#quilombo of gurupa

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

So, in Brazilian environmental justice news, the Quilombo of Gurupá, a 10 hectares area in the Amazonian state of Pará, has been for five decades under dispute between quilombolas and farmers.

Quilombos are land settlements, currently recognized by Brazil's government, founded in the past by escaped slaves of African origins, and passed to their descendants. Parts of the Quilombo of Gurupá have been claimed by the São Joaquim Farm. A quilombola has said that, in 2016, 30 farm guards arrived on boats, firing pistols and double-barreled shotguns. “They said, 'Kill this son of a bitch.'", he said. "They shot to kill. I was told to lie down". Another quilombola says farmers shouted at him "Thief, son of a bitch, rascal, bunch of black thiefs" during the conflict. The first one still has a bullet in the belly from the conflict, but the investigation was never concluded. The quilombolas also blame the farmers for two murders, one paraplegia, and theft of Brazilian berry named açaí, important for the quilombo's subsistence.

The farmers claim half the land was property of their father's, but public reports state that the father falsified ownership documents, and Justice in 2014 (and even the presidency in 2016) has declared that the land is indeed the Quilombo's. The eviction of non-quilombolas from the area and annulment of the farmers' forged property documents were determined, but haven't been carried out even two years later. The National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra), responsible for it, says that their processes have been paralyzed since January (it's currently October) due to lack of budget and the “complete depletion of the policy of demarcation of quilombola communities”.

Just like the quilombolas descend from escaped slaves, these farmers descend from slave-owning families with political influence. The almost 900 quilombolas claim that, in the 1970s, the father of the current farmers came in the area saying that those lands belonged to him, and his servants set fire to the homes of local families and evicted people. They say that since then the farm has exploited the resources available in the rest of the region. The conflict has intensified in the past decade, with the rising value of the açaí berry (to the point that it's occasionally called "purple gold"). One of the farmers has Facebook posts criticizing indigenous rights, land reform, and even the international repercussion of the increase of fires in the Amazon Rainforest. Another was a mayor of a town nearby. Those farmers have sent the Quilombolas multiple letters reiterating their property over the lands, and there are eight other farms on them as well (seven are small properties that would receive indemnification for their eviction).

The quilombolas claim while eviction doesn't happen, conflicts will continue on, which is "risk of eminent death" for them. They have received threats from the farmers, and a leader was murdered in 2014 when he was about to meet with officials from Incra and the Federal Prosecutor's Office (Justice it was a "passionate crime"). The quilombos claim local police is by the farmers' side, and local political forces work against them. A former prosecutor said that the denouncements of threats against the quilombolas "do not match the facts", and that “Since it is a conflict, there are victims on both sides. All these questions are still being cleared." A police chief claims the police has been "vehemently" fighting militias in the Pará state, and that an investigator reportedly present during a threat by farmers against the quilombolas has an "irreparable conduct". The journalists who published the original report on all this, that I'm summarizing here, say the investigator called them anonymously (but he was later identified) saying they'd "soon know who he is". In exchanged messages to them, he, normally identified, said that there are "invasions by people who claim to be quilombolas", that there is no way for the police to know "who is and who is not quilombola", and that he didn't witness any “embarrassment, coercion, or threat” when he was with the farmers and quilombolas.

Source (in Portuguese).