking the ability to plant crops, populations in this area are obliged to
abandon the countryside and move to already-crowded impoverished urban regions.
Behind these ventures are national and transnational corporations that persist in
consuming the natural resources and exploiting the workers of low-income regions.
These businesses benefit from fiscal, financial, and infrastructure advantages offered
by states that practice a shameful legislative liberalization; for example, in this year of
2007, the government of the state of Rio Grande do Sul approved a law that simplified
the rules for planting eucalyptus and pine, removing the requirement that businesses
conduct environmental impact studies. In the state of Rio de Janeiro, a bill altered
environmental legislation so as to open the state’s doors to silviculture businesses.
Among these businesses are giants in the field, such as the transnational Aracruz Celulose S.A., controlled by the groups Lorentzen (owned by the Norwegian royal family),
Votorantim Cellulose and Paper, the Swedish-Finnish company Stora Enso, and Klabin.
These businesses came to Brazil attracted by its superior climate in relation to that of
the Northern hemisphere (in Brazil, trees have cutting cycles of 5 to 7 years, while
there it is 25 to 35 years), as well as by modest land prices, fiscal advantages, legal
liberalization and lack of oversight over legal violations, and the accumulation of
technology for forest management.
Beyond the aforementioned advantages, Brazil offers abundant water, indispensable
in the industry not only for the process of chlorine bleaching of paper, but above all for
the planting and care of forests. Experts have commented on the immense waste of
water resources provoked by this type of monoculture, with its depletion of wells,
drying out of soil, extinction of rivers, lakes, and streams, stopping the flow of water
tables, and jeopardizing the supplies of local populations. Data reveal that at least 350
liters of water are needed to produce one kilo of wood, principally due to the evaporative
transpiration of trees, which, in general, consume more water (at least 20 percent more)
than brought by natural precipitation; this gap leads to the soil drying out.
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Through its disrespect of the environment, concentration of land, and creation of socalled “population vacuums”, the green desert serves no beneficial social function. In
relation to the employment index, studies show that, according to documentation from
businesses seeking assistance from the government and support from the under-informed
public, on average only one new unit of employment is generated by each additional 185
hectares of land (family agriculture generates 50 units of employment with the additional
land area). Furthermore, data show that available employment is declining due to the
mechanization process. In the case of Aracruz do Espírito Santo, from 1989 to today
only 8,807 new jobs have been created, of which 2,031 are direct and 6,776 indirect. It is
interesting to note that in 1989, direct jobs numbered 6,058, two times the current amount.
In addition, the few jobs generated are based on exploitation of manual labor: the majority
of workers hired by these businesses live in improvised shelters in the middle of the forest,
in miserable conditions of hygiene and nutrition, subject to various illness, principally those
transmitted by insects and small animals (such as the Hantavirus). Beyond this, there are
innumerable cases of work-related accidents, unregistered employment, and other violations
of workers’ rights. Even worse, the green desert hides the shame of slave labor. Outside
of Curitiba (the well-known capital of Paraná), the Ministry of Labor liberated, in 2006,
49 workers in three cases of slave labor in areas of pine and eucalyptus farming in the
municipalities of Bocaiúva do Sul, Rio Branco do Sul, and Campo Magro; in 2005, 85
workers were liberated in the same region.
The case of Aracruz provides a good example. A world leader in the production
of the white pulp of eucalyptus cellulose (controlling 31 percent of the world supply),
this corporation exports 95 percent of what it produces in Brazil. This one company
alone owns 252,000 hectares of eucalyptus plantation in the states of Minas Gerais,
Bahia, Rio Grande do Sul, and Espírito Santo, and holds an additional 71,000 hectares
managed by other agriculture firms in these states. The company’s production has
grown at an accelerated rate since 2004, with equivalent growth in installed capacity,
infrastructure investments, and, consequently, in profits. Aracruz has operated in Espírito Santo for 35 years. Besides repressing and assassinating indigenous people, quilombolas
(Afro-Brazilian rural communities) and other traditional populations, according to work
by FASE (Federation of Organs for Social and Educational Assistance), the business has
left local populations without water as a result of its taking possession of land with
springs and consuming on a daily basis the equivalent of 2.5 million people, that is, the
same as the entire population of Espírito Santo.
The impacts of Aracruz’s plantations since 1967 in Espírito Santo provide an example
of the tragedy brought on by this model in traditional populations. Quilombola populations
in the municipality of Conceição da Barra and São Mateus, which before the company’s
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arrival comprised 2,000 communities (10,000 families), have been reduced to 35
communities, with 1,300 remaining families. Various studies assert that this decrease is
due to the expansion of eucalyptus farms in the region: dispossessed of their lands,
impoverished and famished, residents of this region saw their soils being leached and
animals dying from exposure to poisonous chemicals, and were obligated to flee for
urban centers, becoming another disaster brought upon by this form of agriculture in
Brazil and other countries of the world (such as Argentina, Uruguay, and Indonesia).
The situation was summed up in verse by the poet Ditão Virgílio: “A man separated
from the countryside / Goes to live in the city / And works with eucalyptus / Against
his will / From time to time he remembers / That he used to be happy / In a corner,
he cries / He longs for the country.”
It is worth remembering as well that in January of 2006, Aracruz Celulose conducted
a full-fledged war operation against indigenous Tupiniquim and Guarani people in the
municipality of Aracruz (Espírito Santo). Helicopters, bombs, and heavy artillery were
used to expel 50 indigenous people from their lands. The action, which left two
imprisoned and 12 wounded, depended on the logistical support of Aracruz, which
offered housing and food for the 120 members of the Federal Police who conducted
the action. After the action, the company’s tractor destroyed what remained of the
houses and belongings of the expelled community. Today the quilombola and indigenous
populations are organizing to retake their lost lands: 9,500 hectares have already been
recognized by INCRA as belonging to quilombolas, and another 11,000 hectares belong
to indigenous peoples, according to anthropological studies conducted by Funai (the
National Foundation of the Indian). These lands are now planted with eucalyptus.
The case of Klabin in Paraná provides another good example: in 2006 the company
obtained a loan from BNDES of almost 2 billion reais for the expansion of its unit in
the municipality of Telêmaco Borba, which is the fifth largest financing in the history of
the bank. Supported by ample advertising regarding progress and the generation of
jobs in the region (which has also been threatened by the construction of the hydroelectric
power station of Mauá, on the river Tibagi, which receives the majority of polluted
effluent from the paper-making company), the company plans to almost double its
annual production of paper and cardboard. The business will also expand by 34,000
hectares the cultivation of pine and eucalyptus between 2006 and 2008, including the
creation of a nursery in the state of Santa Catarina, where it plans to cultivate 30 million
eucalyptus seedlings per year.
The example of Telêmaco Borba and its experience with Klabin shows how
advertising alters ideas about development, since the projects are usually carried out in
places until now abandoned by public policy and suddenly placed in the way of expansion
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of businesses that have as their only objective the accrual of profits, regardless of
violations of the environmental and social rights of local populations. It is interesting to
see that, in the case of wood, the expansion of the industry is occurring exactly in the
regions with the lowest human development indices in the state. It is estimated that this
small municipality in the interior of Paraná, with 65,000 inhabitants, will take in around
5,000 additional residents over the next two years due to the expansion of Klabin,
raising the local population by 7.6 percent. Eyes are closed to the capacity of this
municipality to guarantee basic services ensured by the Brazilian Constitution. The impact
of this project on the Basin of the River Tibagi, one of the most important rivers of
Paraná, has been ignored. As in other cases, the company has hidden its effects on the
land transformed into desert, polluted water, biodiversity, and the climate. Nothing
interests the champions of progress if not easy profits gained taking advantage of the
ignorance of the impoverished population.
Another problem with this monoculture has to do with transgenics: recently, the
CTNBio (National Technical Commission on Bio-security) permitted experiments with
transgenic eucalyptus in Brazil, aggravating even more the situation of insecurity in relation
to genetically modified agriculture and its impacts on the environment. The idea is to
produce, for example, eucalyptus with less lignin, a substance that hardens wood destined
for cellulose production. If this tree were to “escape” its areas of production, it could
provoke, for example, grave difficulties for the furniture industry, which depends on a
harder wood. Beyond this, the experiments intend to raise harvest efficiency, improve
quality, and augment eucalyptus volume. Currently, in all there are 24 requests for transgenic
eucalyptus trees awaiting CTNBio’s permission.
Finally, eucalyptus production, despite all the harm and irrecoverable damage done
to the environment and the populations of affected regions, allows businesses to trade
their “investments” for carbon credits in a billion-dollar market. It so happens that
eucalyptus absorbs 10 million tons of carbon per hectare per year, and the resulting
credits can be sold on the international carbon market created by the Kyoto Protocols,
signed by 141 countries (but not by the United States, Canada, or Australia), which aim
to reduce greenhouse gases. This agreement will likely transform Brazil into one of the
largest markets worldwide for sales of carbon credits, since developed polluting countries
must reduce by 5.2 percent the emissions produced in 1990, and to this end the CDM
(Clean Development Mechanism) was created to allow these countries to buy carbon
credits generated in developing countries such as Brazil. Various non-governmental
organizations, underwritten by business such as General Motors, Texaco, and American
Electric Power, have promoted this fraudulent business that incentivizes the deforestation
of native forests to justify “reforesting” with monocultures that expand the “green
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desert”. Without any criticism of the consumption and exploitation of nature, by
compensating these polluting businesses this system benefits and incentivizes the emissions
of greenhouse gases, and therefore constitutes a false solution for global warming.
For the negotiation of these credits, the Bank of the Emissions Reduction Project and
the Brazilian Emissions Reduction Market were created. The World Bank notes that Brazil
is already responsible for 13 percent of carbon credit transactions, which transforms it
into one of the most promising markets of this markedly colonialist billion-dollar economic
sector that continues to exploit and pillage the natural resources of poor countries, to the
advantage of wealthy countries. For an idea of how much these credits are worth, in
Chicago, one ton of carbon is sold for a trifling 2.85 million dollars, considered to be a
low value. But this amount has a differential: it attracts the interest of paper and cellulose
companies that would like to sell their credits. Calculating the quantity of carbon captured
by the forests of the green desert and in projects of water transportation, the use of
biomass, etc., these businesses will profit from this promising market that has transformed
even the air into a commodity traded in open markets.
This marketing fallacy that transforms natural processes into money in exchange for
destruction, carbon credits have counted on the support of governments that, as much
with the resources made available to these businesses by BNDES and the Ministry of
the Environment (through the National Forestry Plan), as with special treatment through
the Clean Development Mechanism, have shown themselves to be complacent with the
model of exhausting natural and social resources that quantifies natural photosynthesis
and incentivizes ever more the accelerated process of global warming. To paraphrase
the popular saying, “it’s wooden-faced shamelessness”.
In its newsletter of May 2004, the Alert Network Against the Green Desert, founded
in Espírito Santo, affirmed: “Contrary to the current monoculture order in the territory,
we propose another model of agriculture, in which priorities are reoriented toward
Land Reform, Agro-ecology, Food Security, and the defense of forests, scrublands,
and their traditional populations. Only a new model of development can guarantee the
reduction of socio-environmental inequalities and their secondary effects in urban centers.”
It has never been so urgent to politicize the environmental debate and provoke a radical
change in policies that, dressed up in “green clothing”, continue to aggravate the
environmental crisis and violate the rights of affected populations.

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Military Police training in Rio de Janeiro

In the first six months of the year in Rio de Janeiro, the police recorded
694 “acts of resistance followed by death.” This is frequently a euphemism
for extralegal executions with regard to deaths caused by the police and
is a category that virtually guarantees impunity. Homicides are the principal cause of death for individuals between the ages of 15 and 44. There
are between 45,000 and 50,000 homicides committed per year in Brazil.
The victims are for the most part young, male, black, and poor. In Rio de
Janeiro and São Paulo scarcely 10% of homicides are brought to trial; in
Pernambuco, only 3%.

Preliminary Conclusions of the Special UN
Rapporteur on Arbitrary, Summary, or
Extra-judicial Executions in Brazil
On November 14, 2007, the UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on
arbitrary, summary, or extra-judicial executions, Philip Alston, released the preliminary
conclusions on his eleven day mission in Brazil. The Rapporteur stated to the press: “My
most important role is to assist Brazilian society to acknowledge the scale of the killings
that are occurring, and to act as a catalyst to discussions designed to identify effective
solutions.” He clarified as follows:
The cities of Brazil face enormous challenges in keeping their residents safe from the violence
of gangs involved in drug trafficking, arms trafficking, and other organized crime. In Rio
de Janeiro, such gangs dominate entire communities, subjecting residents to senseless violence
and constant repression. In São Paulo, the events of May 2006, in which a gang brought
the city to a halt with systematic attacks on public institutions provided a shocking
demonstration of the need for more effective policing. I should emphasize that human rights
law not only prohibits governments from committing extrajudicial executions, but that it
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also requires governments to protect their people from murderers. Indeed, one of the central
pillars of the idea of human rights has always been the right to life and the freedom from
fear. Thus, ensuring security for all citizens is a key role that governments must play.
Human security is a part of, and not in competition with, human rights. In the Brazilian
context in particular, my findings show that the issues of ending human rights abuses by the
police and ensuring effective crime prevention by the police are tightly linked. A key reason
for the ineffectiveness of the police in protecting citizens from these gangs is that they too often
engage in excessive and counter-productive violence while on-duty and participate in what
amounts to organized crime while off-duty.
Some of the Rapporteur’s chief concerns refer to the figures on violence in Brazil.
He cites, for example:
· Homicide is now the leading cause of death for persons aged 15-44 years.
For some time now there have been 45,000-50,000 homicides committed
every year in Brazil. Victims are overwhelmingly young, male, black, and
poor.
· In Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, only about 10% of homicides are tried in
the courts; in Pernambuco it is about 3%. Of that 10% tried in São Paulo,
about 50% are actually convicted.
· In the first 6 months of this year in Rio de Janeiro, the police recorded 694
“acts of resistance followed by death”. This is very often a euphemism for
extrajudicial executions by the police killings and it is a category which virtually
ensures that impunity will follow.
· In Pernambuco, 61 prison deaths were reported during the first ten months
of 2007, with 23 occurring in the Anibal Bruno prison, including more than
a dozen killings this year, several of which occurred earlier this week.
· In the same state, a reliable estimate is that 70% of all homicides are
committed by death squads, and many of those death squads are made up
of policemen and former policemen. The 197 people who have been arrested
this year for death squad activity represent only the tip of an iceberg.
· Recently, some 2,000 files which were turned over to the Public Prosecutor
by the police in Pernambuco expired because the police had delayed action
for so long that the statute of limitations on the crimes had passed.
· Over-crowding in Brazilian prisons is now so bad that the occupancy rate
is often 3 or more times as many prisoners as the facility was designed to
hold. Is it any wonder that riots take place?
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Another point in Philip Alston’s report refers to the main problems generated by
this situation, including:
· Very high homicide rates, and high rates of impunity: This includes violent
killings by individuals, lethal confrontation between drug traffickers and other
gangs, and the killings of police and other officials by criminals. These killings
have sown widespread fear and insecurity among the general population,
but remarkably little is being done in the vast majority of such cases to
investigate, prosecute, and convict the culprits. The low rate of cases going
to trial illustrates the system’s failure in this regard.
· Killings by vigilante groups, death squads, extermination groups, and militias:
These generally consist of off-duty police, ex-police, firefighters, and private
citizens involved in activities such as: (a) contract killing; (b) taking over a
geographical area, and extracting ‘protection’ money from residents, often
under threat of death; and (c) killing or issuing death threats on behalf of
landowners to landless workers or indigenous persons as a result of land
disputes.
· Prison killings: Including: (a) inmates killing other inmates; (b) security guards
killing prisoners; and (c) inmates killing security guards.
· Killings of police: the police in Brazil clearly operate at significant risk to
their lives in many situations. The number of police killed is totally unacceptable
and all appropriate lawful measures need to be adopted to prevent such
deaths. But we also need to look carefully at the figures. In Rio in 2006 for
example the statistics show that 146 police were killed. But only 29 of those
were killed while on-duty. The remaining 117 were killed when off-duty. A
very significant proportion of those 117 is likely to have been engaging in
illegal activities when killed.
· Police killings: These killings are of major concern because they indicate a
degree of lawlessness which undermines other efforts to reduce homicides
and other forms of criminal activity. They break down into two categories.

Extrajudicial executions by on-duty police
In most cases killings by on-duty police are not included at all in the homicide
statistics. Instead they are registered as “acts of resistance” or as cases of “resistance
followed by death”. In theory, these are instances in which the police have used necessary
and proportionate force in response to the resistance of criminal suspects to the orders
of law enforcement officers. In practice the picture is radically different. The determination
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as to whether an extrajudicial execution or a lawful killing has occurred is first made by
the policeman himself. Only rarely are such self-classifications seriously investigated by
the Civil Police. I have received many highly credible allegations that specific “resistance”
killings were, in fact, extrajudicial executions. This is reinforced by studies of autopsy
reports, and by the fact that the ratio of civilians killed to police killed is astonishingly
high.
This and other problems are well illustrated by the events involving some 1,350
police that took place in the Complexo do Alemão community of Rio de Janeiro on 27
June 2007. Nineteen individuals died in the so-called “mega-operation” that took place.
I interviewed the relatives of eight of those victims and reviewed a range of other
reports on the incident. I also spoke with those responsible for directing the operation
and to the officers at the police station that is responsible for investigating the killings.
They provided me with no evidence that any sustained investigation has been undertaken.
They confidently asserted that nearly all of those killed had criminal records. This “fact”
could not have been known positively to the police when they killed the individuals. The
assertion was firmly denied in statements made to me by families of victims in several
of the cases, including that of the killing of a 14 year old boy. And, even if each of the
victims had had a criminal record, the appropriate response is arrest not execution. The
investigators have apparently failed to ascertain which police fired even a single one of
the shots, and have not reconstructed the circumstances in which each of the 19 died.
(Their response to these deaths in Complexo do Alemão appears to be typical: The
officers I spoke with could not recall that station ever having ever concluded that a
single case in which a policeman alleged that he had lawfully killed in response to a
suspect’s violent resistance was actually a homicide.)
I asked the head of the Civil Police in Rio de Janeiro about the findings of an
independent autopsy report which strongly suggested that some of the individuals had
been extrajudicially executed by the police. His response was to attack the credentials of
the ‘out-of-state’ experts and to question their constitutional right to undertake such an
analysis. I requested from him, but have not yet received, a scientifically credible response
to the report.
Many of those with whom I spoke from the Government and Police in Rio de
Janeiro considered the action in Complexo do Alemão to be a model for future action,
and most asserted its success. Indeed, person after person casually used the terminology
of “war”. But “war” cannot be fought against selected criminal individuals. It is fought
against entire communities. The language of war provides a convenient justification for
a military-style invasion, and for a strategy that focuses only on force and confrontation.
I sought to discover why exactly the operation had been undertaken. Many reasons
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were offered, but there was little consistency. At the end of the day, unspecified intelligence
reports were usually cited by way of justification. The actual results achieved are
noteworthy. The most important major drug dealers and traffickers were not arrested
or killed. I was told “many” weapons were seized. Given that the community was said
to have been awash in arms I was staggered to hear that a 24 hour occupation by 1,350
men yielded: 2 machine guns, 6 handguns, 3 rifles, 1 submachine gun, 2,000 cartridges,
and 300 kilograms of drugs. Not a single policemen was killed and few were hurt, but
the “resistance” encountered apparently necessitated the killing of 19 persons.
To the extent that the Complexo do Alemão operation reflects the main strategy of
the State Government, it is politically driven and amounts to policing by opinion poll.
But, it is popular among those who want rapid results and displays of force. The irony
is that it is counter-productive. Various senior police officers with whom I spoke were
highly critical of the “war” approach. The Military Police forces involved have had little
relevant training in the use of non-lethal weapons, there have been no attempts to develop
community-based policing in this area, and almost no sustained social services are
provided by the state to the people of the affected community.

Extrajudicial executions by off-duty police
State police, especially state military police, routinely work second jobs while offduty. Some form “militias”, “extermination groups”, or “death squads” and other groups
that engage in violence, including extrajudicial executions, which occur for several reasons.
First, their protection rackets – in which shopkeepers, transport providers, and others
are coerced into paying money to the group – are violently enforced. Second, to prevent
gangs from undermining their control, persons suspected of providing information to,
or otherwise collaborating with, gangs are killed. Third, while such groups do not generally
begin as death squads per se, the already illicit relationship that they have developed with
the more powerful and affluent elements of the community frequently results in their
engaging in murder for hire. For the residents of these communities, control by a “militia”
is nearly indistinguishable from control by gangs and traffickers.

Prison violence
High levels of riots and killings in prisons are the result of a number of factors.
Severe overcrowding in prisons contributes to inmate unrest, and also to the inability of
guards to effectively prevent weapons and cell-phones from being brought into prisons.
Wardens are insufficiently trained and supervised. Low levels of education and work
opportunities also contribute to unrest, as does the failure to ensure that inmates are
transferred from closed to open prisons when they are entitled to do so.
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Delays in processing transfers, together with warden violence and poor general
conditions encourage the growth of gangs in prisons, which can justify their existence to
the prison population at large by purporting to act on behalf of prisoners to obtain
benefits and prevent violence.
There are many bodies with the power to investigate prison conditions, but none
are doing their job adequately. This lack of external oversight permits poor prison
conditions and abuses of power to continue. Requirements in some places to identify
with one gang faction facilitates the growth of gang-identification, and gang related
activity.

The criminal justice system’s response to extrajudicial
executions
A necessary reform to address the problem of extrajudicial executions committed
by the police is to change the strategies and culture of policing. This approach is immensely
important, and my final report will make a number of specific recommendations in this
regard. However, another equally important approach is to ensure that when extrajudicial
executions occur, those policemen responsible are convicted and imprisoned, and to to
ensure that the victims get justice and the guilty cannot kill again. It is disturbing that, as
I noted earlier, very few homicides result in convictions.
This might suggest that the criminal justice system is hopelessly broken. This is not
the case. A successful conviction for murder is the end result of a process handled by a
number of institutions: Typically, that process would be that the Civil Police effectively
finds witnesses and preserves the crime scene; those witnesses may then require protection;
the Technical-Scientific Police gather specialized forensic evidence; the Ministério Público builds a case against the suspect; a jury court hears the evidence and finds the suspect
guilty. Every step depends on those that come before it. If any institution fails to act in
an effective manner, the whole process is a failure. The bad news is that one or more
institutions generally do fail.
The good news is that all of the institutions include a significant number of competent
personnel, and that some of the institutions generally function quite well. For example, I
have been especially impressed with the professionalism and dedication of the Ministério Público. Similarly, while the witness protection programs suffer from both funding
shortfalls and institutional defects, they do succeed in protecting a large number of
witnesses.
In my final report, I will make a number of specific recommendations regarding
how the criminal justice system should be reformed so as to effectively prosecute
extrajudicial recommendations. However, as a preliminary observation I would note
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both that the criminal justice system is in desperate need of large-scale reform and that
such reform is completely feasible. Brazilian society should feel a sense of great urgency
in making these reforms, but it should also feel confident that if it acts with urgency, it
will succeed.

Preliminary conclusions and recommendations
My report will include detailed recommendations to the federal and state
governments for reforms in approaches to policing, and in how the criminal justice
system functions. However, a few preliminary recommendations are in order:
Police pay: Low pay for police leads to a lack of professional pride and
encourages police to engage in corruption, to take second jobs, and to form
“extermination groups”, “death squads”, “militias” and other vigilante groups to
supplement their pay. Reforms must include higher salaries.
Investigations into police killings: The Civil Police and the internal affairs
services of the Civil and Military Police must effectively investigate killings committed
by the police. The current system in many states of immediately classifying police
killings as “acts of resistance” or “resistance followed by death” cases is completely
unacceptable. Every killing is a potential murder and must be investigated as such.
Forensics: Forensics police and institutions are under-resourced and underequipped, and they lack independence. To ensure effective prosecutions, this must be
changed.
Witness protection: Witnesses to extrajudicial executions committed by the police
and organized crime legitimately fear reprisals for testifying. This fear is increased
when the police remain on duty throughout the investigations. There is much that is
impressive about the current witness protection programs, but their inadequacies must
also be candidly recognized and urgently addressed.
Ombudsmen: In the states that I visited, the police ombudsmen lacked true
independence or the ability to gather facts on their own. This must be changed: The
police require genuine external as well as internal oversight.
Public prosecutors: The Ministério Público must play a key role from the very
outset in the investigation of every single incident involving killing by the police.
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Prisoners have an immense and justified fear of reporting the violence to which they
are subjected. The many institutions required by law to monitor prison conditions —
most notably including judges of penal execution — are unable or fail to play this role
in any adequate manner. The number of such judges must be increased, and the manner
in which they work must be greatly improved.
Prisons must be run by the wardens, not by the inmates. This is an undeniably
complex issue, and the safety of prisoners must always be the first priority. However,
some practices must be discontinued immediately. The practice in Rio de Janeiro of
forcing new prisoners who have never belonged to any gang to choose one upon entry
into the system is both cruel and needlessly swells the size of the gangs. The human rights
of the prisoner and of society at large are violated.
The people of Brazil did not struggle valiantly against 20 years of dictatorship, nor
did they adopt a federal Constitution dedicated to restoring respect for human rights,
only in order to make Brazil free for police officers to kill with impunity in the name of
security. It is imperative that the Federal and State Governments implement sustained
reforms in the directions I have indicated in order to enhance the security of ordinary
citizens and promote respect for human rights.

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In spite of a trivial reduction in urban violence, Rio de Janeiro’s Public
Security Department insists on staying the course. Statistics for the first
semester of 2007, recently released by the Public Security Institute, reveal
a significant rise in the number of deaths in alleged confrontations with
the police – 33.5% more than in the first semester of 2006. By contrast,
there was a reduction in the number of detentions (-23.6%) and in the
number of drug and weapon apprehensions (respectively -7.3% and 14.3%). These figures reveal at the least the inefficiency of the chosen
method for fighting crime in Rio de Janeiro, not to mention all the lives
lost in the process.

Public Security in the State of Rio de Janeiro
Alessandro Molon1
“In Rio, a police officer
must choose between
corruption, omission, or war.”
The sentence above, said by Captain Nascimento, a fictitious character in the movie
“Tropa de Elite” (“Special Unit”), is a fair synthesis of the culture of public security that
has ruled in the State of Rio de Janeiro in the last decades. The local reality of violence has
ingredients such as partial corruption of the police forces, low efficiency of police internal
and external control mechanisms, deliberate omission or involuntary incompetence in crime fighting, and a mentality of armed conflict as justification for abuse.
The culture of public security has not served well the goal of efficiently fighting
violence in the State. On the contrary, it feeds violence and is fed by it, stimulating
1 Alessandro Molon is a representative for the Workers Party at the State Assembly of Rio de Janeiro, elected for a second mandate
in 2006. He is also the president of the Assembly’s Commission for the Defense of Human Rights and Citizenship.
* Translator’s Note: the adjective refers to those born in the State of Rio de Janeiro.

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brutality and barbarism, besides generating enough room for militia proliferation. Pressed
in between drug dealers, militia, and a violent and corrupt police, the population remains
a cornered hostage.
Statements by the new public security administration have been reinforcing the idea
of a “war” between the State and the criminals. This is a dangerous concept because,
when one talks about war, one may be sending a message of legitimacy for all and any
behaviors. But even in wars there are rules that define how the enemy must be treated
and, when such rules are violated, one may claim a war crime has been committed. In
the case of the State of Rio de Janeiro, on some occasions, we have seen strong evidence
that public security officers would not observe the rules of legal combat.
The new administration sent some positive signs in the security area, specially regarding
the fight against police corruption. In the first place, people of good reputation were
nominated to the top positions in public security. Moreover, it appears that there was
not an “auction” of battalions and police stations. From the beginning, the State
government announced it would fight the collusion between members of its police
force and drug dealers, and Fluminense* society already celebrated some successful
operations that resulted in the detention or removal of police officers involved with the
illegal commerce of narcotics. Operations that target corruption networks in the State
are vital to the progressive weakening of organized crime and to undoing impunity’s
perverse effects, and should be intensified.
Of course, the intention is not to limit crime fighting to preventive action. It would
be ingenuous, even foolish, to deny the need of repressive action, which has to be firm.
It is true that fighting drug trafficking means to enforce the human rights of those who
live in the favelas. It is important to emphasize the oppression of thousands of residents
in communities subjugated by drug dealers. However, it is a serious mistake to legitimate
police violence on behalf of security. The fight against drug trafficking must be within
the rule of law, and its priority has to be the greatest good to be protected by the State:
human lives. In the case of the police, holder of the State monopoly on legitimate
violence, abuses are unacceptable either against “good people” or criminals.
In spite of a trivial reduction in urban violence, Rio de Janeiro’s Public Security
Department insists on staying the course. Statistics for the first semester of 2007, recently
released by the Public Security Institute, reveal a significant rise in the number of deaths
in alleged confrontations with the police – 33.5% more than in the first semester of
2006. By contrast, there was a reduction in the number of detentions (-23.6%) and in the
number of drugs and weapons apprehensions (respectively -7.3% and -14.3%). These
figures reveal at the least the inefficiency of the chosen method for fighting crime in Rio
de Janeiro, not to mention all the lives lost in the process.
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The official rhetoric supporting the operations in favelas is based on the idea of
reoccupying and pacifying the territory with the goal of implementing social programs
only afterwards, with large resources, including federal money. This concept resulted in
the mega-operation at the Alemão Complex in June 2007. Let us analyze this action of
the Fluminense police, in view of its consequences and its national and international
repercussion.
In the Alemão Complex, besides the worrisome figure of 19 deaths, the police
attack resulted in more than 40 injured, the closing of area schools for about two
months, the bankruptcy of small entrepreneurs, and the fear and indignation of resident
workers. Some evidence resulting from the operation generated suspicion of excessive
use of force and summary executions, which led me to require the State Attorney General to act, and also to ask the Special Human Rights Department of the Presidency of
the Republic to designate independent experts to follow the investigation. The independent
experts’ final report confirmed that at least two of the 19 deaths were executions.
Instead of regretting the fact, and committing to account for those executions, the
Public Security State officer disqualified the work of the independent experts, and credited
the polemic to “those who try to distort the just cause of human rights.”
After the Alemão experiment, security authorities must reflect on how efficient such
incursions are toward retaking the State sovereignty on these territories. There are reports
assuring that, after the police forces retreated and the corpses were collected, the situation
went right back to the previous status. The question is unavoidable: what is the real
benefit of such an operation?
I am sure that it is possible, and also necessary, that the police respect the legal limits
constructed with difficulty by Brazilian society. I firmly believe that real confrontation
with crime can only be achieved by policemen that respect the law. I have been presenting
propositions in that direction as a representative, and as the president of the Commission
for the Defense of Human Rights and Citizenship in the State Assembly.
I suggested to the State Government, for instance, the creation of a workgroup to
define strategies for reducing the lethality of police operations. The workgroup, which was
already created by decree, but not yet installed, is composed of representatives from the
federal and State executive branches, from the legislative branch, and from organized civil
society. I also authored a number of bills aimed at protecting and assisting victims of
violence and defenders of human rights. However, I also have confidence in the value and
training of good police officers, and to that end I presented bills that forbid the use of
violent methods in the training of public security personnel; veto the use of death-related
symbols and images on public property; establish medical and psychological assistance for
public servants in the area of public security; and, finally, a bill that determines the payment
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of a pension to dependents of public security officers killed in the line of duty. As I believe
that we need really independent expertise in order to step up the quality of our investigations,
I proposed and got approved an amendment to the State Constitution establishing the
autonomy of institutions in charge of expert tests and investigations. This amendment still
awaits implementation by an Executive law.
My initiatives stem from the understanding that prevention and repression must
occur in parallel, and always in full respect of human rights. I will continue my efforts in
search of a more daring alternative to what is now being implemented in the State of
Rio de Janeiro, recovering the value of human dignity and strengthening democracy and
the rule of law.

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Estimates by the Pastoral Office for Latin American Migrants note that
there are today more than 200,000 Bolivians living in the city of São Paulo. Of these, nearly 12,000 are in conditions of slavery. As they work
illegally, Brazilian authorities do not have exact information in order to
quantify their numbers. Organizations that attend to migrants’ needs fear
that the cases of tuberculosis are increasing among them.

Walls of Shame
Luiz Bassegio and Luciane Udovic1
The Berlin Wall made the news every day.
From dawn to dusk we read about it, saw it, and heard about
it: The Wall of Shame,
The Wall of Infamy, the Iron Curtain…Eventually, this wall,
which deserved to fall, fell.
But other walls have sprung up, and continue to spring up in
the world, and
although they are far larger than the Berlin Wall, little or nothing
is said about them.
Eduardo Galeano
The term Wall of Shame is used informally to describe walls or barriers that shame
their builders or that are planned to shame someone else. The expression was first used in
1961 to refer to the Berlin Wall. A wall to impede movement by Germans, which became a
1 Luiz Bassegio and Luciane Udovic are members of the continental coordination of Grito dos Excluidos/as (Cry of the Excluded).

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symbol of ideological apartheid, a symbol of the Cold War, and a mark of separation
between two blocks, that is, separating the communist side from the capitalist side.
We can cite other examples of walls of shame, from which cries continue to sound,
with no echo, although they cause many deaths and separation. The Fence between the
United States and Mexico is one of them. It is a long line of 3,140 km, which crosses
North America, from West to Southeast, from California, on the Pacific Ocean, to the
south of Texas, on the Gulf of Mexico. Currently, this wall extends for 1,300 km, and the
construction of additional 1,226 km was approved, as well as the installation of remote
operated cameras, unmanned planes, and satellites.
Contrary to the arguments of the US government, the construction of this wall doesn’t
deter “illegal” migration and the transit of migrants; it only increases the number of deaths.
And along the 3,140 km of this border, how many deaths will there be? We don’t know
for sure. There is no way to get precise numbers of how many people die, for instance, in
the desert, where their bodies cannot be found.
How is it possible to defend the complete freedom for the circulation of capital and,
at the same time, construct a sophisticated wall to impede free circulation of workers? But
other walls continue to be built. The Israeli Wall on the border with Palestine is another
example. It is a fortification with barbed wire, a thickness of eight meters of concrete and
control towers every 300 meters, around the West Bank and Eastern Jerusalem. Mined
from point to point, and from point to point guarded by thousands of soldiers, it is 60
times greater than the Berlin Wall. There is also the Wall of Morocco, 1,500 km long and
4 meters high, which for 20 years has perpetuated Moroccan occupation of the Western
Sahara. The Spanish barrier to impede entry by immigrants is known as the Walls of Ceuta
and Melilla in Africa. And more: the Wall of Korea, which is nearly 200 km long.
To these walls one must add the floating walls made up of naval units that patrol the
maritime borders of Southern Europe, especially those of Spain and the Canary Islands. It
should be noted that in these areas as well, hundreds of deaths have been recorded.
In the words of Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council of the
Pastoral Office on Migrations, “it is regrettable that, in a world that celebrated the fall of
the Berlin Wall, new walls are being built between neighborhood and neighborhood, city
and city, country and country.”

Brazil: behind the walls, from dream to slavery
Leaving their country in search of a better life on Brazilian soil, South Americans,
chiefly Bolivians, come to Brazil aware that they will work a great deal and earn little
money. But when they arrive, it is not uncommon for them to earn nothing at all, and to
end up living in the shadows, oppressed by the fear of deportation and of returning
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empty-handed to the poverty they left behind. Estimates by the Pastoral Office for the
Latin American Migrants note that there are today more than 200,000 Bolivians living in
the city of São Paulo. Of these, nearly 12,000 are in conditions of slavery. As they work
illegally, Brazilian authorities do not have exact information in order to quantify their
numbers.
The exploitation of Bolivians is in large part fueled by their not understanding that
they are being enslaved, since they usually come from rural areas, and don’t understand
urban work or Brazilian labor legislation. But, in the current situation, this wouldn’t help
them much, because their status in the country is irregular (“illegal”).
Of the main goals of the Pastoral Migrant Service is to change the Statute on
Foreigners, making it easier to regularize the status of immigrants in Brazil. The current
Statute was drawn up in the period of military dictatorship, and it was based, above all,
on the ideology of “national security”, leaving out human rights issues. Another goal is
to deal with the market that benefits from this system. If at one point in the chain of
commercialization we have the sweatshops in which the Bolivians are exploited, at another
point we have the clothing stores that sell their production. The small sewing shops
where Bolivian immigrants work often produce clothing for famous stores.
These clandestine sewing shops, setup in old apartment buildings and slums, began
to spread throughout São Paulo. Their machines operate from 6 am until 10 pm. Many
even operate up to midnight. The workers are paid by what they produce. When they
stop, they throw themselves on a mattress on top of the machine and sleep right there;
or they squeeze themselves into bunks in small rooms, service areas or bathrooms. They
only leave the workplace late on Saturday or on Sunday.
A story published in the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo on December 17, 2006,
carried a statement by Pedro, a thin youth with black, sad eyes. He said he slept in a narrow
bathroom, indicating the width by the space between his arms. The window was sealed
with tile and cement because it opened on the street and could attract the attention of the
police. He said that he was no longer bothered by the musty smell, the humidity and the
dark, but still was made nauseous by the cockroaches that came out of their holes in the
roof and floor drains. The boy arrived in São Paulo just days before turning 18, enticed by
a cousin who owned a sewing shop. “He said that I would earn a lot, but he only pays me
R$ 100.00 reais per month. He says he has to deduct for food and housing, and that I still
owe part of the money for the trip from La Paz to São Paulo.”
He suspects that he has contracted an illness: “I wake up two or three times each
night covered with sweat. I put on a dry shirt and soon I am wet again. Is this normal?”
It could be that he is not ill, but the account recalls a fear that is becoming more credible
among organizations serving migrants: cases of tuberculosis among them are increasing.
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We must meet the challenge of thinking and dreaming
about another possible world
In a world which favors the circulation of financial capital and, at the same time,
establishes walls and restrictive and xenophobic legislation for workers, immigrants must
meet the challenge of thinking and dreaming about another possible world, which respects
human rights and fosters the integration of peoples.
Migrants are persons that not only have their rights violated, but also have their
dreams put on hold and their family ties threatened. Gender inequalities in the migration
process affect all social sectors, but children and women have fewer possibilities for
resisting the aggression imposed by current policies.
Migratory policies should be based on solidarity and free circulation of people.
Migration is a fact that cannot be ignored. The fact that millions of people leave their
countries points up the need for profound changes, not only in public policies in each
country, but also in international relations. To inhabit the planet where we live is an
intrinsic right of all. Migrants should strive for full integration into the political system,
because their presence and their labor contribute to the common good of society.

We are not foreigners. The world is our country!
Concretely, the Pastoral Office for Migrants is carrying on several campaigns to
guarantee migrant’s rights. Some of these are: a new and inclusive Immigration Law,
putting into practice the International Convention on Protection of the Rights of All
Migrant Workers and Their Family Members, General Amnesty throughout the Americas,
and homogeneous immigration laws in our countries. We must assume positive reciprocity,
in other words, treat immigrants in our country the way we wish Brazilians would be
treated in other countries.
In conclusion, our struggle should be aimed at seeking to guarantee all rights for
migrants: labor, social, cultural, economic, civil and political rights. May human rights be
guaranteed in all societies, independent of the administrative status of the person; may
migrants not be criminalized for not having their papers up-to-date. (The proposals
presented in this article are included in the preparatory document for International
Immigrant Day – Integration, Universal Citizenship, and Human Rights – published by
SPM - Pastoral Migrant Service).

Source:
Journeys in Global Disorder – Forum Social Mundial das Migrações, 2005 –
published by Edições Paulinas.

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The Ministry of Justice reaffirms that confronting trafficking in persons
falls under the integral protection of migrant worker rights and defends
ratification by Brazil of the International Convention on Protection of
the Rights of All Migrant Workers and their Family Members. It is expected
that during discussion of the 2008-2011 Pluriannual Plan and the Union’s
2008 Budget, our legislators will take action to guarantee programs aimed
at combating trafficking in persons in its various guises (slave labor,
commercial sexual exploitation, and organ trafficking).

Trafficking in Persons: advances in
institutionalization and in critical thinking1
Marcia Sprandel2
I leave because here I can’t, I come back because there I can’t either
I leave because here I’m owed, I come back because there they’re crazy
South or not south…
(Kevin Johansen – Sur o no sur. Sony Music. 20002).
We can group the question of trafficking in persons in Brazil in 2007 along three
main axes: institutionalization, incorporation of critical thinking, and budgetary challenges.
It can be said that we have advanced a great deal in institutionalization and working
together with civil society (which allowed for an interesting incorporation of its critical
1 Many things happened in 2007 in the area of combating trafficking in human beings in Brazil, both in terms of the government
and in terms of international organisms, NGOs, and social movements. Due to the limited space for each subject in the 2007 Report
on Human Rights in Brazil, I apologize for any omission of programs, campaigns, or publications.
2 Marcia Sprandel is an anthropologist and a member of the Commission on Ethnic and Race Relations of the Brazilian
Anthropology Association. She thanks Maria Alice Pereira de Souza, Leadership budget adviser of the Government Support Block
in the Federal Senate, for budgetary information.

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thinking in the discussion of the National Plan for Confronting Trafficking in Persons),
but there is still a way to go regarding funds for implementation.

Axis 1
Institutionalization
In February 2007 the Federal Government launched text of a National Policy on
Confronting Trafficking in Persons. 3 In presenting the document, the Minister of Justice,
Márcio Thomaz Bastos, affirmed that the debate and reflection on trafficking in persons
in Brazil has taken off with the publication of Decree No. 5948 of October 26 2006,
which approved the National Policy on Confronting Trafficking in Persons: today it can
be said that the theme is definitively on the agenda of the Federal Executive Branch, it only
being left to be assigned specifically or exclusively to one ministry or another, depending
on the existence of international technical cooperation projects (BASTOS, 2007:5).
Thomaz Bastos reminds us that the National Policy was put out for public consultation
in June 2006 in recognition of the accumulated experience of Brazilian civil society,
which over the years has single-handedly carried the banner of confronting trafficking in
persons in the country.
In June 2007, with publication of the “Report on Trafficking in Persons 2007” by
the U.S. State Department, Brazil was readmitted into the intermediary group, together
with other countries that do not met the minimum goals recommended for combating
this type of trafficking, but are making an effort to eradicate the problem. The betterment
of the Brazilian position was the result of publication of the National Policy, the process
of drawing up the National Plan, actions against slave labor – including the veto by
President Lula of Amendment Three – and against sexual exploitation/sexual tourism,
particular note being given to the code of conduct, the campaign of the National Secretary
of Justice called “First they lose their passport, then their freedom,” the increase in the
number of Sentinel Program offices and the record of arrests in police actions.
The National Plan for Confronting Trafficking in Persons, after being amply discussed
by a Working Group formed of 13 ministries, plus the Public Ministry, the Public
Labor Ministry, and various organizations from civil society in the area of children and
youth, from the women’s movement and from the national movement mobilized against
slave labor, as well as international organizations, will be officially launched by the President
of the Republic before the end of the year. The Plan establishes priorities for action,
3 The process of constructing the text was begun in December 2005, when the Ministry of Justice, the Special Secretary for Women’s
Policies and the Special Secretary on Human Rights, both the latter under the Presidency of the Republic, began discussion of the base
text for a national policy. As the process developed, nine more ministries, besides the Federal Public Ministry and the Public Labor
Ministry, were involved.

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over the next two years, along the three thematic axes determined by the National
Policy: prevention of trafficking in persons, repression of trafficking in persons, and
attention to victims. For each priority action there is a responsible entity, a goal, and a
term for its completion or review. One of the main points of the plan are the partnerships
that will be established with other levels of government, especially states and municipalities,
and also with organizations from civil society.
The process of constructing the Plan and the various aspects of the question of
trafficking in persons in Brazil were debated in October 2007 during the National Seminar
on Trafficking in Persons, which was part of the launching of the UN’s Global Initiative
Against Trafficking in Persons (UN.GIFT) in Brazil. The following agencies, in our
country, participate in the Global Initiative: UNODC (guardian of the UN Protocol on
Trafficking in Persons and responsible for rendering technical cooperation to the States
in developing policies for prevention, accountability, and attention to victims); UNICEF
(responsible for protecting children from situations involving violence, abuse, and
exploitation); OIT (responsible for promotions against forced labor and prevention of
child labor); UNFPA (responsible for promoting the rights of populations vulnerable
to trafficking); and UNIFEM (responsible for protecting women and girls from all
forms of gender discrimination). The Initiative provides for the involvement of
governments, NGOs and other institutions from civil society. The Seminar held in Brazil
is in preparation for a world forum to be held in Vienna in February 2008.
The actions of international organizations is then most important for placing the
theme of trafficking in persons on national agendas. Besides UNODC, UNICEF,
UNFPA, and UNIFEM, we also note herein the Project for Prevention of Trafficking
in Persons on the Triple Frontier between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, of the
International Organization on Migrations (OIM), for its actions in one of the most
critical areas of the country in terms of traffic4 and the Project for Combating Trafficking
in Persons, of the International Labor Organization (OIT) for the breadth of their
actions5 , which include publication of “Passport to Freedom: A Guide for Brazilians
Overseas.” 6
During the UN.GIFT Seminar one could see how much the theme of trafficking in
persons is being incorporated by Brazilian institutions, including academic ones. For example,
4 In February 2007 OIM sponsored the Tri-National Seminar on the Role of the State in the Fight Against Trafficking in Persons
on the Triple Frontier Between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, held at Foz do Iguaçu (PR). In that6 same city, in May, a public
information campaign was launched to combat trafficking in persons, with materials in Portuguese, Spanish, and Guarani.
5 Among which we note other publications, such as the Guide to Attention Abroad for Victims of trafficking in persons for purposes
of sexual exploitation; PRF/OIT Guide for Locating Vulnerable Points for Child-Youth Sexual Exploitation along Brazilian
federal highways; Manual on Trafficking in Persons; Research on Trafficking in Persons (3 volumes); Revista Académica MERCOPOL
(Mercosul’s Police Training and Cooperation Center) and the publication “Men and Women of Brazil Abroad.:
6 Available at www.oitbrasil.org.br/pec/campanhas/passaporte_para_liberdade.pdf

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we have the publication of “Trafficking in Persons and Sexual Violence,” organized by the
Research Group on Violence and Sexual Exploitation (Violes); a publication with a translation
into Portuguese of the chapter on Brazil, produced by the worldwide publication of the
Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Persons (GAATW); the “Map of Points of
Occurrences of Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents on Federal
Highways” (Federal Highway Police/OIT); the preliminary results of the “Atlas of Trafficking
in Persons in Brazil,” by the Geopolitical Laboratory of the University of São Paulo/OIT;
the preliminary results of the tri-national research on the dynamics of trafficking between
Brazil, Surinam, and the Dominican Republic, by the NGO Só Direitos (Rights Only) of
Belem (PA); and the preliminary results of research by the anthropologist Antonieta Vieira
“Profile of the Actors Involved in Modern-Day Slavery in Brazil.”

Axis 2
Critical Thinking
We have come a long way in the relativization of the concept of “trafficking in
persons” and in political understanding of the reality that can or cannot be covered by
this concept. This is clearly seen in the National Policy for Confronting Trafficking in
Persons. Both in its presentation, made by Minister Thomaz Bastos, and in the various
articles signed by jurists, specialists, and activists, it is clear that the government and
Brazilian society are aware that one cannot talk about trafficking in persons without a
critical understanding of the concept. The articles put into context its appearance and
the manner in which it was put on the agenda internationally and question whether the
focus of worldwide attention (and its protective system) should not be more on irregular migrations and on the sex trade, in the context of economic crisis.
The kickoff comes from Minister Thomaz Bastos, when he affirms that to put into
practice the directives, principles, and actions provided for in the National Policy on
Confronting Trafficking in Persons, we will have to overcome many obstacles. The
greatest of these lies within each of us, in the prejudices we generally direct against those
who decide to migrate…and this prejudice increases further when the migrant in question
works as a sex professional (BASTOS, ibidem:7). Concluding his argument, the Minister
categorically affirms that there is no doubt that in order to confront trafficking in persons,
we must consider the wider context of prostitution and immigration, often irregular,
into which it is inserted (ibidem).
In keeping with this position, the Minister of Justice reaffirms that confronting
trafficking in persons falls under the protection of migrant worker rights and defends
ratification by Brazil of the International Convention on Protection of the Rights of All
Migrant Workers and Their Family Members.”
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We should also like to note the preparation of “Men and Women of Brazil Abroad”
– useful information, coordinated by the Ministry of Labor and Employment, working
jointly with various ministries, special secretaries, international organizations and those
from civil society. The booklet tries to alert Brazilians who are thinking about emigrating
about what it means to live overseas (including the danger presented by trafficking in
persons), orient those who are already overseas about their duties and rights and to help
those who want to return to Brazil.
In the meetings of the Working Group formed to put the booklet together, one
could see how urgent the need is for coordination of public policies for Brazilians
overseas who are pulverized by various public entities, as well as for designation by the
Federal Government of a specific organization to deal with the matter.
Returning to the publication on the National Policy for Confronting Trafficking in
Persons, I make special mention of the article by Ela Wiecko V. de Castilho, Under
Attorney General of the Republic and Federal Attorney for the Rights of the Citizen,
who, on listing the principal international instruments that preceded the additional protocol
on trafficking in persons of the Palermo Convention, concluded that the theme of
consent, in the manner in which it was written, is ambiguous: The “situation of
vulnerability” can be applied in the majority of cases in which exploitation of any kind
occurs, but it depends on interpretation by police, the public ministry, and the judiciary,
permitting applicability of another Protocol, relative to illegal immigration, that does
not consider the migrant to be a victim. Now, once the finality of a person’s exploitation
is configured, there exists violation of human dignity as expressed in the 1949 Convention.
The State cannot set its stamp on consent. Protection has been weakened for adult
women when dealing with prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation, and in
general for persons in the exploitation of their work. (CASTILHO, 2007:14-15).
In their article, Leonardo Sakamato (NGO Reporter – Brazil) and Xavier Plassat
(Pastoral Land Commission) praise the makers of the National Policy for having given
support to the “dirty list” (rural property owners who use slave labor) within the directives
and principles of Decree No. 5948/2006 (which provides for greater scrutiny of those
listed and their exclusion from bidding and access to rural credit), but defend specific
measures for the makers of public policies to combat trafficking in human beings for
purposes of sexual exploitation and slave labor trafficking: the attempt to standardize
actions will repeat the same errors as all policies imposed in a centralized manner. Or
worse, they will only be cosmetic actions to convince the U.S. State Department…to
reverse its position on this country. (SAKAMATO and PLASSAT, 2007:20).
The Brazilian organizations affiliated with the Global Alliance Against Trafficking in
Persons/GAATW7 signed one of the most critical articles in the publication, in which
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they question who benefits from trafficking in persons. They affirm that trafficking in
persons was never considered to be a problem of the Brazilian government before
international organizations began to place the item on their agendas; that in countries on
the receiving end the governments are not concerned with the suffering and violation of
the rights of the persons subject to trafficking and that policies to confront trafficking in
persons will only have an effect if economic policies and those on migration are in
conformance with same, strengthening persons, broadening their opportunities and access
to their rights and having a real choice about whether to remain or to migrate…the
“trafficking law” teaches that the stricter the laws on migration, the more trafficking in
persons flourishes (HAZEU, 2007:24).
We can also see that violation of human rights do not decrease with anti-trafficking
policies and legislation and that, although persons subject to trafficking may be designated
as “victims” in various policies and laws, they tend to be treated as illegal immigrants,
criminals or threats to national security. Consider that, to avoid any debate over
prostitution, there is a strong tendency to focus on intervention only in cases concerning
children and adolescents, even when it is known that the great majority of victims of
trafficking are young women exploited in the sex trade. NGOs, however, see the process
of discussion of a National Policy in a positive light, independent of external orientation
and based on the guaranteeing of human rights.
Professors Maria Lúcia Leal and Maria de Fátima Leal understand that trafficking in
persons for purposes of sexual exploitation has its roots in the model of unequal
development, the globalized capitalist world, and the collapse of the State, and suggest
that the concept of globalization incorporate a counter-hegemonic discourse that says
that the construction of knowledge and rights by means of valuation of various facts
that emerge from the fight by diverse sectors of the world population (women’s
movement, children and adolescents, blacks, homosexuals, sugar cane workers, day
laborers, sex workers, etc. (LEAL and LEAL, 2007:28). In the case of Brazil, they
suggest that, besides a policy on providing service centered on immediate assistance, it
may be possible to also construct an institutional practice capable of politically and
socially strengthening the exploited subject, with a view to fostering a critical consciousness
which elevates such subject to the status of citizen (ibidem:30).
Incorporation of these critical visions in National Policy is a noteworthy advance in
the formulation of public policies in our country. This same vision prevailed in organizing
the UN.GIFT Seminar, which brought to the table various sectors of society which
discussed the National Plan even more. The regional characteristics of trafficking in
persons were analyzed, with a panorama of differing national realities, as well as
exploitation of labor (including domestic) and its interface with trafficking in persons;
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migration and vulnerability to trafficking in persons; HIV and trafficking in persons; and
the specific case of children and adolescents.

Axis 3
Budgetary Resources
Concern with the resources needed to implement the National Plan is already apparent
in Minister Thomaz Bastos’ National Policy presentation, where he affirms that once
each priority action has a responsible entity, a goal, and a term, the 2008-2011 Pluriannual Investment Plan (PPA) shall guarantee the funds necessary for its implementation.
Renato Sérgio de Lima, in an article also appearing in the publication, defends the
idea that the fixing of common goals and objectives, the existence of budgetary headings,
management and juridic capabilities and priorities for execution of projects and expenses,
scheduling the Pluri-annual Plans (PPA) are elements that should be incorporated in
PNETP’s coordination agenda, against the risk of reducing it to merely a statement of
political will and not one of public policy (LIMA, 2007:38).
In an interview with this researcher in November 2007, Reiner Pungs, of the Brazilian
office of UNODC, indicated his concern particularly with the financial burden for
States and Municipalities anticipated in the National Plan. Implementation of State Plans
and Centers for Attending to Victims may depend on the interest on the part of the
governors in investing their budgets in combating trafficking in persons. Thus, the
importance of pressure from civil society is magnified, working through the state and
local networks for the defense of the rights of women, transgenders, children and
adolescents.
It is worth noting that the Budgetary Bill for the fiscal year 2008 anticipates, by
initiative of the Executive Branch:
· R$ 245,000 for Action 8204 – Support for Nuclei Combating Trafficking in
Persons, under the auspices of the Ministry of Justice (budgetary item 30101).
· R$ 4,919,292 for Action 8787 – Integrated Actions for Confronting Abuse,
Trafficking, and Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents – PAIR, under the
auspices of the National Fund for Children and Adolescents/Presidency of the Republic
(budgetary item 20928).
· R$ 468,500 for Action 8787 – Integrated Actions for Confronting Abuse,
Trafficking, and Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents – PAIR, under the
auspices of the Special Secretary for Human Rights/Presidency of the Republic (budgetary
item 20121).
The expectation is that during discussion of the 2008-2011 Pluri-annual Plan and the
2008 Union Budget, our legislators will act to guarantee the programs aimed at combating
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trafficking in persons in its various guises (slave labor, commercial sexual exploitation,
and trafficking in organs).

Final Considerations
There is no doubt that trafficking in persons is closely linked to economic questions,
the labor market (including prostitution), and restrictions on displacement of populations.
It makes no sense to deal with trafficking in persons in an isolated fashion. This seems to
be clear for government and for society in our country. It is, however, necessary to
advance public policy on migration, old claims from the Brazilian community overseas
and from entities defending thr rights of foreigners in Brazil.
For the National Plan for Confronting Trafficking in Persons not to fail, besides the
matter of budgetary guarantee, it is fundamental that work with civil society be strengthened
and the voice be heard of those involved in the issue. Employees working at the service
center at the Guarulhos Airport have already noticed that many sex professionals and
transgenders who return deported or not admitted to Brazil refuse to be treated as
victims. We must listen to them. It doesn’t seem to me that associations of sex professionals
are in tune with the trafficking policies. Why? We must listen to them. Many workers
freed by inspections by the Ministry of Labor and Employment end up right back
caught in the slave labor networks. Why? We will liten to them. Good public policies
need to know what the people for whom they were created think.
This concern is present in the National Policy publication, both in the article by
Maria Lúcia and Maria de Fátima Leal, which affirms that one of the important tasks
necessary for another world to be built…is political participation of violated subjects,
and not only the bureaucratic technical sectors of the State and civil society (LEAL and
LEAL, 2007:31), and in the article by the NGOs from GAATW, that asserts that the
challenge is to insert PNETP within the scope of economic policies and guarantee
funds for its implementation, assuring participation by civil society, so that measures
against trafficking do not continue to have negative effects for the persons they were
intended to protect (HAZEU, 2007:2).

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BASTOS, Márcio Thomaz – “Apresentação”. In: Política Nacional de Enfrentamento
ao Tráfico de Pessoas. Brasília, Ministério da Justiça, February 2007.
CASTILHO, Ela Wiecko V. de – “Tráfico de pessoas: da convenção de Genebra
ao Protocolo de Palermo. In: Política Nacional de Enfrentamento ao Tráfico de Pessoas. Brasília, Ministério da Justiça, February 2007.
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jeto Trama/Rio de Janeiro] – “Políticas públicas de Enfrentamento ao Tráfico de Pessoas: a quem interessa enfrentar o tráfico de pessoas?”. In: Política Nacional de
Enfrentamento ao Tráfico de Pessoas. Brasília, Ministério da Justiça, February 2007
LEAL, Maria Lúcia e LEAL, Maria de Fátima – “Enfrentamento do Tráfico de
Pessoas: uma questão possível?”. In: Política Nacional de Enfrentamento ao Tráfico de
Pessoas. Brasília, Ministério da Justiça, February 2007
LIMA, Renato Sérgio – “O Decreto no. 5.948/2006 e o ciclo das políticas públicas
de justiça e segurança.” In: Política Nacional de Enfrentamento ao Tráfico de Pessoas.
Brasília, Ministério da Justiça, February 2007.
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PLANEJAMENTO, ORÇAMENTO E GESTÃO – SECRETARIA DE ORÇAMENTO FEDERAL
Orçamento da União, Exercício Financeiro de 2008 - Projeto de Lei Orçamentária
- Volume IV – Tomo I - Detalhamento das Ações – Órgãos do Poder Executivo –
Presidência da República e Ministérios (exceto MEC). Brasília, 2007.
SAKAMOTO, Leonardo e PLASSAT, Xavier – “Desafios para uma política de
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According to the official data (IBGE, PNAD), the housing deficit 1 is 7.9
million dwellings, and 96.3% of this number affects the population with
income of up to five minimum wages.2 The total housing deficit in the
Center-West region of Brazil is 6.8%, 10.8% in the North; 11% in the
South; 36.7% in the Southeast; and 34.7% in the Northeast.

A brief sketch of urban policies on the
promotion of the human right to housing
Nelson Saule Júnior3
Patrícia Menezes Cardoso4

I. The Social and Land Inequality Picture in Brazilian Cities
The high degree of urbanization of Brazilian society occurred in a short period of
time and was based on the processes that produced urban spaces – cities with a high
degree of social inequality. These processes contributed to deepening the segregation
problems and conflicts that already existed in the metropolitan areas and regional centers
of the country. The urbanization process brought negative results related to the
socioeconomic conditions of city inhabitants, which comprise of more than 80% of
1 Housing Deficit in Brazil is a study by the João Pinheiro Foundation with data provided by the National Research by Housing
Sampling (PNAD) collected in 2005, and developed by the Brazilian Geography and Statistic Institute (IBGE).
2 The minimum wage at this writing was U$ 246.36.
3 Nelson Saule Júnior ia an attorney, JD, MA in Government Law (Urban Law from PUC-SP; he is the Rights Organizer for
the City Team at the Pólis Institute, President of the Brazilian Institute on Urban Law – IBDU, professor of Human Rights a the
PUC-SP Law School, and served as the National Reporter on the Human Right to Adequate Housing from 2002 to 2004.
4 Patrícia de Menezes Cardoso is an attorney serving in the Rights to the City Team at the Pólis Institute (since 2001), counsel to
the National Council of Cities. She is working on her masters in Urban Environmental Law at PUC-SP, and is a founding member
of the Brazilian Institute on Urban Law – IBDU; she has volunteered for the United Nations, and was adviser for the National
Reporter on the Human Right to Adequate Housing from 2004 to 2006.

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the Brazilian population. In the last decades, the absence of effective public policies in
the areas of planning and land management, housing, sanitation, and urban mobility and
transportation resulted in the intensification of negative social and environmental conditions
in the cities. This intensification is present especially with regard to housing and sanitation,
which demonstrates the socio-environmental degradation of the cities.
According to the official data (IBGE, PNAD), the housing deficit5 is 7.9 million
dwellings, and 96.3% of this number affects the population with income of up to five
minimum wages. 6 The total housing deficit in the Center-West region of Brazil is 6.8%,
10.8% in the North; 11% in the South; 36.7% in the Southeast; and 34.7% in the Northeast.
The housing deficit quantitatively shows that in the nine metropolitan regions,
which have the state capitals as the urban centers, the number is 2,285,462 dwellings. In
relation to the favelas, the number is 1,469,831, which corresponds approximately to
the housing in these metropolitan regions.
Social and land inequality is shown also in the number of people living in inadequate
housing, which are believed to be located on irregular lands. This number amounts to
more than 12 million units and corresponds to almost 30% of the total housing in the
country. This number of inadequate dwellings is part of the socio-territorial deficit
inherited from an accelerated urbanization that occurred in the previous decades. These
irregular dwellings were established in areas lacking basic socioeconomic rights, such as
health care, schools and social welfare, as with the favelas. Within this deficit in adequate
housing we find 1.96 million dwellings located in the favelas. More than half of these
dwellings are located in the Southeast region (60.2%), followed by the Northeast (19.8%),
North (14.4%), Center-West (12%), and South with the least numbers of favelas (4.5%).
In the area of environmental sanitation, in the year 2000, 80% of the Brazilian
population had water supply services. However there is still a high deficit in sewerage,
which this year served only 50% of the national population. This lack of services and
sewerage becomes even more severe when we consider that only 4% of domestic
sanitation receives some type of treatment, while the rest is thrown into the environment
(washes, rivers, ocean), contaminating chiefly surface and underground bodies of water.
More than half of the deficit in sanitation services is centered in the large cities –
those with more than 1 million inhabitants and metropolitan regions. The other half of
this deficit is shared among the smaller cities, with 12% centered in cities of 200,000 to
1 million inhabitants, 15% in cities with 50,000 to 200,000, and 21% in cities of up to
50,000 inhabitants.
5 Housing Deficit in Brazil is a study by the João Pinheiro Foundation with data provided by the National Research by Housing
Sampling (PNAD) collected in 2005, and developed by the Brazilian Geography and Statistic Institute (IBGE).
6 The minimum wage is U$ 246.36.

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In the area of transport and urban mobility the focus on individual transportation
over public transportation is one of the main factors hindering the functioning of the cities
and degrading the quality of life of the inhabitants. Traffic accidents are the main cause of
death provoked by external factors. The use of fossil fuel in automobiles emits tons of
pollutants into the air, particularly gases that provoke the green house effect.
Social and territorial inequality was also inherited from colonial agrarian practices
which consist of the concentration of land ownership in large estates and the economic
development models based on exclusion of the large number of low income population
from the formal labor market and from benefiting from the economic and cultural
wealth generated by the cities.
The growth of the population in segregated areas in cities, as in the favelas, has also
contributed to the growth of urban violence, targeting mostly the youth population due
to lack of opportunities in the labor market.

II. Necessary Measures and Actions to Implement a Social Housing Policy
1. The National Social Housing System
To face the housing deficit, the actions anticipated under housing policies coordinated
by the National Department of Housing, in connection to the Ministry of Cities, focus
on the production of new low-income housing and on the regularizing and urbanizing
of informal settlements such as favelas which evidence the greatest lack of services and
infrastructure. To put these actions into effect, there exists a set of housing programs
and private and public funding which make financing and transfer of funds possible for
the states and municipalities.
There are several private and public funds designated to provide financial resources
for these housing programs, especially the Worker Warranty Fund – FGTS (private
funding) and the National Social Housing Fund (public funding).
As the result of a popular initiative, a bill to create a National Popular Housing Fund
– which was presented in the early 1990s in congress by a group of popular organizations
and housing movement groups (which amount to about 1 million people) – in 2005
legislation was approved which established the National Social Housing System (Federal
Law No 11.124/2005). This system comprises National Social Housing Fund, and the
application of its resources is defined by a managing council formed by representatives
of the Council of Cities.
The objective of the National Social Housing System is to focus on providing
access to urbanized land and affordable and decent housing for the low-income
population; to implement investment and subsidy policies and programs that allow
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viable access to housing to the low-income population. Promoting agencies include
national, state, municipal and Federal District entities, foundations, community associations,
housing cooperatives, and private institutions active in the housing area.
The National Social Housing System is guided by the decentralization principle.
The states and municipalities need to fulfill a few prerequisites in order to be integrated
in the System, such as forming management councils on housing policies with
representatives from civil society, which can be either city councils or urban
development groups; creating Public Funds for Social Housing; create and implement
housing plans, and in the case of municipalities, these plans should be compatible
with participatory directive plans.
Since the National Social Housing System was originated as a popular initiative
which was presented by a network of popular organizations, civil associations and
housing cooperatives are strategic members of the System. In addition, since the
Brazilian government created administrative and legal obstacles for the above network
to receive funding from the National Social Housing Fund to work on housing projects,
Representative Zezéu Ribeiro presented an amendment to Provisional Measure 387/
2007 submitted by a group of entities from the National Urban Reform Forum,
which aims to change the National Social Housing System Law in order to assure this
right for non-profit civil associations and housing cooperatives. The Provisional
Measure was approved by the House of Representatives, and now needs to receive
approval by the Senate.

Impacts of Giving Priority to the Low-Income Population
In 2006, the federal government resources for housing assistance was 56% for
those who earned from 0 to 3 minimum wages; 19% for those earning between 3 and
5 minimum wages; and 26% for those earning above 5 minimum wages. This year,
assistance reached 469,651 people, earning up to 5 minimum wages, and 352,218 people
earning between 0 and 3 minimum wages.
In 2006, the federal government dedicated R$14.1 billion to the housing sector,
including private investments – SBPE of the Federal Savings Bank, an amount 169%
higher than the 5.3 billion invested in 2002. From the total of families served, 75%
earned income below 5 minimum wages. The percentage corresponds to more than
470,000 families and exceeds by more than 200% the 168,000 provided assistance for
this socioeconomic level in the year 2002.
Between 2003 and 2007, R$43.71 billion was invested in housing construction
and acquisition, urban renewal, acquisition of construction materials, remodeling and
expansion of housing units, land regularization, and reclassification of real estate for
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housing use affecting more than 2.1 million families. Of the total families served during
this period, 70.4% earned income below 5 minimum wages. 7

2. The Impact of the Expedite Growth Program – PAC –
on Housing and Urban Development Policies, and
Measures for Promoting the Right to Housing
The Expedite Growth Program is the main Brazilian Government investment
program for implementation of infrastructure projects to serve the country’s
socioeconomic development needs from 2007 to 2010. The Expedite Growth Program
(PAC) projects have the following objectives: projects with a strong potential to generate
socioeconomic returns, synergy between projects, renovating existent infrastructure, and
finalization of projects in progress. PAC is geared to the support of logistical
infrastructure projects (roads, highways, railroads, ports, waterways, and airports); energy
infrastructure (generation and transmission of electric, petroleum-based, natural gas,
and renewable energy); and social and urban infrastructure (sanitation, housing, public
transportation, and water resources).
An investment of 58.3 billion Reais is anticipated for logistical infrastructure projects
in the 2007-2010 period; 274.8 billion Reais for energy infrastructure; and 127.2 billions
Reais for social and urban infrastructure projects.
Investments in social and urban infrastructure are to be used in an articulated manner
at the state and municipal level to implement projects in the areas of water supply,
sanitation, and urbanization and regularization of favelas. An investment of 43.6 billion
Reais is projected for 2007. These investments are intended for the 27 federative states
and 394 municipalities. The 11 Metropolitan Regions, the state capitals and cities with a
population of more than 150,000 were designated as priority recipients of these
investments.
The investments anticipated by the Expedite Growth Program – PAC for sanitation
and housing, especially for the regularization and urbanization of informal settlements
such as favelas, are without doubt a response and innovative step of great impact focusing
on reversing the picture of social and land inequality, making the right to the city effective
for the inhabitants of these settlements.
On the other hand, the remaining Expedite Growth Program – PAC investments in
the logistic and energy areas will have an impact on the cities, generating transformations
in the forms and economic values pertaining to use and occupation of urban land, and
7 Sources of funding: FGTS, subsidies from FGTS, FAR, FDS, PSH, OGU, FAT, and Caixa Econômica Federal (Federal
Savings Bank).

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on the dynamic of population growth in urban areas with large infrastructure
projects without corresponding services.
To face the challenge of ensuring that the impact on the cities created by
PAC-financed infrastructure projects will reverse the social and land inequality
conditions, and that promote and respect the right to a sustainable city, a few
steps and measures are fundamental for the articulation and integration of
national, regional, and urban sector policies, and the strengthening and
consolidation of democratic and social control processes, instruments, and
organizations, in particular:
- To constitute a National Urban Development System with a view to
articulation, integration, and cooperation among the federated entities in social
control through City Conferences, Urban Policy Supervisory Councils comprised
of Public Power representatives and the various segments of society concerned
with urban issues, and Public Urban Development Funds that financially support
investment programs in the cities.
- To develop a National Urban Development Policy in concert with public
policies on socioeconomic and environmental development, underlining the social diversity of the cities, including women as heads of households, persons
with disabilities, the elderly, traditional communities such as urban quilombolas,
fishermen’s and river dweller communities, urban refuges, and indigenous
populations which reside in the Amazon region.
- To elaborate and implement national housing and sanitation plans focusing
on the use of federal funds, especially from the Expedite Growth Program PAC, for urban infrastructure, housing, and sanitation, taking into consideration
the socio-environmental and cultural diversity, regional inequalities, and
concentration of the urban populations in metropolitan regions.
- To designate the resources from the Expedite Growth Program – PAC
for urban infrastructure, housing, and sanitation to meet the urban investment
needs defined by the municipalities as priorities through their respective
Participatory Directive Plans and their municipal housing and sanitation plans.
Each municipality should create and implement its housing and sanitation plans
in a democratic and participatory manner, and in accordance with the
determinations of their Participatory Directive Plans related to these policies.
- Approval and enactment in the Brazilian Congress of the new law on the
division of urban land (Law of Territorial Responsibility), with measures and
instruments that allow for access to urban land by the low-income population,
and simplify procedures and eliminate juridical, administrative, and recording
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obstacles concerning regularization of social interest lands of informal
settlements.
- To amplify and strengthen social control in the cities of the resources
provided by the Expedite Growth Program - PAC, designated for investments in
urban infrastructure, housing, and sanitation, with the implementation and
consolidation of democratically managed institutional spaces in the cities by the
municipalities which are the Supervisory Councils on Urban Policies and the City
Conferences.
- To designate resources of the Expedite Growth Program - PAC, based on
the new urban laws, recognized by the Statute of the City for municipalities to
implement participatory directive plans that contain effective measures and
instruments to reverse the picture of social and land exclusion, such as the
identification and definition of land use, that meet the urban population’s needs
for urban properties that do not fulfill their social function, priority investments
in the area of urban mobility and transportation for the use of collective public
transit, demarcation of informal settlements for purposes of regularization and
urbanization, as well as defining urban areas that already enjoy infrastructure and
services, considered to be underutilized or having potential for the development
of social interest housing projects, through the creation of special social interest
zones.
- To adopt as a strategic action by the Brazilian State a housing policy
designation of resources for the development of economic development projects
to generate work and income for the population benefiting from social interest
housing actions and programs, whether such deal with urbanization and
regularization of informal settlements, or with actions and programs for generating
housing.
- To effect the new federal law (Law number 11.481 of May 31, 2007) on
the regularization of land in the Union, to allot unused public land and properties
for social interest housing, particularly properties of the extinct Federal Railroad
System (estimated at 52,000 properties) and those of the National Social Security
Institute, which can be developed by community associations and housing
cooperatives, and to regularize the informal settlements located on federal public
land and property.
- To establish and implement a National Policy on the Prevention and
Mediation of Urban Land Conflicts, defining a mediation methodology, mapping
and identification of typologies of urban land conflicts, with the goal of protecting
the right to the city and to housing for those inhabitants affected by said conflicts.
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III. Relevant Initiatives for the Prevention and Mediation of
Urban Land Conflicts focusing on the protection of the
Human Right to Housing
1. Building a National Policy on the Prevention and Mediation of Conflict in Urban
Lands focusing on the protection of the Human Rights to Housing
Conflicts over urban land are a reality in Brazilian cities that result in violation of the right
to housing and the right to the city, which is coming to be dealt with as a part of the urban
policy. In facing these conflicts, the international human rights agreements and conventions
on promotion and protection of the human right to adequate housing, ratified by the Brazilian
government, and the guarantee of the right to housing, which is part of the 1988 Federal
Constitution, and regulated by Federal Law number 10.257, of July 10, 2001 (The Statute of
the City), establish that conflicts over land should be handled with respect for human dignity
and human rights, avoiding in particular situations of violence generated by the use of police
force in repossessions and the abuse of power by the state police.
In view of the need to organize a national policy to deal with urban land conflicts, the
Council of the Cities instituted in 2006 a Working Group on Urban Land Conflicts 8 with the
following goals: a) to subsidize the establishment of a National Policy on Prevention and
Mediation of Urban Land Conflicts; b) to strengthen preventive actions through programs
of social interest land and housing regularization; c) to create a methodology of mediation,
mapping, and identification of typologies in urban land conflict cases.
The Council of the Cities, through the Working Group on Urban Land Conflicts, and
with the support of the Urban Development Department and the Urban Development
Company of the State of Bahia, and of the legislative branch of the city of Salvador, Bahia,
sponsored the National Symposium on Prevention and Mediation of Urban Land Conflicts
held in Salvador between August 6 and 8, 2007, with the objective of garnering subsidies for
building a National Policy on the Prevention and Mediation of Urban Land Conflicts.
The results of this symposium were systematized in the proposal for a National Policy
on the Prevention and Mediation of Urban Land Conflicts, which will be the subject of
discussion, analysis, and deliberation of the III National Conference of Cities to be held in
November 2007. In this proposal, this policy is directed toward the protection by the
Brazilian State of the right to the city and of the right to housing in situations concerning
urban land conflicts. 9
Through this work it has been possible to identify that urban land conflicts are
present in 17 states, 38 municipalities, and 66 settlements, where 73,047 families have
8 Council of the Cities Administrative Resolution number 01, approved August 30, 2006
9 In this proposal urban land conflicts are understood to be collective disputes over the possession or ownership of an urban property,
involving low-income families who are demanding protection by the state in guaranteeing the right to housing and to the city.

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initiated the regularization process, 4,945 families have processes in an advanced stage,
and 4,315 have received their land titles. 10
An important initiative in the state of Bahia was the creation of the Working Group
on Urban Land Conflicts and Violations of the Human Right to Adequate Housing in
the metropolitan region of Salvador by the State Legislative Human Rights Commission,
with the objective of visiting, analysis, and agreements leading to resolution of the main
situations related to land conflicts and/or violation of the right to housing in the
metropolitan region of Salvador. Correspondingly, the Housing Supervisory of the
Urban Development Department organized a Working Group in response to requests
by social movements to mediate urban land conflicts involving occupation in
environmental preservation areas, cultural historical sites, or disputes over areas designated
for social interest housing programs, among others.
A relevant initiative to protect the right to housing and the right to the city in situations
of urban land conflicts is the bill to alter the legal code on the legal proceedings for
evictions in cases of collective lawsuits for the ownership of urban and rural real estate.
This proposal, formulated by a group of organizations and social movements, was
discussed in the Ministry of Justice as a necessary measure in the Reform of the Judiciary,
that pledged to present the bill as a proposal from the Federal Executive Branch in the
Brazilian Congress.

10 Data from the National Urban Policy Department of the Ministry of the Cities, September 2007.

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The National Nuclear Energy Commission (CNEN) has already issued
several Initial Operating Authorizations for the URA/Caetité Uranium
Concentrate Unit, which can only occur twice in accordance with its own
safety rules. But the company continues to ignore the Precaution and
Prevention Principles set forth in environmental legislation, violating
human rights, such as the right to health, to job safety, and to information,
all with disregard for national and international nuclear safety rules.

Insecurity, Contradictions,
and Risks of Nuclear Activity
Zoraide Vilasboas1

1. The uranium exploration problem
The Brazilian Institute on the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources
(IBAMA) recognizes the illegalities of the Brazilian Nuclear Industries (INB), which, in
seven years of activity, was the target of various judicial actions, filings, and punishments
by environmental and professional organizations. Under the National Nuclear Energy
Commission (CNEN), INB is a mixed economy partnership that produces goods and
services related to the nuclear fuel cycle and operates the URA/Caetité Uranium
Concentrate Unit, in Bahia. On January 8, 2007, IBAMA assessed a fine against the
company for environmental crimes, in the amount of R$ 300,000, for failure to comply
with Condition 2.12 (which determines monitoring the health of workers and of the
population around the mine), imposed in Operating License 274/2002, which expired
in October 2006. As usual, the company appealed the new penalty.
1 Zoraide Vilasboas is the AMPJ Communications Coordinator and elected, in 2005, by the non-governmental organizations of
Caetité, to represent social and environmental movements before the CPAA-INB Commission.

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However, neither the recognition by the monitoring agency itself of the irregularities
identified since 2000, when the Lagoa Real/Caetité Mining-Industrial Complex began
operation (757 km from Salvador), prevented the company, a few days after being
fined, from obtaining a renewal of their Operating License (LO), with a term of validity
increased from four to six years and authorization to increase production form 300 to
400 tons/year. At the beginning of August 2007, socio-environmental organizations
showed that INB failed to comply with Condition 2.5 of the LO, renewed on January
15 of that year, which obliged INB to “submit within six months (up in July) proof of
having contracted the epidemiological studies defined in the Term of Reference sent to
IBAMA on 25 October 06.” 2 In fact it gained another two months to comply with the
Licensing requirements.
The industry continues to disregard legislation and failure to comply with
commitments assumed before society and monitoring entities, such as IBAMA and the
National Nuclear Energy Commission (CNEN). This Commission, which has conflicting
roles, regulates, licenses, participates in formulating nuclear policy and also performs
operational activities, directly or through subordinate institutions. CNEN has already
issued several Initial Operating Authorizations for the URA/Caetité Uranium Concentrate
Unit, which can only occur twice in accordance with its own safety rules. Such benevolence
strengthens the arrogance of the enterprise, which continues to ignore the Precaution
and Prevention Principles set forth in environmental legislation, violating human rights,
such as the right to health, to job safety, and to information, all with disregard for
national and international nuclear safety rules.
Licensing minimizes impacts – The claims approved at the 2005 Public Hearing,
which discussed “INB and the Health of Workers and the Populace,” were not attended
to by the competent entities. Society continues to seek clarifications on the doubts hanging
over INB, in view of the magnitude of the socio-environmental problems brought to
the region due to the perversity of the devastating development model imposed on
local communities. Supply will be critical in 5 to 10 years, according to the Bahian Water
and Sanitation Company (EMBASA). The increasing pollution of springs, scarcity of
water, and the suspected contamination in the Caetiteense district of Maniaçu, headquarters
of the mining operation, were never duly addressed by the government.
INB, which came to control the water since it was set up in the region, has begun to feel
the scarcity, a chronic drama for hundreds of persons around the mine who, living through
the worst drought of recent years, lost their crops and fear for their cattle. The Riacho da
Vaca dam, which held 250,000 cubic meters of water and was exhausted for the first time in
2005, turned into mud. Surface reserves such as the dam and tanks were used up. Aside from
2 Renewal of Operating License 274/2002, MMA/IBAMA, 15 January 2007.

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not being good quality, there is water that won’t even serve for industrial consumption, due
to the high percentage of chloride. The company admitted that the scarcity is a threat to the
production anticipated for this year. But it keeps up its triumphant discourse in the media,
bragging about astronomical profits and that production will be doubled in 2008 to meet
the needs of the Angra 3 power plant, ignoring the fact that the URA/Caetité expansion
project was not approved by IBAMA, due to technical problems.
The environmental destruction was aggravated by mining companies such as INB and
Bahia Mineração (Iron), eucalyptus plantings (large consumers of water), and the ceramic
industry.
In 1997, the EIA-RIMA (environmental impact report) foresaw great negative effects
on the physical environment, altering air quality; installation of sediment erosion and
deposit processes; contamination of underground springs; soil pollution and destruction
of natural habitats by radioactive particles.

Society demands protection
This year, a group of non-governmental organizations created the Caetité SocioEnvironmental Forum to take actions against the increasing environmental degradation
in the region. The Association of the Earth Environmental Movement (AMATER)
took action with the Public Prosecutor’s Office, seeking to guarantee application of
Municipal Law 545, of 22 November 2001, which prohibits cutting native species and
planting eucalyptus in the area covering the main water sources. Another group of
organizations are struggling to transform the Passagem da Pedra into a protected area,
where there are springs that feed the Contas and São Francisco Rivers.
Local communities demand independent inspection by a multidisciplinary team of
professionals, to evaluate all the operating conditions of uranium mining activities. They
likewise defend replacing CNEN’s monopoly on inspection with an autonomous inspection
model, as well as the establishment of infrastructure in the public heath care area to create
an epidemiological, toxicological, and radiological monitoring system capable of protecting
the populace and the environment. The expectation is that municipal, state, and federal
health organizations will resolve alleged conflicts pertaining to jurisdiction, and assume the
responsibility that, institutionally and legally, falls to each of them, and will promote a joint
effort to guarantee the effective intervention that the case demands.

2. Actuality of the Cesium-137 Tragedy
In September 2007 demonstrations in Brazilian cities reminded the country of the
tragedy caused by Cesium-137 in Goiânia (GO), proving that, 20 years later, the largest
radiological accident in the world still hadn’t healed the wounds of the 104 acknowledged
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victims, who had been haphazardly assisted by the State, and of the six thousand persons
who suffer from the effects of contamination. As happens every year, several actions
demanded medical and social assistance for those radioactively harmed, advised about
the irresponsible use of nuclear technology, and protested against the Government’s
decision, although it alleges it lacks funds to take care of human lives, allocates investments
for the return of the Brazilian Nuclear Program and construction of Angra 3.
In September of 1987, two rag pickers found a capsule with nearly 19 grams of
Cesium-137 (a radioactive element) in the building abandoned by the Goaino Radiotherapy
Institute. After it was broken into, the bomb caused an accident the true scope of which is
still unknown, contaminating thousands of people and leaving 20 tons of nuclear waste.
The delay in identifying the origin of the contamination and the improvisation used in
dealing with the accident evidenced how unprepared the Brazilian State was to deal with
such extreme situations. Ever since the tragedy, which killed about 60 people, the situation
has not changed much. As of today, CNEN continues to be the licensing and inspection
entity for nuclear activities, but it is incapable of guaranteeing safety for the installations nor
to deal with nuclear accidents. Even so, the government insists on adopting nuclear energy,
which will only serve to aggravate the existing safety issues.
In Brazil, the Nuclear Program Protection System, instead of protecting the
population, maintains the philosophy of the military program, characterized by secrecy
and lack of social control. Article 27 of Law 6.453 (17 October 1977) establishes a
sentence of four to ten years for anyone who “impedes or makes difficult the operation
of a nuclear facility or the transport of nuclear material.” A bill to revoke this article has
been waiting for a vote in the Chamber of Deputies since 2003.

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Although the instruments for protecting human and humanitarian rights
may be recognized and incorporated into internal law, even when applied
by national Courts of Justice, as in the Guerrilha do Araguaia case, the
Brazilian State has, irrespective of what has been agreed in the various
Conventions that repudiate the violation of such rights, exempted itself
unfairly and illegally from complying with the judicial determinations
requiring that the family members of the Araguaia dead and disappeared
be furnished with the truth about their relatives’ fates and the
circumstances of their deaths, including information about where they
were buried by the forces of repression.

For Justice that Keeps Truth in Memory
“She picked up the photos, settled into the chair, put on her glasses, and, in a low but firm
voice and with a pained expression, affirmed: ‘It’s my sister.’ Then, as if she were looking
at a sleeping child, she began caressing the photo: ‘It’s her. She had that shadow in the eyes
because she used glasses. She used to have long hair, afterward she cut it short. Look at the
cleft chin, the turned-up nose.’ Afterward she cried as if she had just lost her sister. For the
first time in more than twenty years she was confronting the reality of Y’s death, until then
only coldly informed by official reports on the guerrilla war. For the first time she had a
body to cry over.” (a Rosangela Rennó Cicatriz and Arquivo Universal project)

Suzana Angélica Paim Figuerêdo
On August 29 of this year the document Memory and Truth was released, in which
the Brazilian State recognizes the responsibility of the organs of repression of the military
Suzana Angélica Paim Figuerêdo is a practicing attorney in the area of human rights, a member of the Advisory Board of the Social
Network for Justice and Human Rights, and a delegate to the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) between 1998 and
2001.

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regime for the assassination of hundred of leftwing movement militants who opposed
the exclusionary regime.
The initiative not only once again places on the agenda the issue of the right to
memory and the truth, as a fundamental human right, but revives necessary discussion
on real implementation of the international pacts and treaties on human rights to which
Brazil is a signatory, and their application in the internal sphere. It also generates inquiry
on the validity of the auto-amnesty laws relative to international law with regard to
exclusionary terms on responsibility and sanction for human rights violations, particularly
when used to set up obstacles to recognizing the truth about human rights violations
during the military dictatorship, such as forced disappearances, torture, and summary
execution of opponents of the exclusionary regime and sanctioning of those responsible.
From the beginning of the development of human rights in the international
community, Brazil made a commitment internationally to protect these inalienable, nontransferable, and indefeasible rights.
[Brazil] signed the UN Charter of June 26, 1945, the Organization of American
States Charter of April 30, 1948. It approved the American Declaration on the Rights
and Duties of Man, of May 2, 1948, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
of December 10, 1948.
The following are recognized by Brazilian law: the Convention on the Prevention
and Repression of the Crime of Genocide (Decree No. 30,822 of May 6, 1952); the
Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War, ratified by Brazil by the Charter of
May 14, 1957 (Decree No. 42,121 of August 21, 1957); The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Decree No. 40
of February 15, 1991); the American Convention on Human Rights (Pact of San José,
Costa Rica); the Interamerican Convention Against Torture, agreed to in Cartagena; and,
recently, the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel,
Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, among other sources of human and
humanitarian rights which censure crimes against human dignity, consolidating with each
passing day the conviction that these crimes should be effectively judged and duly
sanctioned.
In addition to these instruments, [Brazil] ratified the Convention on Treaties, the
Convention of the Rights and Duties of States, in cases of civil struggles, dated August
29, 1929 (promulgated on October 22, 1929) and the Convention for the Coordination,
Amplification, and Guarantee of Performance of Existing Treaties Between the American
States, committing to carrying out and complying with same to their fullest extent.
Although the instruments for protecting human and humanitarian rights may be
recognized and incorporated into internal law, even when applied by national Courts of
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Justice, as in the Guerrilha do Araguaia case, the Brazilian State has, irrespective of what
has been agreed in the various Conventions that repudiate the violation of such rights,
exempted itself unfairly and illegally from complying with the judicial determinations
requiring that the family members of the Araguaia dead and disappeared be furnished
with the truth about their relatives’ fates and the circumstances of their deaths, including
information about where they were buried by the forces of repression.
From another viewpoint, [the State] has failed to comply with what was agreed
under the international human rights rules regarding punishment of the atrocities
committed during the military dictatorship.
Appeal is made to the interpretation that the amnesty laws, edited by the military
regime as a preliminary step for redemocratization of the nation, include two-way content
so as to benefit agents of repression and victims. And, thusly, this presents an obstacle to
penal proceedings against and sanction of those agents of the state and their assistants
who were responsible for the crimes perpetrated against the people, in spite of being
considered indefeasible as being, above all, crimes against humanity.
The standards for amnesty entered our regulations after the occurrences during the
dictatorship, occurrences which were recognized by the Brazilian State itself as indefeasible
when it signed the Treaties and Conventions that repudiate them.
At the time at which the auto-amnesty laws were sanctioned, there were two orders
of prohibition of high institutional content to refute any idea of impunity before the
State. On the one hand, an imperative system of international standards, accepted by
Brazil; on the other, a system for the protection of human rights established by the
various treaties to which Brazil was a party.
Although during the Amnesty Law era Brazil had not yet ratified, and effectively has
not yet as of today, the 1969 Treaty Law Vienna Convention, in force internationally
since January 27, 1980, prior to this international statute, in the American sphere, the
1928 Havana Convention on Treaties was signed, as well as others regarding fulfillment
of the treaties, which expressly forbids exempting oneself from complying with the
agreed-to regulations.
Although the order in force at the time of the publication of the Amnesty Law
consisted of rhetorical stipulation that the specification of rights and guarantees expressed
in that Constitution did not exclude other rights and guarantees under the regime and of
the principles adopted thereby, including the inviolability of rights pertaining to life (Art.
153 and Section 36, of the 1969 Federal Constitution, instituted by Amendment No. 01
of October 17, 1969, and did not expressly foresee recognition of international treaties
and conventions as a part of the internal order, but, by reason of a prohibitive order
stemming from treaties in the field of human rights, that refuted any idea of impunity
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and necessitated a system for protection of those rights, turned the auto-amnesty standards,
prevented from holding the agents of the state responsible, into regulations contrary to
the international order for the protection and respect of human rights.
Those international sources already included as crimes against humanity: torture,
summary execution of persons, and what is called “other inhuman acts” committed by
employees of the State and prohibit the issuance of standards that hinder penal
proceedings aimed at verification of the existence of a crime, typification of conduct,
and sanction of the agents of the state or their assistants who are responsible for the
perpetrated crimes, such as those that were committed against the opposition during the
military dictatorship.
It should be noted that although it might be argued that the circumstances of the
era—suppression of public liberties and those against the constitutional order—did not
permit the adoption of standards aimed at punishing those responsible for the violation
of human rights, this would not remove from those standards prohibiting holding one
responsible, their confrontational nature vis-à-vis those other standards dictated by
international statutes on human rights. Furthermore, under the Havana Convention, even
when a State’s constitution is modified for reasons of establishing rules for exceptions,
the Contracting States should continue to respect that which was agreed to in the
international treaties and conventions.
Neither does it make them rules in accordance with the current constitutional and
international order protecting human rights and prohibiting the impunity with regard to
crimes against human dignity, including, among other aspects, that pertaining to the
inviolability of rights concerning life.
For these reasons, regulations that preclude the possibility of punishment are not
applicable to cases of torture, summary execution, and forced disappearance.
Despite the recent position of the Supreme Federal Court with regard to the idea
of incorporating international treaties in the Constitution, accepting them as ordinary
laws, divergent opinion upholds the primacy of international law when dealing with
human rights.
Even if one admits, for argument’s sake, that the international treaties ratified by
Brazil are situated at an intermediary hierarchical level—below the Constitution and
above infra-constitutional legislation—they are for that very reason not on a normative
parity with other ordinary laws.
Treaties on human rights, on being incorporated in the internal order, right away
have two significant consequences. Because they deal with principles and values that are
the ratio essendi of the Constitutional State, they become fixed clauses that cannot be
modified to suit the tastes of affected parties or the ideological passions which rule any
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given government. And, because of this exceptional character as pertains to principles,
they have the ability to make inapplicable and invalid any ordinary laws conflicting with
agreed to standards and those incorporated as fixed clauses in the body of regulations,
even those issued previously.
Since the 1907 Hague Convention Prologue, although a code had not been created
regarding the laws of war, the High Contracting Parties considered it advisable to declare that, in cases not expressly provided for in the regulations they adopted, the rule of
the principles of the law of nations obtained, as a result of the uses established between
civilized peoples, as well as the laws of humanity, dictated by the human conscience
(similar language adopted in Point No. 9 of the preamble to the 1899 Hague Convention
and later used in Protocols I and II of the 1977 IV Geneva Convention).
The catalogue of fundamental rights, as noted in Art. 5 of the Republican Constitution,
admits not only those enumerated therein, but also other fundamental rights arising
from rules and principles, that is to say, it recognizes the existence of fundamental rights
the nature of which is eminently related to principles—implicit or in effect—such as
those agreed upon at The Hague and adopted in Protocols I and II of the 1977 IV
Geneva Convention.
The incorporation of international standards on human rights into universal positive
law since the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and later conventions regarding
protection of these rights assumes recognition of the essential character of the protection
of human dignity, which cannot be abolished by internal regulations that oppose it.
The Federal Constitution, under the influx of values pertaining to the respect for
and protection of human dignity, on decreeing the indefeasibility of the crime of torture, did not hold to the previous laws which held it to be defeasible.
And, as the dignity of the human person is one of the pillars of the Federative
Republic of Brazil, standards contrary to the values which form the basis of the very
Republic are necessarily unconstitutional.
From this perspective, and with consideration of the international standard on human
rights, the jurisprudence of the Interamerican Court on Human Rights has admitted in
particular, and repeatedly, the retroactive application of indefeasibility for crimes of that
nature.
In the March 14, 2001 sentence in the Barrios Altos case (Chumbipuma Aguirre and
others vs. Perú) series C No. 75, it was understood that the dispositions on establishment
of prescription and exclusion from responsibility are inadmissible, such as aim to impede investigation and sanction of those responsible for the serious violations of human
rights, such as torture, summary, extra-legal, or arbitrary execution, and forced
disappearance, all of which are prohibited as they are contrary to the non-derogable,
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universal, absolute, inalienable, and indefeasible rights recognized by the International
Law on Human Rights.
The Interamerican Court considers that these laws lack legal effect and cannot continue to be an obstacle to investigation of the facts that constitute crimes against humanity,
nor for purposes of identification and punishment of those responsible.
Along these lines, other countries on the continent have tried to overcome the affront
to the fundamental rights of the human person, during the military dictatorships that
devastated them, by reviewing the standards that impeded penal proceedings for these
crimes, recognizing as appropriate the jurisprudence already established in the International
Courts, in order to apply same to internal decisions on incrimination of agents of the
State responsible for crimes against human rights.
Meanwhile, Brazil continues in denial with respect to the validity of international
rules in this regard, under the assumption that the issued auto-amnesty laws impede
retroactive action to sanction facts imputable to agents of the state for atrocities committed
during the military dictatorship.
Failure to carry out penal proceedings for the crimes against human rights practiced
during the military dictatorship implies an inexcusable distancing from international
principles and from the standards framework within which civilized nations have acted
since creation of the UN. The result is to deny the validity of the principles on which the
Federative Republic of Brazil’s Constitution rests.
Such denial contradicts international and humanitarian standards on human rights,
which reject the practice of crimes against human dignity and obstacles to judgment and
sanctioning of those responsible.
The Brazilian State has an obligation to put into effect the international treaties on
human rights which it has signed.
Therefore, along with the obligation to apprise the Brazilian people of the truth on
all acts committed by military repression during the dictatorship and to make civil
reparation to victims and their families, there is also a duty to institute penal sanctions
against those responsible.
Only with full knowledge of the truth and by obtaining Justice will we be able to
overcome the hatreds of the past and to bequeath to future generations the possibility
that practices such as those included in the book “The Right to Memory and the Truth”
cannot be repeated.

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Aside from being the most important official historical record of those
who died in the fight against the dictatorship, “The Right to Memory
and the Truth” is a tool for continuing the fight. That is the promise it
makes. For family members, we fight so that there may be full disclosure
of all files, and for the creation of a Truth Commission that will have the
power to investigate, to effectively seek the bodies of those who
disappeared for political reasons, establish the circumstances of their
deaths, and identify those responsible for these crimes.

The Right to Memory and the Truth
Suzana Keniger Lisbôa1
Publication of the book The Right to Memory and the Truth by the Special Secretary
for Human Rights of the Presidency of the Republic is a landmark in the history of
those who suffered political deaths and disappearances in Brazil. From now on, the
torture, assassinations, and disappearances committed by the military dictatorship will
have an official version that is closer to the truth.
The book is the result of work by the Special Commission on Political Deaths and
Disappearances (CEMDP), established by Law 9140/95. This is not a partial view of
history, as some would have us believe. This is the Brazilian State recognizing, based on
concrete proof, that during the military dictatorship there were illegal imprisonments,
kidnappings, execution of prisoners, deaths due to torture, and disappearances. The
introduction records that the Dossier with the accusations pertaining to the cases, prepared
by the Commission of Family Members of the Political Dead and Disappeared, served
as the basis and starting point, with depositions, documents, and investigations that
corroborated the accusations.
1 Suzana Keniger Lisbôa is a member of the Commission of Family Members of the Political Dead and Disappeared.

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Analysis of the cases presented to CEMDP allowed for an advance in the recovery
of the truth. “There could not continue to be colliding versions such as the innumerable
fraudulently communicated ones,” notes the Introduction. The dictatorship’s official
false versions regarding suicides, persons being run over, and shootings, denounced for
years by family members and political prisoners, fell apart after being confronted with
photos of the bodies of tortured militants; with the laconic necroscopic reports prepared
by persons enmeshed in the system; with the testimony of survivors; with reports by
technical experts from the era; from exhumations made by family members in search
of the truth; with the investigative reports requested by CEMDP; with documents
recovered from security organizations. Each case put to a vote was well-armed with
proofs.
The book tries to relate the history of each of the deaths and disappearances, show
the victims faces, record their lives, and relate the conditions under which they died. It
depicts the arduous effort by family members with regard to the assembly and preparation
of the cases and by CEMDP with regard to examining them. All cases were fully
discussed and some passed through many reviews prior to the final vote. Democratically,
all members had access to all case and to the proofs presented prior to casting their
vote. After reading the book, there is no way it can be claimed that the
voting wasn’t in accordance with formal procedure and strictly followed the letter
of the law.
In the first phase, begun based on Law 9.140/95, many cases from the Dossier on
Political Deaths and Disappearances were rejected by the majority of the members as
not following within legal guidelines. Two later laws, those of 2002 and 2004, widened
the criteria with an eye to providing greater scope, thus permitting approval of almost
all cases. But, even so, there were rejected cases that may still be revisited, should new
proofs be presented. Such was the situation with the cases of Miriam Lopes Verbena
and Luiz Andrade de Sá e Benevides, militants killed in a car crash; and with that of
Father João Bosco Penido Burnier, rejected in the first CEMDP phase. With regard to
some of the dead or disappeared, not even their names are yet certain. This occurred
with the Var-Palmares driver known as Baiano, who disappeared in 1973 and who
might be named José Carlos Costa. This is also the case with Wilton Ferreira, who died
in Rio de Janeiro. And again in the case of the foreigner who died at the DOI-CODI/
SP in November 1973, who might be a Venezuelan named Miguel Sabat Nuet. There
are incomplete histories of life and death that disclosure in this book and total access to
the files will clarify.
A reading shows that almost all the dead were militants from political organizations
who fought the military dictatorship, especially those engaged in armed combat. The
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TO

M EMORY AND THE TRUTH

chronological sequence of the described facts allows us to identify the intensification of
political repression and the decision to eliminate the guerrillas and leaders of the clandestine
organizations.
The first cases related refer to the Ipatinga Massacre, in the Minas city of that name,
in 1963. Five thousand workers demonstrated against the terrible working conditions at
Usiminas. Surrounde by the Miliatry Police, they were dispersed by gun shots. The official
version of the time stated threw re eight deaths, including a 3 month old girl, and 78
wounded. Commentary at the time referenced dozens of deaths, but only five cases
were presented and accepted. In 1964, 15 dead. By 1968, another 21.
With AI-5 and intensification of political repression, in 1968 we have 21 dead and in
1970, 31 were recorded. The following years illustrate in numbers the dictatorship’s
policy of extermination: nearly 60 per year. In 1974 there were 54—all disappeared,
with the exception of two suicides abroad. Brother Tito, in France, and Maria Auxiliadora
Lara Barcelos, in Germany, sought death to free themselves from the violence of the
torture that incarcerated them.
The last death rejected by CEMDP was that of Gustavo Buarque Schiller, in 1985.
Banished from the country in the same kidnapping as Brother Tito and Maria Auxiliadora,
Gustavo, known as Bicho to his friends, returned home under the Amnesty, but was
unable to free himself from the consequences of torture and threw himself from his
apartment window in Rio de Janeiro—the same city in which The Right to Memory and
the Truth records the first death after the military coup, that of the lovely sixty year old
Labibe Elias Abduch, who died on April 1, 1964.
The accounts cover not only the 221 accepted cases and the militants who disappeared
whose names appear in the Attachment to Law 9.140, but also cases that, in spite of
being rejected, constitute a part of history: the peasant leader João Pedro Teixeira; the
Communist worker Angelina Gonçalves; the Var-Palmares manager James Allen da
Luz, killed in a car accident in Rio Grande do Sul; the guerrilla Jane Vanini, who died in
Concepción and is venerated in Chile as one of the heroines of the Chilean people’s
fight for liberty.
The book’s 500 pages reveal details from widely publicized histories and from
others that were totally unknown. Among the approved cases, there were 34 deaths that
did not appear in the Dossier on Political Deaths and Disappearances, and 13 new cases
of disappearances. Some cases should yet be reexamined by CEMDP, which should
concentrate on seeking bodies and should also systematize the collection of testimonies
not only from family members, journalists, former political prisoners, but also from
agents of the organs of repression—a task which will only be possible if the
Commission’s powers are broadened.
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Among many others, one of the histories revealed by CEMDP’s work was that of
the Bolivian student Juan Antonio Carrasco Forrastal, whose story could only be known
through expansion of Law 9.140.
Juan lived in Brazil with his parents and brother, Jorge Rafael. Juan wanted to be a
physicist. He was a hemophiliac and had a prosthesis on his leg. Jorge studied Engineering
and lived at CRUSP. At the end of 1968 Jorge was taken prisoner when the 2nd Army
invaded the USP campus. Juan went out to look for his brother and ended up also
being imprisoned by the 2nd Army; both he and his brother were tortured.
In the torture, Juan’s mechanical leg was removed and his walking stick taken from
him. He couldn’t move. Because he was hemophilic, the beatings he suffered caused
hemorrhages in his body. With the help of the Bolivian Consulate, his parents had him
transferred to the Clinic Hospital for a while, but he was then removed again by the
Army and taken to the Cambuci Military Hospital, where he remained under constant
psychological torture.
The two brothers found each other when they were taken to the Quitaúna Barracks,
in Osasco, and there, by order of Colonel Albin, they were sexually violated and their
bodies burned with cigarettes.
Just before the beginning of the 1969 school year, they were let go. Jorge Rafael
returned to his studies, graduated in Electronic Engineering, and went to live in Curitiba.
Juan was still trying to get his life back, when his brother died a year later in a car accident.
Physically and psychologically shaken by the torture, Juan couldn’t stand the pain. He
had only one year to go to finish the Nuclear Physics course, but he couldn’t study
anymore. He was hospitalized various times, but the treatment didn’t help.
In an attempt to save him from the fear that paralyzed him, his parents took him to
Spain. After 12 days at the Red Cross Hospital, Juan became delirious and committed
suicide in the one brief moment he was alone. It was October 28, 1972. On that same
date, in São Paulo, the noted student and USP professor Antonio Benetazzo was taken
prisoner. He was assassinated under torture two days later at the São Paulo DOI-CODI.
Aside from being the most important official historical record of those who died in
the fight against the dictatorship, “The Right to Memory and the Truth” is a tool for
continuing the fight. That is the promise it makes.
For family members, we fight so that there may be full disclosure of all files, and for
the creation of a Truth Commission that will give the Special Commission on Political
Deaths and Disappearances the power to investigate, to effectively seek the bodies of
those who disappeared for political reasons, establish the circumstances of their deaths,
and identify those responsible for the crimes committed.
So that we will not forget. So that it will never happen again.
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Landless family migrating from the Northeast

There is no doubt that the Maria da Penha Law represents an important
achievement for the feminist and women’s movements and represents a
significant advance in Brazilian Legislation with regard to the struggle
against domestic and family violence towards women. But this advance
and the resulting mobilizing effects on society and the state to effectively
implement the Maria da Penha Law should not diminish the need to
adopt or review other laws and public policies to combat the various
forms of violence against women.

Human Rights for Women and
Violence Against Women:
Advances and Limits of the Maria da Penha Law1
Cecília MacDowell Santos2
During the 1990s, the Latin American and Caribbean Committee on the Defense
of Women’s Rights (CLADEM) launched a series of campaigns and prepared several
publications aimed at promoting international instruments for the protection of the
Human Rights of Women in Latin America. CLADEM-Brazil, with offices located in
1 This article is partially extracted and slightly modified from the revised translation and expanded version of the book by the author
entitled: Women’s Police Stations: Violence, Gender, and Justice in São Paulo, Brazil, to be published in Brazil by Hucitec Press in
São Paulo. I thank the support of the University of San Francisco, through the Faculty Development Fund, which financed this
research in Brazil in August 2006. I also thank the support by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (Science and Technology
Foundation – FCT) in Portugal, through a contract with Associated Laboratory of the Centre for Social Sciences of the University
of Coimbra, which made possible the realization of this project. I am specially thankful to Maria da Penha Maia Fernandes, Maria
Amélia de Almeida Teles, and Valéria Pandjiarjian, as well as the staff of the Special Office for Policies on Women and of the Special
Office on Human Rights, who granted interviews and furnished information on the cases against Brazil taken to the Interamerican
Human Rights Commission.
2 Cecília MacDowell Santos is Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology at the University of San Francisco, California,
and researcher at the Centre for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra.

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São Paulo and led by the renowned jurist and feminist Sílvia Pimentel, had a fundamental role in promoting the human rights for women discourse in Brazil. In 1993, CLADEMBrazil published a book about “women and the construction of human rights,” focusing
on the issue of violence against women as a violation of human rights (CLADEMBrazil 1993). Two years later, it published an anthology on the “declaration of human
rights” from the “gender perspective” (CLADEM-Brazil 1995). CLADEM-Brazil also
launched the campaign “Without Women, Rights Are Not Human.”
Since then, militant Brazilian feminists and the federal government have framed the
issue of violence against women as a violation of human rights. 3 In addition, the feminist
discourse has also pluralized its language on violence. For example, the Patrícia Galvão
Institute, with the support of Special Office for Policies on Women (SPM), and the
Prosare-Citizenship and Reproduction Committee published a booklet on violence entitled:
“Violence Against Women – Where There is Violence, Everyone is a Loser” (Patrícia
Galvão Institute 2004). Although the title addresses violence in general, the booklet and
the campaign specifically address domestic violence (Patrícia Galvão Institute 2004, 15).
In effect, the pluralized terminology of “violence against women” and framing this
violence as “violation of the human rights of women” have not altered the predominant
feminist discourse on violence, which is still pushed into the category of gender and has
as its principal object domestic and family violence against women.4 To this end, Law
number 11.340/2006, known as the “Maria da Penha” Law, that deals with the restraint
of “domestic and family violence against women,” sanctions the hegemony of the
discourse. There is no question that such law represents an important advance in the
feminist and women’s movements, as it is a significant development in Brazilian legislation
on combating domestic violence against women. But this development and its resulting
social and political mobilizing effects to successfully implement the “Maria da Penha”
Law should not diminish the need to adopt or reform laws and public policies on
combating the varied forms of violence against women.
With regard to the human rights of women discourse, it is important to note that
“Brazil is a signatory to all international agreements to ensure, directly or indirectly, the
human rights of women as well as elimination of all forms of gender discrimination
and violence” (Freire 2006, 9). Starting in the mid-1990s, Brazil ratified the following
international agreements, protocols, and plans related to women’s rights in addition to
other international instruments on human rights: The InterAmerican Agreement for
3 In addition to CLADEM-Brazil (1993; 1995) publications, see also the Rio De Janeiro State Board for Women’s Rights (1993);
Juridical Advisory Board on Gender Studies-Themis (1997); State Office of Women’s Rights-SEDIM and AGENDE-Gender
Actions, Citizenship, and Development (2002); Frossard (2006); Teles (2006); Thurler (2006).
4 These observations can be found in Cadernos AGENDE (Vol. 5, December 2004), entitled “Violence against women: The
experience of empowering the DEAMs (Special Women’s Police Stations) of the Center-West Region” edited by L. Bandiera et al.

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ADVANCES AND LIMITS OF THE M ARIA DA PENHA LAW

Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence Against Women (Belém, Pará
Agreement, 1994), which Brazil endorsed in 1995; the Program for Action of the IV
World Conference on Women, endorsed by United Nations and Brazil in 1995; the
Elective Agreement to the Accord to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against
Women, adopted by the UN in 1999, signed by the Brazilian government in 2001, and
approved by the National Congress in 2002. In March 1983, Brazil signed, with limits,
the Accord to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, known as
CEDAW, endorsed by the UN in 1979. In 1984, CEDAW was approved by the Congress,
maintaining the limits previously imposed. It was only ten years later, in 1994, that the
Brazilian government removed the limits and signed the Agreement in its entirety (Freire
2006, 9). In 1992, Brazil also signed the American Agreement on Human Rights, which
made possible the processing of a greater number of reports of human rights violations
in Brazil initiated by NGOs and victims.
Due to the ineffective processing of domestic violence cases against women by the
Judicial power, the feminist NGOs begin looking into the possibility of requesting
protection at the international agencies for the defense of human rights, denouncing the
impunity and the failure of the Brazilian state to follow through in the justice department
and enforce the human rights of women. In the second half of the 1990s, two cases
were sent to the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights: those of Márcia Leopoldi,
in 1996; and of Maria da Penha, in 1998.
Brief examination of the two cases shows that although the women’s police stations
had been created, there was a need to transform the entire Brazilian criminal justice
system, and to implement more efficient mechanisms for prevention and restraint of
domestic violence against women. The handling of the two cases reveals the Brazilian
government’s disregard foraccusations made at the international level on domestic
violence against women, as well as the sluggish Interamerican Human Rights System.
These two cases also show that the feminist movements played an important role in
politicizing and materialization of the discourse on “the human rights of women,”
which contributed to some legal changes concerning domestic violence against women.
These two cases show chiefly that the victims and their families did not give up and
transformed their pain and suffering into action for justice, seeking persistently and with
determination collective ways to fight for women’s rights in Brazilian society.
In 1984, Márcia Cristina Leopoldi was murdered by her ex-boyfriend, José Antônio Brandão do Lago, who, refusing to accept their break up, strangled the victim in her
apartment in the city of Santos. In the first trial, in 1992, the jury condemned the
defendant to five years in prison. In the same year, the victim’s sister, Deise Leopoldi,
turned to the Women’s Union of São Paulo and became a member of that institution,
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and is now its vice-president. The Women’s Union then mobilized around the case on
various fronts by organizing campaigns, protests at courthouses, marches, and by
denouncing the case at feminist forums and human rights organizations, at the local,
national, and international levels. The Márcia Leopoldi case was the focus of the campaign
“Impunity is the Accomplice of Violence,” promoted by the Women’s Union in 1992 in
connection with the Black Woman’s Cultural Center. In that same year, Lago underwent
a second court trial and sentenced to fifteen years of prison. He was detained for two
months in Santos Jail, received a habeas corpus, which allowed him to wait in freedom
for the decision on his appeal at the State of São Paulo Superior Court. His sentence
was announced in 1993, but by then Lago was a fugitive. He was finally arrested in
2005, twelve years later. His arrest occurred only after Deise Leopoldi took the case to
the Globo Network TV show “Mais Você” (“It’s All About You”) hosted by Ana
Maria Braga.5
In 1996, nine years before the arrest of Lago, the Women’s Union of São Paulo in
conjunction with CLADEM-Brazil, the Center for International Rights and Justice (CEJIL),
and Human Rights Watch denounced Márcia Leopoldi’s case to the InterAmerican Human
Rights Committee (CIDH). The appeal was based on the American Convention on
Human Rights and on the Belém do Pará Convention. The CIDH filed the case in 1998
under number 11.996. In that same year, the Brazilian government responded to the
request for information from CIDH alleging that, among other items, that the defendant’s
truancy should not be attributed to the habeas corpus, and that the authorities were looking
for him. In 2004, the CIDH requested updated information from the accusers to decide
on the admissibility of the case. The petitioners faced the major challenge to proving the
inefficiency of the State of São Paulo Public Security System in capturing the defendant.
At that time CLADEM-Brazil and CEJIL were hesitant to proceed at the CIDH, doubting
their capability to win this case. Deise Leopoldi and other members of the Women’s
Union did not give up.6 Even after Lago’s arrest, the members of the Women’s Union
were certain that the case should be taken and decided by CIDH. As the founder of the
Women’s Union, Maria Amélia de Almeida Teles explained in an interview granted to the
author in 2006: “We want the Brazilian State to be condemned for negligence and ineptness,
and that it be required to create and implement public policies on combating, punishing,
and preventing violence against women.” 7
The Maria da Penha case had the same goals, in addition to other more specific
goals regarding the victim’s right to reparation. This case was decisive in setting forth the
5 See Leopoldi et al. (2007) for more details.
6 See Leopoldi et al. (2007) for more details on bringing the case before the Interamerican Human Rights Commission.
7 Interview with Maria Amélia de Almeida Teles, San Francisco, California, March 4, 2006.

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ADVANCES AND LIMITS OF THE M ARIA DA PENHA LAW

“Maria da Penha” Law in August 2006 to curb domestic violence against women, further
explained below. In May and June of 1983, Maria da Penha Fernandes was the victim of
two murder attempts by her ex-husband Marco Antônio Heredia Viveros, and the first
attempt left her paraplegic. In the first court trial, nine years after he committed the crime,
Viveros was sentenced to fifteen years of prison, which was reduced to ten years because it
was his first offense. In 1996, the jury decision was annulled and he was retried and sentenced
to ten years and six months of prison. The defendant appealed several times, including by
means of corruption, which allowed Viveros to remain in freedom for nineteen years, finally
being arrested in October of 2002, just before the expiration of the statute of limitation. We
can assert that the conclusion of the judicial process conclusion and the arrest of the defendant
only occurred thanks to pressure from the Interamerican Human Rights Commission, which
took on the case in 1998.
The Maria da Penha case was taken to CIDH by CLADEM-Brazil, by CEJIL, and by
the victim, Maria da Penha. The complaint was based on the American Convention on
Human Rights and on the Belém do Pará Convention. In April 2001, CIDH published a
report on the merits of the case, concluding that Brazil violated Maria da Penha’s right to due
process. This violation was seen by CIDH as part of a pattern of discrimination evidenced
by the acceptance of violence against women in Brazil, through an inept judicial system.
CIDH made the following recommendations to the Brazilian State: that it conduct a serious,
impartial, and exhaustive investigation seeking to establish the aggressor’s responsibility for
the attempted murder of Maria da Penha; identify the practices by agents of the state that
posed obstacles to the rapid and efficient procedure of judicial actions against the defendant;
provide immediate monetary compensation to the victim; adopt measures at the national
level to end tolerance by agents of the state with regard to violence against women. 8
As observed by CEJIL, CLADEM, and AGENDE, “the extreme relevance and
importance of this case surpass Maria da Penha’s personal interest to include all Brazilian
women.” 9 In addition to the recommendations by CIDH pertaining to reparation of
the victim’s individual rights, this was the first case in which an international human rights
organization applied the Belém do Pará Convention, issuing an unpublished decision in
which a country who signed the convention was also, for the first time, responsible for
domestic violence practiced by an individual. Thus, the “Maria da Penha case became a
symbolic case for recognizing a pattern of systematic domestic violence against women,
and for establishing the state’s responsibility at the international level due to the inefficiency
of the judicial system at the national level.” 10
8 Report No. 54/01, Case 12.051, Interamerican Human Rights Commission.
9 CEJIL, CLADEM, and AGENDE (2003).
10 Ibid.

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In spite of several communications between CIDH and the Brazilian government,
the case was ignored by the Brazilian authorities during almost all the mandate of President
Fernando Henrique Cardoso – even when CIDH published its report on the merits of
the case in which it condemned the Brazilian government. It was only in October of
2002 that Solange Bentes, then Secretary of the newly created Department of Women’s
Rights (SEDIM), made an effort to have the Superior Court review the appeals presented
by Viveros’ attorneys in 2000.11 In 2003, the women’s movement mentioned this case in
a document sent to the Committee on the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), in which it denounced, among other things,
the Brazilian State’s failure to fulfill CIDH’s recommendations regarding the Maria da
Penha case.12
During its first year, the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva administration also ignored the
Maria da Penha case. In 2003 Lula created the Special Department on Policies for
Women (SPM), and it was only in the first part of 2004 that it began to take action to
follow through on CIDH’s recommendations. In March 2004, President Lula created
an Inter-Departmental Working Group to draft a bill on mechanisms to combat and
prevent domestic violence against women (Law Decree n. 5.030 of March 31, 2004).
The Working Group, managed by SPM under the supervision of Minister Nilcéa Freire,
was subsidized by a Consortium of Feminist Non-Governmental Organization
composed of ADVOCACY, AGENDE, THEMIS, CLADEM/IPÊ, CEPIA, and
CFEMEA, which prepared a draft of the bill. After consulting with representatives
from civil society through seminars and debates around the country, SPM sent the Bill
4.559/2004 to the President of the House of Representatives and to the President of
Brazil, which later became Law 11.340, on August 7, 2006 (known as the “Maria da
Penha Law”). In its “Explanatory Statement” the bill explicitly referred to the
condemnation of the Brazilian government in the Maria da Penha case.
The “Maria da Penha” Law was so named to symbolically provide reparation to
Maria da Penha Maia Fernandes for the sluggish performance of the Brazilian Justice
System in the judicial procedures against her attacker. Maria da Penha was a special guest
in the Presidential ceremony to sign the law on August 7, 2006. In Maria da Penha’s words:
First they invited me to watch the ceremony of signing the law into effect. The day
before, the secretary from the Secretary’s Office called me and said: “we’re thinking of
naming the law after you.” And I answered: “I don’t believe it! Am I now going to be
famous?” Joking, you know. Then that evening I received a call from a reporter who
said: “How do you feel having a law named after you?” I said: “And is it really true?”
11 Department of Women’s Rights – SEDIM (2002).
12 See CEJIL, CLADEM-Brazil, and AGENDE (2003).

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That is when I got it… Look, I cannot even begin to tell you; I was so touched by the
people naming the law after me, and it’s catchy because people do not remember the
number of the law, but that it’s called “Maria da Penha.” 13
The act of signing the law into effect on September 22, 2006 had great
repercussions among the media, society, women’s movements, and several government
departments, including the Executive and Judiciary branches. Several newspapers and
radio and television stations publicized the news widely. 14 The women’s movement
mobilized around the implementation of this new law and has since been debating the
conditions regarding its applicability. On September 18, 2006, the Women’s Forums of
sixteen states participated in a debate on the implementation of this law, by means of a
videoconference organized by the Articulation of Brazilian Women (AMB). Under
Decree 479/2006, President Lula created a Committee to Establish Specialized
Jurisdictions for Family and Domestic Violence Against Women, under Law 11.340/
2006. In February 2007, SPM published a call to “non-governmental organizations
and/or academic institutions to organize consortia to present proposals for a Monitoring
Entity for Implementation and Expansion of Law 11.340/2006”
(www.spmulheres.gov.br). The State Superior Court of Mato Grosso published a
multidisciplinary manual to facilitate implementation of Law 11.340/2006 by public
agencies (State Superior Court of Mato Grosso 2007).
The objective of Law 11.340/2006 is to create “mechanisms to repress family and
domestic violence against women,” in other words, it focuses on a specific form of
violence against women. There are several innovations under this law, such as the withdrawal
from the jurisdiction of Special Criminal Trial Courts to judge crimes of “family and
domestic violence against women,” independent of the type of sentence issued. Although
the advent of this law is extremely important and demanded by the women’s movement
since the 1980s, it should be noted that it confers irrefutable hegemony for one form of
violence against women, that is “family and domestic violence against women,” conceived
to be a “violation of the human rights of women” (Article 6).
With the growing knowledge of the plurality of interests and the differences among
women, according to feminist discourse, Law 11.340/2006 mentions race, ethnicity,
and sexual orientation in several articles. But the definition of “family and domestic
13 Telephone interview with Maria da Penha Maia Fernandes on April 3, 2007. It is important to note that even though the law
served to partially meet the demands made by CIDH, up to the day of the interview Maria da Penha had not received the monetary
compensation which the state of Ceará was ordered to pay. Those responsible for the sluggish procedures in the Judicial system also have
not been identified or punished.
14 The event was widely publicized by several TV networks, such as Rede Globo, which covered the story in the Jornal Hoje, Jornal
Globo, and Jornal Nacional [three main news hour broadcasts on Globo TV]. The AM Radios Joven Pan and Nacional also
publicized the event. There were also several articles on the site http://copodeleite.rits.org.br/apc-aa-patriciagalvao/home/index.shtml,
accessed on September 18, 2006.

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violence against women” is based solely on the category of gender, and focuses above
all on marital violence. As established on Article 5: “To the effects of this Law, family
and domestic violence against women is defined as any action or omission based on
forms that cause death, injury, physical, sexual, or psychological suffering, and moral or
property damages.” Violence may occur in the “realm of the domestic unit” (Article 5,
clause I), in the “realm of the family” (Article 5, clause II), or “in any intimate or
affective relationship” (Article 5, clause III). This definition is important because it
considers “family and domestic violence” as instances of violence which occur not only
in the domestic space, but having as a basis gender relations. In addition, the forms of
family and domestic violence provided for in Law 11.340/2006 are not restricted to
physical, sexual, or psychological violence; they also include moral and property damages
(Articles 5 and 7). In the event that family and domestic violence results in bodily damages,
Law 11.340/2006 increased detention time from six months to one year, with a minimum
prison time of three months to a maximum of three years (Article 44). If the crime is
committed against a disabled individual, the punishment is increased by one third.
In addition to expanding the concept of family and domestic violence and increasing
punishment in view of the physical limitations of the victim, Law 11.340/2006 takes
into consideration the “sexual orientation” of the parties involved in the personal
relationships as described in Article 5, even though it may not seem to address violence
against lesbians based on discrimination due to sexual orientation. The sole paragraph
of Article 5 provides for the following: “The personal relationships expressed in this
article are independent of sexual orientation.” This paragraph has been interpreted as
the juridical recognition that “homo-affective unions constitute a family entity.” 15 In my
view, it is necessary both to recognize homo-affective unions and to curb violence among
lesbians, but in this case it is a perverse recognition of homo-affective relations, which is
done through the criminalization of violent conjugal relations, which, in the light of the
Law, only warrants recognition of duties, and not rights. If this interpretation corresponds
to the legislators’ objective to criminalize violent marital relations, independent of sexual
orientation, this standard also reinforces the tendency to think of “family and domestic
violence against women” as only “conjugal violence.” Why not consider that the Sole
Paragraph of Article 5 also addresses situations of violence against lesbians committed
by her parents or other family members, in the realm of the domestic unit or the family?
In short, in several ways Law 11.340/2006 represents an advance for women’s
rights, but it also has limitations and sanctions the hegemony of feminist discourse on
violence against women based solely on the gender perspective, which in the case of the
15 See the article “Domestic violence and homo-affective unions – what does the Maria da Penha Law has to do with it?” at the site
http://www.comuniles.org.br/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=67&Itemid=36 (accessed on February 5, 2007).

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ADVANCES AND LIMITS OF THE M ARIA DA PENHA LAW

violence theme, is restricted even more to the realm of conjugal and family relations.
The problem does not lie in talking about family and domestic violence from the gender
perspective. The problem is not talking enough about the connections between this and
“other” forms of violence based on race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation which do not
occur solely in the domestic realm, and are also politicized in and outside of the feminist
movement. In my view, Law 11.340/2006 is not the end of the line in the adoption of
laws and public policies to combat the diverse forms of violence against women, including
the issue of domestic violence against women. This law was a great partial victory in a
long and arduous road of feminist struggles against all forms of discrimination and
violence against women. The women’s and feminist movements’ agenda should not be
set by the State’s agenda, although the opportunities afforded by the current political
conjuncture should be taken advantage of.

Works Cited
Bandeira, L. et al. (Org.). 2004. Cadernos AGENDE, vol. 5.
Centro pela Justiça e o Direito Internacional-CEJIL, CLADEM Brasil-Comitê Latino-Americano e do Caribe pela Defesa dos Direitos da Mulher e AGENDE-Ações
em Gênero, Cidadania e Desenvolvimento. 2003. Document for CEDAW on the
compliance by Brazil of shrunken obligations as State-party of the Convention concerning
violence against women: The case of Maria da Penha. Disponível no site
www.cladem.org/english/national/brasil/penhacedawi.asp (acessado em 11 de janeiro
de 2004).
CLADEM-Brasil. 1993. As mulheres e a construção dos direitos humanos. São
Paulo: CLADEM-Brasil.
———————. 1995. Declaração dos direitos humanos desde uma perspectiva
de gênero: Contribuições ao 50º aniversário da Declaração Universal dos Direitos Humanos. São Paulo: CLADEM-Brasil.
Conselho Estadual dos Direitos da Mulher do Rio de Janeiro. 1993. Direitos humanos da mulher. Rio de Janeiro: Governo do Estado do Rio de Janeiro.
Freire, Nilcéa. 2007. Apresentação. In Instrumentos internacionais de direitos das
mulheres, H. Frossard (Org.), 9-12. Brasília, D.F.: Secretaria Especial de Políticas para as
Mulheres.
Frossard, Heloisa. 2006. Instrumentos internacionais de direitos das mulheres. Brasília,
D.F.: Secretaria Especial de Políticas para as Mulheres.
Instituto Patrícia Galvão. 2004. Violência contra as mulheres – Campanha Onde
Tem Violência, Todo Mundo Perde. São Paulo: Instituto Patrícia Galvão.
Leopoldi, Deise, Maria Amélia de Almeida Teles e Terezinha de Oliveira Gonzaga.
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2007. Do silêncio ao grito contra a impunidade: Caso Márcia Leopoldi. São Paulo:
União de Mulheres de São Paulo.
Secretaria de Estado dos Direitos da Mulher-SEDIM e AGENDE-Ações em Gênero, Cidadania e Desenvolvimento. 2002. Direitos humanos das mulheres em outras
palavras: Subsídios para capacitação legal de mulheres e organizações. Brasília, DF: Secretaria de Estado dos Direitos da Mulher–SEDIM e AGENDE–Ações em Gênero,
Cidadania e Desenvolvimento.
Secretaria de Estado dos Direitos da Mulher-SEDIM. 2002. Secretaria de Direitos
da “Mulher lamenta morosidade no julgamento de crimes contra a mulher”. Brasília,
DF: Ministério da Justiça, Secretaria de Estado dos Direitos da Mulher.
Teles, Maria Amélia de Almeida. 2006. O que são os direitos humanos das mulheres. São Paulo: Brasiliense.
Themis-Assessoria Jurídica e Estudos de Gênero. 1997. Da guerra à paz: Os direitos humanos das mulheres: Instrumentos internacionais de proteção. Porto Alegre: ThemisAssessoria Jurídica e Estudos de Gênero.
Thurler, Ana Liési. 2006. “Violação aos direitos humanos das mulheres”. Disponível em http://www.cfemea.org.br/violencia/artigosetextos/artigosetextos.asp?
IDArea=1&Tio=Artigos+e+Textos (acessado em 12 de dezembro de 2006).

176

There has been a lot of discussion around the adoption of public
affirmative action policies for the Black population. The quest for
opportunities to access areas that have historically been denied has been
the focus of the Black movement over the last 10 years. For EDUCAFRO,
the historic inequalities accumulated from centuries of slavery cannot be
corrected with a simple apology. Concrete actions are needed above all
to combat unequal opportunities coming from racism.

White rights. Black rights. Human rights
“Black people have a collective project: to build a society founded on justice, equality, and
respect for all human beings; a society whose intrinsic nature make economic or racial
exploitation impossible. An authentic democracy, founded by the destitute and disinherited
of the earth.”
Abdias Nascimento, 1980:160

Douglas Elias Belchior1
The African continent, incomprehensible to “civilized” eyes, especially in the last five
centuries, served as the guinea pig for the interests of profit-seeking groups. Already by
1452, through the publiciation of Dum Diversas, Pope Nicolaus V authorized the “slavery
of the infidels”. Thence forward, the motherland of humanity would be the world’s
captive. From then on, occupation, the imposition of culture, human assault and genocide
would transform daily life on this continent. It is calculated that between the 16th and
the 19th centuries, more than 15 million African men and women were torn from their
lands. Of these, more than 40% were destined – when they didn’t die during the voyage—
1 Douglas Elias Belchior is a Professor with a degree in History from the Catholic University of Sao Paulo and the Coordinator of
the National Headquarters of EDUCAFRO

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for forced work in the sugar cane fields, in the mines, the coffee plantations, and other
killing occupations in Brazil. Enslaved, with their souls uncared for, according to the
evaluation of the Holy Catholic See, and with the status of merchandise, the Blacks/
Africans and their descendants began their saga in our country.
There was such intense oppression used against this people for so long and so
lucrative were the results, the wealth proportioned by the fruit of slave labor on the
sugar-cane plantations, from mining gold, silver, and diamonds, from the extraction of
rubber, or on coffee plantations and other activities that the “senhores” ordered, the
very marketing of African men and women signified one of the major undertakings of
the epoch. The sum of these commercial and financial activities and the resulting abundant
profits constitute the accumulation of capital needed for the advent of the system that
would come to dominate the planet. Not by chance, the English cities of Liverpool and
Manchester are noted in modern history as the cradle of world capitalism. As is well
known, they were port cities and fundamental poles for the sale of African people for
America.
For around 350 years, Brazil based itself on slavery. From the beginning of the
European presence, to maintain their rule, the ruling groups customarily put down slave
uprisings. In time, they perfected the forms of combat that went beyond brute force.
There arose legal and juridical actions of the State that had as their goal the control and
later the extermination of the black population. Besides daily violence, the “State”, since
the time it was a colony, promoted genocide by its own hands and the marginalization
of the black people.
During the 19th century, the colonial government implemented Decree 1331 with
the constitution of 1824. According to this law, no “children who carried contagious
diseases, or were not vaccinated, or slaves” could be admitted to school. The prohibition
of the presence of blacks in schools lasted until 1889. The historical difference in levels
of schooling observed even today in the black population certainly has its origin in this
action by the State. In a study done in 2006, the Intersyndicate Department of Statistics
and Socio-Economic Studies (Departamento Intersindical de Estatísticas e Estudos Sócio
Econômicos or DIEESE) confirmed what dozens of other studies reveal each year: an
enormous distance between blacks and whites in relation to rates of unemployment
and level of schooling. The data show that only 6.6% of Blacks completed secondary
school. Among non-blacks, the percentage changes to 20.7%. Among all the states studied,
the state of São Paulo presents the biggest distortions. Only 3.9% of Blacks have a
secondary school diploma. Among whites, 18.9% have diplomas – a number that is five
times greater. In relation to wages, according to the Brazilian Institute for Geography
and Statistics (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística, or IBGE) in a study done in
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2006, black professionals make only 51.1% of the income of white professionals, or
just half. In September of the same year, still according to the study, in the six main
metropolitan regions of the country, while blacks received R$660.45, whites had a median
salary of R$1292.19. Such data reinforce the theory that the wage differential is integrally
related to level of schooling as well as to skin color.
In 1850, with the high number of freed blacks establishing families and with the
occupation by Quilombos of large areas, the Imperial Government instituted the socalled Law of Lands, that regulated its property, thus ensuring rule by the large landowners.
The concentration of hereditary ownership of the land goes back to the times of the
Hereditary Companies and is reflected today as a fundamental element in the structure
of national poverty. The Sesmarias Law was repealed the same year as Independence,
1822, and almost 30 years later the Law of Lands was created, which would orient the
nation’s land ownership structure up to today. The Law determined that whoever wanted
to have a right to land should pay for it –which excluded the better part of the Brazilian
population, which had no resources. At this point the number of freed Negroes was
very large. This population in particular5 was kept from the right to land ownership
precisely because it constituted the majority of the dispossessed. Once again the State, in
the service of private interests, would impede access to fundamental goods by the
African population and their descendants.
Between 1864 and 1870, Brazil became involved in a large-scale armed conflict:
The Paraguayan War, considered to be the largest and bloodiest international armed
conflict to occur on the American continent. Political justification for the conflict was
based on the preoccupation of Dom Pedro II’s government with political instability in
Uruguay, which might influence recently-pacified Rio Grande do Sul. The Emperor,
through an ultimatum, resolved to interfere in internal Uruguayan politics. The reaction
of the Paraguayan military which ensued triggered the war. Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay
became allies and defeated Paraguay, decimating close to 90% of that nation’s male
population. With regard to political factors, the fact is that under the influence of racist
ideas from Europe, veritable multitudes of blacks were recruited—with the promise
of freedom—for the death ranks of the Paraguayan War. It is estimated that nearly 1
million blacks died in the conflict, which reduced the presence of blacks and descendants
of Africans in the Brazilian population from 45% to 33%.
The second half of the 19th century, particularly after the prohibition of the
transatlantic African slave trade—imposed by the English (in 1850), saw the end coming
of the slave –owning period in Brazil. Large scale escapes of slaves, added to the evergreater number of freed slaves, strengthened this trend. Under the influence of liberal
ideas, abolitionist political groups were organized. In response to these pressures and as
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a way to prolong the end of slavery, the State interfered for the first time in the slavemaster relationship and set up regulations. The Free Womb Law was enacted, guaranteeing
the “right” to freedom of all those born of a slave mother. But how could freedom be
guaranteed to a newborn if his mother was still a slave? As authorized by that same Law,
the newborn could remain under the care of the Master, rendering services until 21
years of age, when he would chose between continuing in servitude or go free. In this
case would be obligated, as it were, to indemnify the former owner for his investment.
There is no doubt about the perversity of the effects of this law. Children were abandoned
by their mothers in Santas Casas de Misericórdia and government orphanages, where
there was a record of ill treatment and deaths. Abandoned children appeared on the
streets, especially in southeastern Brazil.
Similarly, in 1885, the Sexagenarian Law was enacted in 1885, guaranteeing freedom
to slave over the age of 60. In practice, such a regulation condemned those slaves who
miraculously lived to 60 to abandonment and a marginal existence. Both the Free Womb
Law and the Sexagenarian Law served more to calm rebellious abolitionists and slaves
than to actually benefit the enslaved. For years both were treated in the classroom as
beneficial concessions for the enslaved population. Today, however, we see how
detrimental they were for building citizenship0 for the African descendant population. It
must be noted that in 1890, in writing the first Republican Penal Code, the legal age for
imputability lowered from 14 to 9. During the first four decades after the end of
formal slavery, that legal age of 9 remained in force in Brazil. Evidently, knowledgeable
regarding constructed reality, the groups in charge had to institute repressive and
containment actions against the enormous black population condemned to misery.
The last decades of the 19th century were marked by European political and
ideological influences. And not only liberal thinking gained adherents. From the 1860s
on, in particular the core of power, including Emperor Dom Pedro II himself, were
influenced by racist ideas. Based on the theories of the Frenchman Count Joseph Arthur
de Gobineau (1816-1882). The State began to act deliberately to whiten the Brazilian
population. We can see such influence even in the mass calling up of a large black
African and African descendant contingent to fight in the Paraguayan War. However,
nothing characterizes this thinking being put into practice better than the European
immigration policies enacted beginning in the second half of the 19th century.
The Brazilian State, since the mid-18th century and up to the beginning of the 20th,
established public policies for European immigration. These, especially in the last decades
of their implementation, had as their basis the “whitening” and consequent “improvement
in the population’s quality,” which, according to then current thinking, would be degraded
by the African and African descendant presence. This motivation was coupled with
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political justifications such as the occupation of strategic areas from the geopolitical
point of view, the creation of an agrarian middle class with the transformation of the
land ownership structure, and its connection to the food production and supply for the
internal market. Particularly beginning in the 1860s, the State assumed the burden and
financed the arrival of thousands of European immigrants, chiefly Italians, Spanish, and
Portuguese, but also Germans, Austrians, Polish, and, at the end of this period, Japanese.
These took over the functions previously performed by slaves on the coffee plantations,
as well as occupying other positions on the job market, including in the nascent industrial
sector. The immigrants, in spite of the degree of exploitation to which they were
submitted, had sufficient opportunities guaranteed by the State to provide for social
mobility.
After the republican declaration of the so-called “Formal equality among all citizens,”
one more crime was committed, given that blacks, excluded from the conditions necessary
for access to land, education, and the job market, were in no position to compete withy
white immigrants under the new economic reality of the country. In spite of equality
before the law, various incentive policies—affirmative actions—directed at the European
immigrant populations were not duplicated for the descendants of Africans. This entire
enormous black contingent would remain on the sidelines, prejudicially marginalized
from the social and economic development process from then on throughout the 20th
century.
The response by the black populace to this picture of injustices was never limited to
cries of pain. Black intelligence and physical strength, so well taken advantage of by
European explorers, were also employed in rebel actions. The most typical of these
were mass escapes and organization of communities of escaped slaves, the most wellknown of which being the Quilombo of Palmares. Since Zumbi, black resistance grew
in force and achieved great advances in the search of justice and liberty. Cabanada,
Cabanagem, the Males Revolt, Farroupilha, Balaiada, Canudos, the Abolitionist
Movement, the Chibata Revolt, the Brazilian Black Front, the Experimental Black Theatre
all figure, among many other actions not recorded by history, as a memorial to this
history of resistance. Black organizations gained power and achieved great advances in
the search for justice and the end to racism. However, we can see how much resistance
the demands of the black population meet from the white/bourgeois oligarchies which
are still dominant in our country.
The Brazilian State is, from the historical point of view, the great promoter of the
inhumane conditions to which the African descendant population is still subject, while
society as a whole, from the viewpoint of ethics and justice, has the moral duty to
support concrete actions aimed at lessening such inequalities.
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There has been a lot of discussion around the adoption of public affirmative action
policies for the Black population. The quest for opportunities to access areas that have
historically been denied has been the focus of the Black movement over the last 10
years. For EDUCAFRO, the historic inequalities accumulated from centuries of slavery
cannot be corrected with a simple apology. Concrete actions are needed above all to
combat unequal opportunities coming from racism. To that end, we support Affirmative
Action for blacks in all areas, espcially with regard to university admittance quotas, given
that public universities continue to be a privileged space for the white, rich elite. Their
children are still monopolizing access to knowledge and power, holding 92% of the
seats at public Brazilian universities.

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In the Amazon, sustainable development became a fashionable concept.
In the name of sustainability, Gusa Norte intends to plant clonal
eucalyptus, a species developed in a laboratory, in an area of 4.1 thousand
hectares. Their justification is based on the premise that “reforestation is
most important for the steel sector and for the future of the business,
which cannot base its production on unsustainable exploitation, such as
the use of native forest.”

Debate about Development
in the Amazonian Context
Lindomar Silva1

Recent History
The Amazon of the last 50 years is a product of exogenous development
implemented by the military regime, based on a practical-theoretical matrix of conservative
modernization. The military regime had a modernization plan permeated by the National
Security Doctrine, whose general objective was to turn Brazil into a nation comparable
to developed countries. To this end, with the aim of modernizing the country, successive
governments sought to achieve various strategic objectives that varied from institutional
reforms, such as the creation of the Central Bank, to the stimulus of the economy, and
to the settlement and integration of the Amazonian region.
Based on the logic of ensuring the presence and colonization of the Amazon, the
federal government granted tax incentives in order to stimulate export-orientated activities.
These incentives benefit private companies. Thus, the government strengthened the
1
Lindomar Silva is a sociologist, specializing in the development of Amazonian areas and working towards a Masters Degree in the
Development and Planning of Amazonia at the Federal University of Para, Nucleus of Senior Amazonian Studies; currently he
holds the position of Regional Secretary of Cáritas Brasileira Regional Norte II.

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tendency to prioritize major agro-industrial companies, cattle production and private
colonization projects, associated with investments in infrastructure and extraction and
processing of minerals (Brasil, 1974).
This harsh incorporation of the region failed to promote an occupation that was
efficient and organized. Indeed, such investments produced fantastic economic gains
for national and international companies and accelerated the impoverishment of the
population, original resident or migrant to the region. At the same time, it produced a
process of unequal and perverse spatial occupation, resulting in predatory exploitation
of natural resources, which places value on large farm estates (latifúndio) and the
concentration of land holdings, and aggravates social disparities.

Amazonia in the 1990s
The model established in the region, focusing on conservative modernization, resulted
in negative impacts for the local populations and the environment, even within the context
where global society was discussing a way to balance economic growth and environmental
preservation, as well as to achieve social justice and human development. It was in this
environment that the then-government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC) launched,
in 1998, a program called “Eixos Nacionais de Integração e Desenvolvimento”
(National Axes of Integration and Development), that, in practice, signified a return
to the military government’s old concept of development. In the document “Brazil in
Action” (Brasil, 1996), instead of Pólos de Desenvolvimento (Poles of Development),
the government moved to adopt the Eixos de Desenvolvimento plan. For the
government, the difference between the two consisted in the latter’s potential to generate
positive effects for a much wider area to the extent that infrastructure and economic
development were designed in an integrated way. The Eixos de Desenvolvimento,
also known as the Corredores de Integração (Corridors of Integration), came to have
as its principle objective the integration of the various regional economies, in addition
to better coordination with the international market.
The Eixos de Desenvolvimento plan places more emphasis on the actual flows of
goods and services and introduces in the planning a broad concept of sustainability,
taking into account the realities of each territory and its social, economic and environmental
questions. The Eixos were defined by four criteria: the existing transport network; the
functional hierarchy of cities; the identification of the dynamic foci in the country; and
the characterization of the ecosystems in the different Brazilian regions (BNDES/Consórcio Brasiliana, 2000). These criteria were used to divide the national territory into nine
Eixos: the Northern Arc; Madeira-Amazonas; Araguaia- Tocantins; West; Southwest;
Transnortheast; São Francisco; Southeast network; and South.
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Even knowing the negative effects, in a totally verticalized vision, the federal
government stressed the importance of the metallurgical sector for the Amazonian
region. In a typical contradictory formulation, the government said that new and old
projects in the Amazonian region would have to be compatible with the environment.
Within this concept, the Amazon comes to have fundamental importance in the
proposal formulated by the FHC government and of that of his successor. In the
Amazonian region the Eixos followed the same logic as past models, where the
principal investments for the region would be in road infrastructure programs aimed
at guaranteeing the competitiveness of the country in national and international
markets, principally in those markets where transport is a strategic factor in the
value of goods.
The export bias of the Eixos is clear, since it was a front to obtain the resources
necessary to balance the country’s current debt. This stimulus for exportation was based
on the regional potential of extreme importance, but the priority of the Eixos should
have been centered on territorial integration (the majority of the nine Eixos did not
introduce integration and they are oriented toward connecting producer regions with
the ports) in such a way as to take full complete advantage of the geographic, economic
and demographic dimensions of the country (Diniz, 2002).
The integration boasted about in the discourse of the Eixos would be dangerous
for the Amazon, since this integration of the region only anticipates the appropriation
of the region’s natural resources by the international and national production sector. This
is clear in that the majority of projects would be undertaken by private initiative, chosen
based on their internal rate of return (Diniz 2002).
In truth, the Amazon was not integrated, but colonized. This is evident in the tendency
to exacerbate the concentration of income and increase poverty, producing, thus, a
region that is increasingly more unequal relative to other parts of the country, principally
the central-south. It produced, in a region extremely rich in biodiversity and natural
resources, one of the largest pockets of poverty in the country.

The constructed discourse
The brief account above allows us to understand that the proposals for the integration
of the Amazonian region were characterized by a process of colonization, putting natural resources at the service of the interests of large national and international economic
groups. And within this colonization process there lies the construction of a discourse
that increasingly justifies and shades reality. This certainly applies to the discourse on
sustainable development. For SHIVA (1991), sustainable development uses the logic of
the market in order to determine the future of natural resources.
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The concept of sustainable development appeared in 1987, when the UN’s World
Commission on the Environment and Development (UNCED), presided by Gro Harlem
Brundtland and Mansour Khalid, presented the document called Our Common Future,
also known as the Brundtland Report. In the report “Sustainable Development means
development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own needs.”
In 1992, the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development,
held in Rio de Janeiro, showed a growth in global interest in the future of the planet.
Many countries no longer could ignore the relationship between socio-economic
development and changes in the environment. But discussion of this was overshadowed
by the United States’ delegation, which forced the withdrawal of the timetables for
elimination of CO2 emissions (which were part of the climate agreement) and did not
sign the convention on biodiversity.
Therefore, when we speak of “sustainable development” it should be clear that this
notion does not represent a shift in the paradigm built on a new socio-economic model
aimed at ecological principles that respect nature. What it actually represents is a retardation
of the processes of exploitation and environmental destruction, not an effective change
of direction.
So the expression “sustainable development” is confusing, and it is not a symbol for
a new way of thinking about the world. Development yoked to the old model of
spoiler and dominator “presents itself merely as material and unidirectional, therefore,
as mere growth” and “sustainability is only rhetoric and illusory.” 2

Between the discourse and practice of sustainability
In the Amazon, sustainable development became a fashionable concept. In the name
of sustainability, Gusa Norte intends to plant clonal eucalyptus, a species developed in a
laboratory, in an area of 4.1 thousand hectares. Their justification is based on the premise
that “reforestation is most important for the steel sector and for the future of the
business, which cannot base its production on unsustainable exploitation, such as the use
of native forest.” This conception of sustainable development has in itself two problems:
The first is that the forest loses its purpose, primary and essential to the Amazon, which
is that it guarantees biodiversity, and, the second is that the discourse tends to mask the
predatory practices of businesses in the Amazon: it encourages the illegal purchase of
charcoal, and, consequently, the exploitation of slave labor. 3
BOFF, Leonardo. Ecologia: grito da Terra, grito dos pobres. Rio de Janeiro: Sextante, 2004, p. 97.
Aggravating the situation further, the ILO report clearly shows the links between deforestation, slave labor and coal production. The
two regions with the greatest incidence of slavery in Brazil are also those responsible for the most deforestation in Amazonia. Both are
in Pará and are answerable for half of the cases involving freeing of slaves and 40% of deforestation in Amazonia up to 2002.
2
3

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Like Gusa Norte, Vale do Rio Doce (the largest mining company in Brazil) is
encouraging the planting of eucalyptus in the region. In this sense, it is important to
remember that we are not dealing with reforestation, but rather the planting of exotic
monoculture that is foreign to the region, the consequences of which cannot yet be
measured. Illegal coal pits are fundamental to maintaining industrial production, as the
report of the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources
(Ibama) divulged in 2005. It showed that there was a deficit between the quantity of
charcoal necessary to maintain production in the region between 2000 and 2004 and
that declared by the sector. Just remember that this activity is expanding and the production
of this industry is entirely dedicated to the international market. In other words: the coal
surplus comes from a non-official source. According to Ibama, the amount illegally
handled is $385 million reias.
The area of Brazil’s forest is the largest in the world, at 554 million hectares, which
represents 14% of the world’s area and occupies 64.3% of the national territory (FAO,
2005). Of this total, 50% of the forests are found in public areas 4 , in the Amazon this
percentage reaches 75%. Of that the areas protected as Units of Conservation and
Indigenous Land represent 30% of the total and the other 45% are public lands where
use has not been defined or protected 5 (LBA, 2005).
Under the current government, a bill was sent to Congress, with 84 articles, recorded
in the Chamber of Deputies as number 4.776, on February 21, 2005. This bill raised the
need to expand and consolidate a network of national forests, where there would be
sustainable management, principally in the Amazon. It considers the National Forests of
the Amazon to have an area sufficient to supply, in a sustainable form, only 8% of the
current market and that, to meet the present demand and that of the next 20 years, it will
be necessary to bring the total to approximately 700,000 km², or nearly 14% of Amazonia.
The principle defended in the document is that the concession could prevent the
degradation and devastation of the forest by the disorderly presence of activities and, at
the same time, facilitate the sustainable management of same and increase the income
4 The creation of public forests in Brazil was established in the Forest Codes of 1965 (Código Florestal de 1965). They consist of
natural forests or plantations located in different biomes of Brazil, under the domain of the Union, the states, the municipalities, the
Federal District or indirectly administered entities. Until recently, the Public Forests were administrated by Ibama, under the supervision
of the Ministry of the Environment (Decree 1.298, 27 October 1994). However, because of the precarious system of monitoring and
supervision and the expansion of livestock activities, the government created (Decree 2.473, January 1998) the National Forest
Program (Programa Florestas Nacionais, Flonas), with the objective of implementing sustainable management and promoting the
creation of new areas as a way to develop a sustainable form of wood exploitation and meet the planned demand. Consequently, in the
face of the scarcity of resources in the public sector and the failures in monitoring and supervision, what emerged as the solution was
establishment of a policy of concessions of public forest areas for exploitation of commercial woods by the private sector and local
communities. The project was not implemented.
5 It is in these lands that we find expansion of soy and ranching pointed to as the chief causes of deforestation, illegal felling of trees,
and illegal land appropriation and occupation (Presidency of the Republic, 2004).

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and improve the quality of life of local populations. Besides protecting the conservation
units such as the National Parks and reducing the possibility of the disorderly occupation
of areas without an agricultural vocation, the creation and adequate management of the
National Forests by the Government, in conjunction with private enterprise and organized
communities, will allow for improvement in the efficiency of the monitoring and control
system, decrease predatory exploitation, regulate the raw material supply, revitalize the
forest sector in the region, increase regional income and improve the quality of life for
the local population (item 10 of 135/2002).
Law 11.476 was approved, on March 2, 2006, regulating the management of public
forests. This means all of the natural forests on federal, state and municipal land, with
the exception of the fully protected Conservation Units (Extractive Reserves, Sustainable
Development Reserves, and Indigenous Lands) and the areas prioritized for the
conservation of Brazil’s biodiversity 6 .
The consequences of this process are that the national, state and municipal forest
areas will be mapped and divided into areas, which will be conceded to private enterprises,
by bidding, for a maximum of 10 years, as of the date of this publication (articles 5º, §
1, 13 and 48). The other consequence is that the National Forests, that were covered
with native forest, destined for scientific research; formed part of the public domain;
and were a refuge for traditional populations, become areas that can be conceded to
private companies, with proposals of sustainable economic activities, so that they can
exploit the natural resources present in such areas.
In the government’s conception this would make possible management of the national
forests, reduction of governmental costs associated with administration, monitoring
and supervision and still allow the possibility of reconciling “sustainability” with the
exploitation of public forest resources. Generally, the law considers regulating the access
and exploitation of natural resources through concessions of the national, state or municipal forests, for a determined amount of time, which will be licensed and have
monetary contracts for the use of the resources. The lands continue to be under public
domain, but with permission for the private sector to develop activities such as the
production of timber, non-timber products and services like tourism.
Implicit in this governmental initiative is the government’s conception that the
management of “public” natural resources is problematic for diverse reasons, such as
the lack of human resources for supervision. It transfers management to the private
6 The Law provides for three forms of public forest management for sustainable production (Article 4). One is the creation and direct
management by public power (federal, state, or municipal). Another is aimed at forests for common use, such as forest settlements,
extractive reserves, and quilombola areas, the areas of which were set by Law 9.985, of 18 July 2000. The third is the concession of
public forests by means of bidding.The same law also establishes an entity to manage the system, the Brazilian Forest Service, and a
fund to finance the process, The National Forest Development Fund.

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sector, strengthening the tendency of public goods to be treated as “private goods” and
subordinates them to a market logic that is expected to deliver results. In truth it is trying
to reconcile the irreconcilable: “To maximize economic profits and environmental wellbeing.” According to this logic, granting concessions to companies is, therefore, the only
alternative.
In proposing this law for Public forest management, the Brazilian government
reinforces the concept that private property—or private management, as Brazilian law
suggests—is the best way to guarantee the sustainable use of natural resources; in actuality
it entails the division of resources, where each individual continues managing his resource
in the best possible way, thus guaranteeing benefits. 7 .
In the Amazon, history has shown that the private sector cannot be trusted. An
example of this is the municipality of Paragominas where 90% of the area is degraded.
And, even if extractive timber businesses had utilized discourses of management and
sustainability, it would still be only rhetoric, since less than 3% of the managers were
from the region. Today, the municipality of Paragominas suffers from an extreme scarcity
of natural resources and with the largest pockets of poverty that arose due to the
expansion of capital into the region.

Final Considerations
The present text sought to review some concepts that have influenced the debates
about development in the Amazon. There is a need for social movements to question
the concept of sustainable development and not fall into a trap that can compromise
the present and the future of the Amazonian region, since it “does not question the
notion of progress and existing market rationality, but continues to privilege industrial
consumerism.”
The second concept is that presented in Brazilian law about the management of
forest resources, approved in 2006. In our vision, the concept is impregnated with
the conclusions of the famous text “The Tragedy of the Commons” by Garret
Hardin. In this text, Hardin affirms that in order to avoid the super-exploitation of
common goods, the best solution is to transfer them to the private sector. The
Brazilian law about the management of forest resources clearly goes in this direction,
since it grants the legal rights of forest management to legal persons, foreign or not,
in partnership or otherwise.
The question is that, on delimiting and surveying the extractive reserves and the
reserves of sustainable development, a marginal and limited role is conceived for the
populations. Another question concerns traditional populations. What is their position?
And how will they be treated? What is known is that in order for them to compete, they
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will have to form community associations or cooperatives that will enable them, as legal
persons, to get the same treatment as businesses.
Masked discourses on sustainable development have influenced governmental policies. As a consequence, the rights of indigenous peoples, quilombolas (descendants of
runaway slaves), river-dwellers, and small farmers are constantly violated. We must,
however, believe in the resistance of the people who, even suffering repression, are not
silent and remain firm in their quest for a just and fraternal society.

REFERENCES
BANERJEE, Subhabrata Bobby. Contra-Discurso do Desenvolvimento Sustentável. In: FERNANDES, Marcionila; GUERRA, Lemuel (Orgs.). Belém: Unamaz, 2003.
BOFF, Leonardo. Ecologia: grito da terra, grito dos pobres. Rio de Janeiro: Sextante,
2004.
BNDES/CONSÓRCIO BRASILIANA. Estudos dos eixos nacionais de integração
e
desenvolvimento. Relatório Síntese, Tomos I e II. Rio de Janeiro: BNDES, 2000.
BRASIL, República Federativa do. II Plano Nacional de Desenvolvimento (197579).
Brasília: Presidência da República, 1974.
________. III Plano Nacional de Desenvolvimento (1980-85). Brasília: Presidência
da
República, 1979.
________. Brasil em Ação: investimentos para o desenvolvimento. Brasília: Presidência
da República, 1996.
COIMBRA, José de Ávila Aguiar (org.). Fronteiras da Ética. São Paulo: Senac,
2002.
DINIZ, C. C. Repensando a questão regional brasileira: tendências, desafios e
caminhos.Trabalho apresentado no seminário “Desenvolvimento Brasileiro”, Rio de
Janeiro:BNDES, 2002.
FIORILLO, Celso Antonio Pacheco. Curso de Direito Ambiental Brasileiro. 5ª ed.
São Paulo: Saraiva, 2004.
GUDYNAS, Eduardo. Ética, ambiente e ecologia: uma crise entrelaçada. Revista
Eclesiástica Brasileira. Petrópolis: Vozes, nº. 52: 205, Mar 1992, p. 64 – 74.
HARDIN, G. (1968) “La tragedia de los comunes”. Captado em www.eumed.net,
February 2004.
LBA.Experimento de grande escala biosfera-atmosfera na Amazônia – O futu ro
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dasflorestasbrasileiras. Disponível em http://Iba.cptec.inpe.br/Iba/
site?p=oportunidade&t=0&s=6&1g=&op=347>. Accessed in March 2006.
LEI 11.284 “Dispõe sobre a gestão de fl orestas públicas para a produção
sustentável”.Published in Diário Ofi cial da União 2 March 2006.
LEI 9.985 (2000) “Institui o Sistema Nacional de Unidades de Conservação da
Natureza”. Published in Diário Ofi cial da União 18 Jul.
MORIN, Edgar, TERENA, Marcos. Saberes Globais e Saberes Locais. 3ª ed. Trad.
Paula Yone Stroh. Rio de Janeiro: Garamond, 2001.
SERRES, Michel. O Contrato Natural. Trad. Serafim Ferreira. Lisboa: Instituto Piaget,
1994.
SHIVA, V. Monocultures of the mind: Perspective on biodiversity and biotechnology.
London: Zed Books,1993.
_______.Biodiversty: Social and Ecological Perspectives. London: Zed Books,1991.

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In August of 2007 the Special Reporter on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler,
presented a report to the General Assembly of the United Nations, warning
that each year more than six million children under the age of five die as
a result of hunger-related illnesses. The second point of the report was
concern with increased utilization of basic foodstuffs for production of
agro-fuels. The International Institute for Research on Food Policies
(IIPA) estimates that agro-fuel production can cause a 20% increase in
the price of corn and a 26% increase in the price of soy and sunflower
seeds by 2010. IIPA studies warn that the number of persons suffering
from malnutrition may increase by 16 million for each percentage point
increase in the price of basic foodstuffs.

The Right to Food
Maria Luisa Mendonça 1
The principal international standard regarding the Right to Food is contained in Article
11 of the International Convention on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. In accordance
with this standard, hunger should be eliminated and peoples should have permanent access
to adequate food, both qualitatively and quantitatively, guaranteeing physical and mental
health of individuals and communities, in addition to a life of dignity.
In accordance with the International Convention on Economic, Social, and Cultural
Rights, States are obliged to “respect, protect, and guarantee” the right to food. Respecting
this right means that States cannot obstruct or make access to adequate food difficult
for the population, as is true in the case of rural workers being forced from their land,
especially those who depend on subsistence agriculture. The Convention further prohibits
States from using toxic substances in the production of food.
1 Maria Luisa Mendonça is a journalist and co-director of the Social Network for Justice and Human Rights

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In addition, the document establishes the principles of non-regression and nondiscrimination with regard to the approval of laws guaranteeing access to food. This
means that governments should not approve laws that make social organization difficult
in favor of this right. On the contrary, governments should facilitate organizing society
for access to land, work, and environmental protection. States should guarantee the
universal right to food by means of concrete actions and measures that protect vulnerable
social groups and allowing the means necessary for them to be able to eat.
In August of 2007 the Special Reporter on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler, presented a
report to the General Assembly of the United Nations, containing information on the most
recent events in that period. The first concern of the Reporter was the growing increase in
hungry people in the world—800 million in 1996 and today approximately 854 million. The
report also warns that each year more than six million children under the age of five die as a
result of hunger-related illnesses. The Reporter characterizes this situation as “unacceptable.”
According to Ziegler, “hunger is not inevitable. It is a violation of human rights. In a world
that is richer than ever, more people are suffering from malnutrition, hunger, and starvation.
The world can produce sufficient food to feed twice the entire world population.”
The second point of the report, which received great prominence, was concern with
increased utilization of basic foodstuffs for production of agro-fuels. It states: “The Special
Reporter is seriously concerned because bio-fuels will have hunger as a consequence. The sudden
and poorly conceived haste to convert foodstuffs such as corn, wheat, sugar, and palm oil, into
fuels, can lead to a disaster. There is a serious risk of creating a battle between food and fuels,
which will leave the poor and those suffering from hunger in developing countries at the mercy
of the price for food, land and water, which are increasing rapidly.
The International Institute for Research on Food Policies (IIPA) estimates that agrofuel production can cause a 20% increase in the price of corn and a 26% increase in the
price of soy and sunflower seeds by 2010. IIPA studies warn that the number of persons
suffering from malnutrition may increase by 16 million for each percentage point increase
in the price of basic foodstuffs.
The production of agro-fuels demands an even greater quantity of water, within a
very troubling context. According to UN estimates 1.2 billion people do not have access
to potable water and 2.4 billion do not have access to basic sanitation. Every year nearly
two million children die from diseases caused by contaminated water. In the poorest
countries, one in every five children dies before reaching five years of age due to illnesses
related to water contamination. The Special Reporter on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler,
characterizes this situation as a “silent genocide.”
Water is an irreplaceable natural resource. At the present rate of destruction of its
sources, half the world population will not have access to potable water in merely 25
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years. The increase in monoculture for production of agro-energy tends to intensify the
violation of the fundamental right to access to water for human consumption.
Each liter of ethanol produced from sugarcane, in closed circuit, consumes about
12 liters of water. This quantity does not include the water utilized in cultivation which,
in the case of irrigated monocultures, consumes even more. According to Professor
David Pimentel of Cornell University, for each kilo of corn produced 500 to 1,500
liters of water are used. And to produce a liter of ethanol based on corn, water usage
runs between 1,200 and 3,600 liters. Therefore, production of agro-energy represents a
risk for greater scarcity of natural sources and aquifers.
In the most recent report to the UN General Assembly, the Special Reporter on the
Right to Food recommends that “a five-year moratorium be declared on production
of bio-fuels with modern methods so that there is sufficient time to create technologies
and establish regulatory structures for protection against negative environmental and
social effects and for protection of human rights.”

Violation of cane cutters workers’ rights and the right to
food in Pernambuco
And if we Severinos
are all the same in life,
we die the same death,
the same Severino death.
The death of those who die
of old age before thirty,
of an ambuscade before twenty,
of hunger a little daily.
(The Severino death
from sickness and from hunger
attacks at any age,
even the unborn child).
“Morte e Vida Severina,” João Cabral de Melo Neto2
September 2007. A new cane harvest begins in Pernambuco. In this harvest, sugarcane
production should reach 15% more than in the past year, according to data from the
National Supply Company (CONAB). This expansion is chiefly owing to an increase in
2 Translated by the North American poet Elizabeth Bishop, published in João Cabral de Melo Neto, Selected Poetry, 1937-1990. Ed.
Djelal Kadir. Wesleyan University Press, 1994.

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ethanol production, which should reach 21 billion liters, while in 2006 Brazil produced
17 billion liters of the product.
In the municipality of Aliança, Severino gets up at three in the morning. Before five he
is already cutting cane. He is an undocumented worker at the San José mill. He already had
a signed card, but after two harvests can only find day work. His daily quota is to cut thirty
“braças”—the equivalent of seventy square meters. The overseer says this comes to three
tons of cane, but Severino knows that he cuts seven to eight tons per day.
In steep terrain, he goes up and down the hill, between the rows of cane. His
movements are precise: first he bends to cut close to the ground and afterward cuts the
leaves above. In a constant rhythm, he only stops to eat when the sun is high. It is already
after eleven. He still has something in his lunch bag. The food hardly has any effect. And
Severino goes back to cutting cane. He goes up and down the slope, bends and stands
so many times that he no longer feels his body. His hands aren’t talking to him. The boss
doesn’t provide gloves or boots. His salary isn’t enough for soap to wash his clothes,
encrusted with ash from the burnt cane.
Five in the afternoon, almost nighttime. Severino returns home. His seven children
wait for him at the window. There are still embers in the fire, but nothing in the pan.
Severino received $120 reais last week, his salary for two weeks. But the sum only lasted
for six days. The other half of his salary will only arrive next week. There are two chairs in
Severino’s house. There is no table and no bed. When it isn’t raining, water is taken
from the river. But today, no. It is slippery and far away. Severino lies down on the floor
and waits for other days.
Severina Maria has lived for forty years at the Meia Légua mill in the municipality of
Cortes, Mata Sul, Pernambuco. She arrived with her father when she was eight. This
region is called Forest Zone, because previously it was all Atlantic forest. Now the mills
plant cane even on the river banks. The Meia Légua stream is covered with cane.
Severina knows cane field work well: sow, fertilize, poison, clear, cut the cane…She
has already done a little of everything. She only stopped working when she felt labor
pains, but returned after a few days of rest. She never received a certificate when she
was pregnant. She had fourteen children, but now there are only ten.
Now the mill is bankrupt, but Incra1 never came to make an inspection. Severina
has nowhere to go, she is afraid of being evicted. The mill boss won’t allow planting. If
Severina had had a little piece of land to plant yuca, yams, corn, she would never have
begun cutting cane. Not she nor anyone else.
After so many years of waiting, Severina almost lost hope. She always tells her
1 The National Institute for Agrarian Reform.

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children to keep studying, even if there, although they may know how to read, the only
work to be found is in the cane fields, and then only for five months during harvest.
There is no other employment in the region. People are hungry.
But Severina is proud because she wants to learn how to read. She already knows
how to write half of her name and is learning the other half. Forty years in the cane
fields and all she got was illness. Severina’s dream is to have a sewing machine. She
knows how to sew well. She always made the children’s clothes by hand, from sacks.
But if she had a sewing machine life could be better.
Maria Severina worked in the cane fields almost all her life. Like other severinas, she
began to work early, at only twelve years old. One day she had an accident, she cut her
leg and had no means to go to the hospital. Work in the cane fields caused a sickness in
her lungs due to the burning and the poison. At 41 years of age, Severina is still strong,
but she knows that anyone working in the cane fields dies early.
It is for that reason that Severina doesn’t want to ever go back to cutting cane. After
being driven out of the mills, she refuses to go to the favelas. Today she coordinates a
camp for the landless in the municipality of Palmares. That mill is bankrupt, like so many
others here in Pernambuco.
Even at the side of the road, the camp’s garden has everything: yuca, corn, tomatoes,
watermelon. The beans were already gathered and dried over the winter. The biggest
problem is feeding the babies, because the price of milk is sky high. The future? Severina
doesn’t see a future for herself, only for her children. And that’s why she fights for land.
Incra isn’t coming and the police already threatened eviction. But Severina has hope.
What does she think of the camp? Wonderful. The barracks have to be well cleaned and
organized. This is much better than living on the street, because everyone helps each
other. And people aren’t going hungry, but when cutting cane, you work and work and
never get enough to eat.

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198

If the form adopted for distribution of resources discloses, on the one
hand, the insufficiency of investments in education, on the other hand it
shows what might be the greatest merit of the PDE: the voluntary transfer
of resources from the MEC to the localities that most need them. It is
exactly the poorest cities, therefore, the ones that most need investment
of federal funds, which are those that are unable to access the transfer
programs administered by the National Fund for Educational
Development (FNDE). This is because they lack the information or
technical competence to respond constructively to PDE projects.

The Debate about the Education Development Plan
Mariângela Graciano e Sérgio Haddad 1
In the realm of education 2007 stood out as the year that the Education Development
Plan (PDE) was inaugurated. In March a general outline of the plan was publicized,
while in April a series of strategic policies were launched in tandem with the implementation
of several already planned actions. At the beginning of October, in response to criticism
that there was no document that enumerated the principles, objectives and justifications
of the Plan, the Ministry of Education and Culture released the document, “The Education
Development Plan (PDE): Motivations, Principles, Programs.”

What is the PDE?
The PDE translates into a series of forty measures. Some of these were instituted
by decree of the President of the Republic, others had already been formulated and still
others were formulated outside the PDE and then later incorporated into it.
1 Mariângela Graciano and Sérgio Haddad are advisors for Ação Educativa (Education Action).

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The Education Development Index (IDEB) was among the measures that stood
out in the media. IDEB combines information on the performance of students (average
proficiency on the Brazil Exam or SAEB) and scholastic output (average rate of approval
at the level of teaching). First, the averages for student proficiency order to calculate the
IDEB levels of proficiency in the Portuguese language and mathematics on the Brazil
Exam and the SAEB are measured on a scale of zero to ten, after which an average of
the two is taken and then, to calculate the IDEB, divided by the number of years
students take, on average, to complete a series at each level. In this way it is possible to
calculate the IDEB for states, municipalities, schools and individual students. However,
the index, focusing on students, does not take into account other essential indicators
necessary for the improvement of education, such as the training of teachers, the
participation of communities, and so on.
The actions that together make up the PDE were announced gradually over the
course of six months. The minister, Fernando Haddad, defended the strategy: the
fluidity that marks the construction of the EDP permits constant and permanent
reformulations and amendments and allows for the incorporation of demands from
civil society. In other words, that which many consider to be weakness constituted for
the Minister the democratic form of developing public policy. The truth is that the
confusing way in which the plan was launched was linked with the necessity of rapidly
introducing a proposal to address the terrible educational situation in the context of a
political dispute at the beginning of the second mandate of the President of the Republic.

Who has already participated?
Since the beginning of the Plan, the Minister of Education has led the so-called
“Education Caravans”, the objective of which is to introduce proposals to mayors,
stimulating them to sign on to the goals of the “Everyone for Education Commitment”.
By September, nearly three thousand municipalities from the North and Northeast had
agreed to participate in the Plan. Participation in the program is encouraged by the offer
of financial resources and technical assistance to help meet these goals—now that the
federal government no longer has the power to impose its policies on States and
municipalities.
According to official information, the 1,242 municipalities with the worst
performance on the IDEB have been most encouraged to participate and have already
started to receive visits from specialists contracted by the Ministry of Education (MEC)
to help local managers to plan actions to improve the quality of education. The visits
will take place until April of 2008. The majority of the cities (820) are located in the
Northeast region.
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Moreover, the MEC showed that the capitals, and indeed the great Brazilian cities in
general, performed poorly on the IDEB. For this reason, it created a working group so
that the leaders of 106 cities with more than two hundred thousand inhabitants could
“exchange experiences and debate subjects related to management and implementation
of the Education Development Plan.”
Of course cities that do not fall within the two groups above also can participate in
the Commitment. In these cases, the counterpart of the MEC can furnish technical and
even financial support, in accordance with the evaluation of local situations, although the
MEC is not sending consultants to these localities.

Financing
The PDE was focused, at first, on the poorest cities. The reason for the absence of
universal access to education, which is an essential element of public policy, is the lack of
resources. On this subject, the MEC at least formally admits the insufficiency of the
current investment in education, which is around 4% of the GDP, and affirms the
necessity of expenditures on the order of 6 to 7% of the GDP, as foreseen in the
original National Education Plan—a plan vetoed by President Fernando Enrique Cardoso, and not reestablished in the Lula administration.
In 2007, the funds destined for the implementation of the PDE for distribution
among participating cities was R$ 1 billion. Without doubt these resources will have
an impact on the cities in question, especially considering that they are among the
poorest in the country. However, this sum of money is far below what is needed to
meet the challenge of a universal system of quality basic education. If things work
out, the PDE will have made advances, but there will still be widespread violation of
the right to universal education.
If the form adopted for distribution of resources discloses, on the one hand, the
insufficiency of investments in education, on the other hand it shows what might be the
greatest merit of the PDE: the voluntary transfer of resources from the MEC to the
localities that most need them. It is exactly the poorest cities, therefore, the ones that
most need investment of federal funds, which are those that are unable to access the
transfer programs administered by the National Fund for Educational Development
(FNDE). This is because they lack the information or technical competence to respond
constructively to PDE projects.

Management and participation
When announcing the pillars that sustain the PDE, the MEC did not speak in terms
of participation, but of social mobilization, which may indicate that civil society fits into
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the plan only in so far as it can realize the already established Plan, but not participate in
the definition of the implementation strategies themselves.
Moreover, the Plan does not make reference to the possible relation between
management councils and social control in the field of education nor the process by
which PDE implementation would be monitored.
The subject of social participation caused much controversy in the months that
followed announcement of the Plan. Much of this controversy was created by those
critical of the strategy adopted in the Plan during its construction, for there had been no
formal consultations with educational organizations, students or even the National Council
of Education.
It was certainly the case that there had not always been a lack of time for consultations.
Although the MEC and the “All for Education” movement deny it, the fact is that the
MEC adopted goals developed for the PDE by leading business institutions and
entrepreneurial foundations. The criticisms of this were many, and arose regarding
both the relationship of MEC with these groups and the disrespect of the original goals
of the PNE. The MEC justified this by claiming that the new goals did indeed engage
with their predecessors and that, moreover, the original goals did not account for issues
relating to the quality of education. Perhaps, because of this initial approach, the PDEp
strongly emphasizes management, and not the principle of universal rights and the working
conditions of teachers.
In the document that justifies the PDE, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva affirmed
the importance of searching for ways make the process accessible to the “interaction
“of all those that are committed to education, independent of ideological and political
sympathies.”
Affirmation by the President of the Republic strengthens the statement by Minister
Fernando Haddad regarding the need to “armour” Education so as to protect its
programs from discontinuities provoked by changes in management.
Without a doubt, the fact that powerful business people defend the educational plan
is very important both for dissemination, as it is these entrepreneurs who control the
great commercial vehicles of communication, and for providing continuity in its future
management. This provokes difficulties in other sectors however. Considering that,
historically, the approach of the business class towards the public sector is marked by
the defense of private interests, it is necessary to explore the real public interests of
entrepreneurs, or their representatives, in the formulation of the PDE.
Last September, “All for Education” made available on its home page a document
called “Preliminary Technical Notes: Methodology for the attainment of the final and
partial goals “, where it presented the methodology used to formulate the goals of the
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All for Education Commitment. The committee responsible for the study gathered
researchers, managers of different spheres of government, the MEC, directors of
business councils and even someone from the educational sector. Obviously it is legitimate
that all these groups are worried about the quality of education in Brazil, but certainly
their interests and principles are significantly different.
This heterogeneity of interests, vision and principles placed on the public stage turned
the PDE into a field for dispute. Moreover, it points to the great challenge formulated
in its principles: the participation of the educational community and the poor—who are
in general the great absentees in public debate and in influential groups. It is thus left to
the government to find a kind of “a posteriori” form of participation. It seems that the
MEC is little open to participatory mechanisms and must rely on municipal, state and
national conferences to trigger full dialogue within society. After all, the educational
sector was the only one that failed to hold a National Conference in the four years of
the first mandate of the Lula government and throughout 2007. Its first National
Conference is very tentatively set for the first part of 2008, in which, moreover, the
PDE is not the central subject on the agenda and participatory mechanisms are restricted
and controlled. Much ground still needs to be covered, therefore, before there is any
significant improvement in the universality and quality of public education—which is,
of course, a human right.

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AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Despite the government’s statement to the contrary, the foreign debt
grew substantially in 2007. It was US$199 billion in December 2006 and
increased 18% in the first seven months of 2007, reaching US$235 billion
in July this year. This increase did not appear in the data published by the
government, since it happened in the “private” part of the foreign debt –
that part of the debt taken on by national businesses with their foreign
creditors. However, the “private” foreign debt is paid by the Brazilian
people since it falls to the government to furnish the dollars for private
creditors.

Internal and External Public Debt as Impediments to
the Achievement of Human Rights
Maria Lucia Fattorelli Carneiro ( *)
The year 2006 was marked by the bleeding of public funds to service the payment
of external and internal debt. Almost 40% of the funds of the Federal Budget were
allocated to interest and amortization of the internal and external debt, as shown in the
following graphic.
Maria Lucia Fattorelli Carneiro is a Fiscal-Auditor of the Federal Budget, Coordinator of the Citizen Debt Audit/Jubilee South
Network and a Member of the Commission for the Audit of the Public Debt of Ecuador.
( *)

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Federal Budget - 2006

Source: SIAFI (Sistema Access da Câmara dos Deputados – National Congress Access System)
Note: The other special assessments mainly refer to transfers to the states and municipalities.
In 2007, the payment of charges related to the internal and external debts continues
to be a priority of the federal government. According to the forecast of the expenses
available on the SIAFI System, almost 30% of the budget will go for interest and
amortization of the debt this year.
The graphic provides evidence of the social sacrifice represented by this bleeding
of funds in 2006: while almost 40% of the funds were destined to Debt, Health Care
received only 4.82%, Education received only 2.27%, Citizen Rights received only 0.1%
and Housing received only 0.01%. Two decimal points are not enough to represent the
miserable funds destined for Sanitation, which appears as 0.00% in the graphic. Besides
this, it is impossible to think about agrarian reform when only 0.39% of the budget is
destined for the agrarian concerns. The disregard for the environment is represented by
the 0.16% destined for Environmental Management. The graphic also reflects the degree
of violence and trashing of the State that predominate in our country: only 0.44% of
the funds are destined to Public Security. National Defense, which includes the Navy,
Army, and Air Force, receives only 2.09%. The disregard for the foundations of the
country’s development is reflected in the allotment of only 0.05% for Energy, only
0.47% for Transportation, and only 0.38% for Science and Technology.
Finally, evidence of the top priority given to the debt is there for all to see. And it
should be emphasized that the above picture does not include the value that corresponds
to the so-called “Rolling” of the Debt, that is, the value corresponding to the part of the
Debt that was not paid in 2006, but substituted with new bonds. If this part had been
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accounted for in the graphic, the debt would be represented by 57.71% of the budget.
The rolling over of the debt should be taken into account because it is that which
requires the government to pay billions of dollars every month, related to new loans
from the financial sector. In this way, the market is blackmailing the country every day
and the country gives in, conditioning these new loans to the absolute fulfillment of the
neoliberal remedy, i.e., fiscal adjustment (synonymous with social sacrifice of funds that
should be destined to public services like health, education, etc.), privatization, freedom
for capital, among other policies harmful to the population.
To pay the debt, the government uses the funds collected through taxes that fall
mainly on the workers and low-income consumers, while big fortunes, large land holders,
and enormous profits enjoy exemptions and tax breaks. Another important source of
funds for the payment of the public debt has been the federal government’s collection
of the debts of the states and municipalities that were assumed by the government
beginning in the 1990s. After that operation, the government began to reproduce the
same model of debt management with very high interest rates. This caused the exponential
growth of these debts, which should also be audited since there are indications of being
illegal and illegitimate. The high profits of public corporations such as Petrobrás, Banco
do Brasil, and Eletrobrás, are also by law, destined to financial creditors. In other words,
the high prices that we pay for fuel, electricity, and bank services are also destined for
debt repayment.
If we add what we find documented in the official bulletins of the Central Bank
and of the National Treasury under the title of received loans and we compare this sum
with everything we paid throughout the years, we conclude that the public debt has been
a sieve through which the resources extracted from society are drained off by means of
the weighty and unjust tax burden and also through the denial of public services and
attention to social rights, at a cost of immense social sacrifice.
Just to cite an example that shows the bleeding of resources, in the period from
1997 to 2006, R$ 1.179 trillion were paid in interest and amortization of external and
internal debt, without counting the corresponding values for the rolling of the debt.
Despite this, these debts didn’t stop increasing, reaching in July 2007 the impressive
figure of US$235 billion (external debt) and 1.361 trillion reais (internal de
The most serious thing is that we don’t succeed in seeing the counterpart of such
immense debts. In truth, such funds, which ended up mainly in the hands of the bankers,
were taken out of the mouths of the hungry who suffer in misery. This causes the deaths
of many who can’t get medical care or access to school. It’s a question of a crime
against basic human rights, according to the major jurists specializing in International
Law, for example the Argentine Ambassador Miguel Angel Espeche Gil.
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The Debt in 2007: Facts indicating another year of human
rights violations
In 2007, some remarkable facts provided additional evidence of these crimes against
Brazilian society. Most shocking was the chaos in public health, when the Minister of
Health himself requested from his colleague in Finance an advance of R$2 billion so
that the Schedule of Services of the Health System could be readjusted in an attempt to
end the strike of doctors’ and health workers in various states. In 2007 we also had a
serious epidemic of dengue fever in the country, an illness that should have been eradicated
decades ago except for the indifference about public health.
Alleging that it wanted to improve public health, the government worked very hard
at the end of 2007 to approve the Proposal for a Constitutional Amendment no. 50/
2007 (PEC 50/07) and to maintain the Provisional Contribution on Financial Handling
(Contribuição Provisória sobre Movimentação Financeira, or CPMF). This is an unjust
tax that primarily penalizes low-income consumers who pay the CPMF as part of the
price of products, including those that are essential to survival such as food and medicines.
However, this tax imposed by the IMF is not aimed at improving health but at repaying
the debt, since the other remedies that supported health before the creation of the
CPMF were diverted to fulfill the goals of the primary surplus. Besides this, 20% of the
CPMF were also diverted for this same purpose, by means of the DRU (Desvinculação
das Receitas da União [Divestment of the Union’s Revenues]), also imposed by the IMF.
Another consequence of the debt in 2007 was the launch of the so-called Program
to Accelerate Growth (Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento, or PAC), published in
January 2007, which brought limitations never before made in this country on social
spending, with the goal of prioritizing debt repayment. Complementary Bill nº 1 /2007
heavily limits spending on public services while Bill 1/2007 limits the increase in the
minimum salary to laughable rates, with the result that it will take 50 years to reach the
minimum salary calculated by DIEESE needed to meet the basic needs of a family. In
this way, the PAC in reality will be sacrificing millions of Brazilians who depend on the
minimum salary for their survival. On the other hand, the PAC did not deal with
expenditures with the debt; this is what should be drastically reduced to make possible
true economic growth. For this reason, the PAC represents in reality a big Program for
Assisting Creditors.
And to prevent public employees from protesting against these measures, in 2007
the government put forward proposals to limit the right to strike and the so-called State
Foundations, which consist of destabilizing public employees, allowing them to be
punished by firing without any justification. Workers in the private sector are also a
target of the government, which insists on carrying out the Labor Reform imposed by
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the IMF and the World Bank. As such, the government initially sent to Congress Bill
1990/2007, which consists of hitching the Central Unions to the government (by means
of receiving part of the union dues) so that it can be easier to move Labor Reform
ahead—it is also being moved ahead through Bill 1987/2007, which counts on strong
support from the government and which simply takes apart the CLT.
In 2007, the payment of the debt also created more privatizations. The Lula
government privatized roads using the old argument that there are no funds to maintain
them, while billions from the Contribution of Intervention in the Economic Domain
(Contribuição de Intervenção no Domínio Econômico, or CIDE), which should have
been destined for road improvements, has for several years continued to rot in the
primary surplus in order to ensure the payment of the financial creditors. With the bill
that creates the Fund for Complementary Social Welfare for Public Servants (Fundo de
Previdência Complementar dos Servidores Públicos or FUNPRESP) the government
also carried out insurance reform, which is translated into the explicit handover of the
pensions of public servants to the financial sector, deepening the privatization of social
welfare. The National Forum for Social Security, created by PAC, is also preparing
reforms that target workers in the private sector, with the goal of freeing up more
funds for payment of the external debt.
In the Education sector, the debt is also translated into the intensification of
privatization through “Reuni”, published by decree at the beginning of the year. This
program envisions the creation of more spaces in the public universities. However, with
the corresponding increase in investments and in the number of teachers and employees,
once the number of spaces increases it would compromise the payment to financial
creditors. This program moreover strongly increases the ratio of students to professors,
endangering public teaching and thus favoring private schools.
In the environmental area, we are seeing an increase of deforestation in the Amazon,
the result of opting for the agro-export model, which is needed to obtain the foreign
exchange credits for payment of the foreign debt. According to the Ministry of the
Environment, between June and September of 2007 the deforestation increased 107%
in Mator Grosso and 53% in Rondônia in relation to the same period in 2006, owing to
the increase in the international prices of soy and beef. The road work of PAC in
Amazônia will increase the environmental degradation since they specifically aim to drain
off the production of primary products for export, opening new agricultural borders.
In 2007, owing to the absolute lack of investments in the airline sector, resulting
from the successive cuts to fulfill the goal of the primary surplus and pay the debt, we
saw a chaotic situation. Operating with defective radar and radios and insufficient
personnel, flight controllers were constantly obliged to stop traffic, causing many delays
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in the airports. On March 30, 2007, this situation got so bad that the controllers, working
in subhuman conditions, had to stop flights at all airports, in defense of the lives of the
thousands of people who use air transport in Brazil.
In relation to the situation of workers, despite the great deal of government propaganda to publicize an improvement in the employment picture, the situation is still very
bad. In August 2007, in São Paulo, Recife, Salvador and Brasilia, the rate of unemployment
remains equal to or above 15%, according to DIEESE. In Belo Horizonte and Porto
Alegre, the unemployed still represent more than 10% of the Economically Active
Population. The rates of unemployment vary depending on the international winds,
since the reduction in the last few years is the result of a favorable external situation
because these generally still show as greater than those which were in effect before the
financial crises during the Cardoso government, starting in 1997. Early in the beginning
of his term, Cardoso promoted a big opening to imports, resulting in a picture of
unemployment and labor instability. And this picture remains the same today, despite the
propaganda of the current government.
In relation to the income from work, according to IBGE in July 2007, the real
average monthly income for a worker (R$ 1,099.70) was still 6% less than the income of
the same month in 2002, the last year of the Cardoso government (R$ 1,168.50), at the
prices of August 2007. This picture of permanent instability of work is a result of the
debt policies of the federal government, which puts the highest priority on servicing the
barren goals of the primary surplus and control of inflation, depriving the public
investments that create jobs and maintaining high interest rates. In this way, the private
financial sector benefits by obtaining an all-time world-record high rate of profit.

The frightening growth of the debt in 2007 and the record
losses of the Central Bank
While the private financial sector accumulated profits of R$33.8 billion in 2005 and
R$42 billion em 2006, the Central Bank in the same period entered losses of R$10.45
billion (2005) and R$13.17 billion (2006) and, in the first semester of 2007, accumulated
the record loss of R$30.3 billion.
This flagrant transfer of funds from the public sector to the private sector has its
roots in the management of the public debt, which caused explosive growth in the
internal federal debt in 2007, despite the social sacrifice that has been practiced to achieve
the goal of the primary surplus and fulfill the creditors’ demands. From December
2006 to July 2007, this debt grew from R$1,153 trillion to R$1,361 trillion, which is an
18% rise in only seven months. In absolute figures, the debt grew R$208 billion in the
first seven months of 2007, a value equal to more than nine times all the expenditures on
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health until August 20 of this year.
Despite the government’s statement to the contrary, the foreign debt grew substantially
in 2007. It was US$ 199 billion in December 2006 and increased 18% in the first seven
months of 2007, reaching US$ 235 billion in July this year. This increase did not appear
in the data published by the government in the press, since it happened in the “private”
part of the foreign debt – that part of the debt taken on by the national businesses with
their foreign creditors. However the “private” foreign debt is paid by the Brazilian
people since it falls to the government to furnish the dollars for the private creditors to
pay their debts. Besides this, these “private” debts received the guarantee of the
government, so they were literally taken over by the Brazilian state. This explosion of the
foreign debt occurred primarily in short term operations, those in which the national
banks take loans outside the country at reduced interest rates and use these funds to loan
to the Brazilian government by means of acquiring internal debt bonds, earning the
highest rates in the world. Such an operation explains part of the high profits of Brazil’s
private financial sector.
Strangely enough, the government has stated that the debt is no longer a problem
due to Brazil having paid the IMF ahead of time and due to the Liquid Debt of the
Public Sector (the raw debt less the credits that the government has to receive) having
fallen from 46.5% of the Gross National Product (GNP) in December of 2005 to
44.4% of the GNP in July of 2007. But how can the liquid debt have been reduced by
2% of the GNP, if the internal liquid debt rose by 8% of the GNP in the same period?
The only reason for this fall in the liquid debt is the fall in the external liquid debt, which
fell 10% of the GNP since the end of 2005, counterbalancing the increase in the internal
debt. But why is the external liquid debt falling so much?
This fall in the external liquid debt is not because of any improvement in the
management of the debt by the government but rather is mainly because of the recent
accumulation of exchange reserves by the country. When the government calculates the
liquid external debt, it subtracts from the raw external debt the dollar reserves that the
country accumulates when it exports or when it receives foreign investments. In the
current situation, the exchange reserves have gone up owing to the increase in exports
(with all the harmful effects on the environment, as we have already seen), and the
attraction of speculative foreign investments, which have bought many Brazilian internal
debt bonds, in search of the highest interest rates in the world, besides CPMF and
income tax exemption.
However, it is important to emphasize that for the country to accumulate these
reserves, the Central Bank buys dollars from exporters and foreign investors, giving
them Brazilian currency (reais). And when it gives these reais, the Central Bank assumes
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that it is injecting money into the economy, which can cause inflation. So the Central
Bank takes out of circulation an equivalent amount of money by placing internal debt
bonds, that is to say, taking money that is loaned and increasing the internal debt. So the
accumulation of exchange reserves and the consequent lessening of the liquid external
debt do not signify reduction of the debt but the exchange of external debt for internal
debt. For this reason, the liquid internal debt rose 8% of the GNP since the end of
2005.
This exchange of the external debt for the internal debt is extremely harmful to the
country since some of the creditors of the “internal” debt are foreigners, which increases
our external vulnerability. It’s also harmful because the internal debt pays the highest
rates in the world, while the exchange reserves pay very low rates. It’s like a person going
into credit card debt while their money is deposited in a savings account. It seems crazy,
counter-intuitive, but it is what the government is doing. When the government subtracts
from the external debt the exchange reserves (to calculate the DLSP), it hides this operation,
which signifies a true robbery of public coffers. What’s worse is that the government has
applied these new reserves to the purchase of bonds from the American Treasury. So
we are financing the US government to cover its deficit and defraying the cost, for
example, of the Iraq War.
Another factor that contributed to the reduction in the liquid external debt and
damaged the country’s finances was the devaluation of the dollar, caused by the big
influx of foreign money into the country, which was stimulated by the government
offering the highest interest rates in the world and generous fiscal exemptions. The fall in
the liquid debt occurs when the government calculates the liquid external debt and causes the conversion of the external debt (denominated in dollars) into reais. So if the
dollar is devalued, the same debt in dollars becomes worth a smaller amount in reais.
For this reason the external liquid debt has been falling, since the dollar was devalued
16% from the end of 2005 to September 2007. However, Brazil’s external debt in
dollars has risen strongly owing to the “private” debt not accounted for by the
government.
On the other hand, the devaluation of American currency relative to the Brazilian
real has caused big financial losses for the Central Bank, which on buying such a quantity
of dollars ends up holding a currency that has its value reduced. On the other hand, the
ones who come out ahead are on the other side of the operation (especially the banks),
selling dollars to the Central Bank. This explains the other part of the exorbitant profits
that have been obtained by the private financial sector in Brazil.
Owing to the devaluation of the dollar and the purchases of foreign currency, in the
last few years the loss to the Central Bank has been assumed totally by the National
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Treasury, in other words, by us. Taking just the most recent data, in the first half of 2007
alone, the Central Bank presented a record loss of R$ 30.3 billion. This value is almost
double what the federal government spent in the same period on Health, which is
undergoing a big crisis and can barely obtain the advance of a miserable $R 2 billion. To
sum up: for the speculators, everything. For social services, crumbs.

Audit of the Debt
The struggle to respect Human Rights in Brazil is inexorably confronting the issue
of the public debt.
We must open up this black box, since we need to know: Where did all this public
debt come from? How much have we paid already and how much more do we owe?
How much really? Who took on such loans? Where were the funds applied? Who
benefitted from this brutal debt? What is being done about this highly illegal process?
While the institutional powers – Executive, Legislative, and Judicial – leave themselves
out of the picture, organized social movements continue carrying out the Citizens’ Audit
of the Debt (www.divida-auditoriacidada.org.br), carrying out studies, research,
investigating current facts and denouncing this process that has impeded respect for
human rights of the immense majority of Brazilians and taken our country to an
unprecedented state of social degradation.

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Between June 23rd and July 3rd, 2007, the Brazilian Bar Association (Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil – OAB) conducted an observation mission
in Haiti and showed that MINUSTAH (United Nations Stabilization
Mission in Haiti) plays a” violent” and “repressive” role that cannot be
characterized as a “humanitarian action.”

UN Troops Accused of
Human Rights Violations in Haiti
Maria Luisa Mendonça 1
On October 15, 2007 the UN Security Council decided to extend the mandate of
the MINUSTAH (United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti) through October 15,
2008. In a note made public on October 16, 2007, The [Brazilian] Foreign Relations
Ministry declared that “The Brazilian Government was pleased by the news.” The
Brazilian Government is responsible for coordinating the MINUSTAH forces, made
up of approximately 9,000 troops. However, there is very little discussion in Brazil
about the country’s role in the occupation of Haiti, and especially, about the accusations
leveled against the UN troops for their participation in human rights violations.
One of the cases documented by Haitian human rights organizations was that of
the massacre that took place on December 22, 2006 in the Cite Soleil neighborhood,
following the organization of a protest by about 10,000 people who demanded the
return of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to Haiti and the withdrawal of foreign military
forces. According to reports by local residents and video footage recorded by the Haiti
Information Project – HIP, the UN forces attacked the community and killed around
30 people, including women and children.
1 Maria Luisa Mendonça is a journalist and coordinator of the Network for Social Justice and Human Rights.

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In response to the criticism by human rights organizations that denounced the massacre, MINUSTAH justified their actions by claiming to be combating so-called gangs
in Cite Soleil. However, the images shot by HIP showed that UN troops shot unarmed
civilians from helicopters. The news agency Inter Press Service (IPS) documented the
conditions in the neighborhood immediately following the attack and showed evidence
of high-caliber bullet holes in many homes. The director of HIP, Kevin Pina, accuses
MINUSTAH of taking part along with the Haitian National Police in summary executions
and arbitrary arrests, and concludes that “In this context, it is hard to continue seeing the
UN mission as an independent and neutral force in the country.”
Camille Chalmers, a Haiti University professor and member of the Haitian Platform
for Social Movement Integration, explained in an interview with journalist Claudia Korol
of the Adital Agency that “MINUSTAH tried to build legitimacy by saying that it is
fighting criminals. But many people realize that the only things that can truly reduce the
lack of safety are public policies and social services. Unfortunately, what we have is a
violent military apparatus.”
Another violent military operation took place in July of 2005. At that time, 22
thousand bullet holes were found during an attack by MINUSTAH at Cite Soleil. Reports
by HIP cite accounts by residents that the wounded and dead were found inside their
own homes. These accounts charge that soldiers shot at people indiscriminately, which
had devastating effects in a neighborhood where housing conditions are extremely
precarious. These accounts also charge that MINUSTAH did not allow the Red Cross
to enter the neighborhood, which is a violation of the Geneva Convention.
U.S. Government confidential documents, obtained by human rights organizations
through the Freedom of Information Act, show that the American Embassy knew that
the UN troops planned an attack on Cite Soleil. Local community organizations believe
that the goal of the military was to prevent a demonstration commemorating Aristide’s
birthday, which was on July 15.
A report by Project Censored estimates that more than 1,000 members of Lavalas,
supporters of president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, were arrested and about 8,000 people
killed during the “interim government” that ran the country from 2004 to 2006, following
the coup against Aristide on February 29, 2004. Camille Chalmers characterizes this
action as an “intervention led by the governments of the United States and France.” He
further explains that “solidarity with the people of Haiti means helping to rebuild the
country and find answers to the most pressing social problems, and the military presence
does not help. The goals of security and human rights have not been met. On the
contrary, we believe that the presence of MINUSTAH constitutes a violation of the
Haitian people’s right to self determination.”
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More recently, on February 2, 2007, the UN troops conducted another operation at
Cite Soleil that resulted in the deaths of two young women who were sleeping in their
homes. On February 7, various demonstrations took place in the country, and on February
9 there was another military attack against the neighborhood, which was denounced by
local organizations such as the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.
On October 30, 2007, the kidnapping of Dr. Maryse Narcisse, who is a member
of the national leadership of Lavalas and worked with health and education social
programs in Haiti, was made public. Another member of Lavalas, the psychologist and
human rights activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, disappeared on August 12. Local
organizations accuse the UN troops of generating public instability and attacking those
who defend democracy and human rights.
Between June 23rd and July 3rd, 2007, the Brazilian Bar Association (Ordem dos
Advogados do Brasil – OAB) conducted an observation mission in Haiti and recognized
that MINUSTAH (United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti) plays a” violent” and
“repressive” role that cannot be characterized as an “humanitarian action.” Anderson
Bussinger Carvalho, the lawyer responsible for the report, supported the withdrawal of
Brazilian troops from Haiti. “I have concluded that the presence of Brazilian troops is
not humanitarian. It is a strictly military mission. Haiti has a history of military occupations
and Brazil ends up playing a role in this history”, said Carvalho in an interview with the
newspaper A Folha de São Paulo on September 4, 2007.
The role played by Latin American countries in Haiti today is similar to the one
played by the multilateral forces that stayed in the Dominican Republic following the
invasion by the United States in 1965. The Dominican Republic suffered under a long
military dictatorship that lasted until 1961 when Dictator Rafael Trujillo died. In 1962,
Juan Bosch is elected president but is deposed by a military coup after 7 months in
power. In April 1965, there were a series of widespread demonstrations demanding
the return of ex-president Juan Bosch. It was during that time that U.S. President
Lyndon Johnson ordered a military invasion of the Dominican Republic by 20,000
marines. A few weeks after the invasion, the Organization of American States (OAS)
sends the Inter-American Peace Force made up of 1,129 soldiers. During that period,
while Brazil was under a military dictatorship, the role of Brazilian troops in the Dominican
Republic was similar to the one they play in Haiti today.
According to the North American writer Norman Solomon, writing in his book
War Made Easy:
“In retrospect, the 1965 invasion of the Dominican Republic foreshadowed a series
of U.S. military actions in the Western hemisphere and beyond. Covert intervention by
the CIA in Latin America was as constant as the seasons, the overwhelming arrival of so
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many U.S. troops in the small country was a kind of political and media prototype for
a pair of lightning strike invasions in the 1980s – Grenada and Panama—as well as, in
more complicated ways, the relatively limited military interventions in Haiti during the
Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. In each case, the man living in the White
House found ways to set the media agenda for public approval to affirm the kind of
desire expressed by Lyndon Johnson to Assistant Secretary of State Mann: ‘We’re going
to have to really set up that government down there and run it and stabilize it some way
or other.’” 2
The experience of Brazilian troops in Haiti was described by soldier Tailon
Ruppenthal in his book A Brazilian Soldier in Haiti (Globo Publishing). He was 20 years
old in 2004 when he took part in the UN mission for six months. “Even today, more
than two years since I got back to Brazil and left the Army, I can’t forget what I saw
there. Once when I was on foot patrol, I saw something far away that looked like a pig
that that had been completely burnt. As I got closer, I started to shake and almost lost
control before a horrifying sight: it wasn’t a pig, but a child around three years old”,
recounts Ruppenthal in his book.
He explains: “A soldier must have courage above all. But the collective depression
starts to spread and after a few months even getting out of bed is hard. You remember
that you will cross paths with all those people who are starving and there’s nothing you
can do.” In another part of the book Ruppenthal describes what happened during a
visit from then UN Secretary Koffi Annan, “The shooting was petrifying. There were
bullets flying everywhere. You couldn’t tell from where in the slum the bullets were
coming and so the soldiers started to shoot blindly, setting off the biggest barrage of
bullets that I experienced in the peace mission. The whole situation was out of control
and within one or two minutes bullets were flying from every direction.”
When Ruppenthal returned to Brazil his behavior changed. “I was very aggressive
and started to drink a lot. My mom noticed how much I had changed and we found a
doctor who diagnosed post-traumatic syndrome. I would need to receive psychological
help. We approached the Army, but they refused to help me, claiming that they examined
me upon my return and found nothing wrong with me.” And he sums up, “And I just
would like to remind everyone that we are losing the real war: against poverty. Just like
the soccer players on the national team said the day of that ridiculous game, only the
fight against poverty will bring peace. When will they see that?”
Unfortunately, Ruppenthal’s opinion and the many criticisms of the negative role the
UN troops play in Haiti are not taken into account by the Brazilian government. Under
the pretext of trying to get a seat on the UN Security Council (which is very unlikely
2 Solomon, Norman. War Made Easy. John Wiley & Sons Inc. 2005.

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today), the Brazilian government’s policy in relation to Haiti serves to legitimize a coup
d’etat and strengthen the United States’ interests in the region.

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