‘No one pacifies injustice with armed force’, says Pastoral Land Commission on peasant deaths in Rondônia

Iury Lima – from Cenarium Magazine

VILHENA (RO) – The murder of Ilma Rodrigues dos Santos, 45 years old, and her husband, Edson Lima Rodrigues, 43 years old, caused indignation to the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), in Rondônia. The two were killed with shots to the head, last Thursday, 17, in a region of the District of Abunã, 216 kilometers from Porto Velho. Ilma and Edson were members of the League of Poor Peasants (LCP) and lived, among other families, in the Thiago dos Santos Camp, installed in Nova Brasil Farm, a place where agrarian conflicts are recurrent.

The bodies were found next to the vehicle used by the couple, a pickup truck that was set on fire after the crime. It is believed to have been a revenge against the movement that fights for land occupation, since a day before, military police officers and state government inspectors were targeted with shots attributed to LCP members by the military police in the State Park of Guajará-Mirim (PES), 586 kilometers from the capital of the state of Rondonia.

“The struggle for land should not be a police case. It is a cry for social justice. It is the outcry of the people in the countryside to the State (…) One does not pacify injustice with armed force; on the contrary, this current method corroborates the increase of more injustice. We hope that in the near future we will have governments that take this policy seriously and honorably,” Maria Petronila, CPT coordinator in Rondônia, declared to CENARIUM‘s report.

Conflict in the PES of Guajará-Mirim

Reduced by a law authored by the governor of Rondônia, Marcos Rocha (PSL), the State Park of Guajará-Mirim was the scene of conflict between land invaders, military police, and inspectors from the State Department of Environmental Development (Sedam-RO), on February 16, one day before the murder of Ilma and Edson.

According to the Military Police, in that episode, three shots hit a vehicle of the Environmental Battalion, but it was not possible to find any trace of the criminals. Still, the shooters were treated as LCP members.

Questioned by CENARIUM, the Rondônia Military Police did not provide any clarification, nor did they say how it was possible to attribute the invasion and the shooting to the peasants.

The Pastoral Land Commission does not believe that members of the movement orchestrated the attack. “What we maintain is that there is a group determined to end protected areas, especially Extractive Reserves and Indigenous Lands; to extinguish conservation areas in favor of the advance of large estates and predatory exploitation linked to agricultural capital. And in this group there are individuals of all kinds: those who do the dirty work, those who deforest, steal wood, etc. We emphasize that we have never been against the investigation and application of due punishment. Besides, this whole process is favored by some members of the legislative power that guarantee changes in the laws, resulting, in this way, in an increase of environmental crime”, affirmed the coordinator of CPT/RO.

The surveillance in the PES region was done by eight MPs and two Sedam agents. The area had more than 216 thousand hectares, until May last year, when Rocha sanctioned the Law 1.089/2021, delimiting the area that goes from the municipalities of Guajará-Mirim to Nova Mamoré, to only 166 thousand hectares; an endorsement for land grabbers and deforesters. Despite the fact that the courts declared the unconstitutionality of the device, the territory has not yet been recomposed.

The reduction also affected the Extractive Reserve (Resex) Jaci-Paraná, located between Porto Velho, Nova Mamoré and Buritis, with the loss of 88% of the territory. Together, the two Conservation Units (UCs) in the Amazon have lost almost 220 thousand hectares of forest.

Vilanization

For Petronila, the authorities in Rondônia do not prioritize environmental preservation and try to ‘villainize’ social movements instead of holding the real culprits responsible for the crimes committed and fed by the loosening of the legislation, that is, “a process of criminalization and persecution of the struggle for land in Rondônia,” according to her. “There is a clear design aimed at criminalizing the movement of the League of Poor Peasants. The State has established measures in which it first punishes and then asks what the crime was”, she criticized.

“There is a conflict and an unequal dispute, in which a few have a large concentration of land and, on the other hand, a large majority of workers do not have access to land, making it impossible for them to survive in a dignified way. Therefore, this conflict needs to be treated from a social policy of access, in which everyone can have the same rights with real conditions”, he added.

Civil Police investigates

The new episode of violence against LCP members is now being investigated by the Civil Police of Rondônia (PC/RO). CENARIUM MAGAZINE also questioned the entity about the possibility of a revenge against the peasants, asked for information about the investigation and asked if there were already suspects of having committed the double homicide.

This is not an isolated case. According to the Pastoral Land Commission, 13 rural workers were murdered in 2021, in the state of Rondônia. “Seven of them were shot by the police themselves. It is necessary that there be a serious and impartial investigation, respecting the universal precepts of human rights. Unfortunately, we observe a scenario of generalized violence supported by the certainty of impunity”, revealed Maria Petronila.

Repercussion

Social movements have positioned themselves in repudiation of the double homicide, as was the case of the Union of Communist Youth in Rondônia (UJC/RO). “The LCP has been attacked for having a combative character against the interests of the local elite and, since the Corumbiara massacre, it has been criminalized, and its peasants threatened, murdered or arrested, in a project of the police and government authorities, goons of landowners, who aim for a real witch hunt,” says an excerpt from the note posted on a social network.

“We repudiate this persecution and solidarize with the cause, because we understand that it is not a crime to fight for access to land for those who live and work on it! Enough of IMPUNITY!”, added UJC/RO.

Also moved by the crime, Petronila explains that the CPT “has always respected the autonomy of social movements in the struggle for land.

“And, because we are a pastoral that fights for the human rights of the poor in the countryside, wherever there is a threatened life, the CPT will always be on the side of workers who are wronged by this cruel economic system based on the foundations of this necropolitical policy in force in our country”, said the coordinator.

“We have to continue raising our voices, echoing the voice of the oppressed. This scenario of murders in the countryside, in the struggle for land, is increasingly blatant”, she concluded.