Social Movements Declare Land Plot 96 Property Rights for Anapu Agricultural Workers!

From Bacajá area, July 9, 2021

Social movements representatives met with the 54 peasant families in “Volta Grande do Xingu” indigenous land under the affluence of their ancestral currents on July 7-9, 2021 and declared that, for all due legal purposes, this plot of land does belong to those who work and live on it.

This decision is due to the historical aggressions, the practices of threats and violence that have been perpetrated against these families in this last period.

Despite of being a state-owned territory destined for the purpose of land reform in favor of the families who have been living there for many years, today we live with the burning and demolition of the houses belonging to at least three families, the burning of a flour mill, armed intimidation and several other threats, on top of three attempts against Erasmo Alves Theófilo’s life who is currently a member of the political and cooperativist coordination of these families.

Furthermore, there are legal obstacles, which have been instrumentalized with the shallow objective of postponing or disfavoring the fair and due reparation of possession of this land to the farmers who are today resisting at “plot 96” in the Bacajá area.

These facts renew the urgency of the content of the decision that is now being reached. It is determined as follows:

This private and collective instrument of possession reparation takes effect on the day of the birth of our first Native against the colonial usurpation of our mother land and is renewed in this act against the heirs of capitalist land grabbing.

With the blood of Dorothy Stang, Márcio, Paulo Anacleto, and several activist leaders of our cause, it is formally and fully registered, stamped and endorsed by this solidary and active conference that, through the strength of our struggle, the pleasure of human life, solidarity, the maintenance of access and use of this land, and the freedom and legitimate right to sow, harvest, produce and reproduce for the generations of families of plot 96 is legalized in an irrevocable status as a sacred inalienable act and public domain.

Be notified of this decision, the big landowners of the area as well as the institutions that are corrupt and subjected to the crushing greed for profit which is endless and all violators shall be convicted for the crime of environmental devastation, illegal occupation (land grabbing), violations of human rights, and the murder of the rural popular leaders, riverside people and traditional communities of the Amazonia.

Finally, no appeal of any nature whatsoever will be tolerated and any legal or political act taken against this decision will be subject to the maximum and legitimate direct action by the families and entities that subscribe to it, with a view to the complete preservation of the content of the terms of this Declaration of Reparation of Property Rights.

We give faith to this letter.

Signatories:

Atnágoras Lopes – CSP-CONLUTAS

Walter Chile Rodrigues Lima – base da Adufpa

Gilberto de Souza Marques – base da Adufpa

Flávio da Rocha Ribeiro Farias- Sind. T. Construção Civil de Belém

José Cleber Barros Rabelo – PSTU

Wellingta Josyane Siqueira Macêdo – Mov. Nac. Quilombo Raça e Classe

Ingridy Cristina de Jesus Ferreira – Comitê Irmã Dorothy

Leandro Marques do Carmo – IFPA Castanhal/Resistência

Pedro Alace Lameira dos Santos – IFPA Castanh/Resistência

Raiana Siqueira Mendes – Juntos