State Leadership of the MST in São Paulo
November 28, 2001

Nearly 500 families who occupied the São Roque Estate on November 28, 2001 were violently displaced by the "Shock Troops" of Brazil's Military Police. Aside from not being granted a warning as well as it being illegal to carry out evictions at night, the policemen had arrived at the site beating the agricultural workers and destroying their huts.

The São Roque Estate is approximately 1000 hectares and is located in the Franco da Rocha municipality (50 km from the capital). The farmland, owned by the state government of São Paulo is vacant, unproductive, not fulfilling a social function.

On September 27th, the encamped members of the MST had already met with the ITESP (Land Institute of the State of São Paulo), Incra (National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform) and City Hall of São Paulo, as well as with the CPT (Pastoral Land Commission), where the Estate had been identified as a rural-urban settlement of families. An inspection had already marked the Estate as available for land reform with 550 farmable hectares. However, the land still would have to be passed through the ITESP, according to agreements signed before the inspection. Noncompliance of this agreement will hinder the families from living on the settlement.

On September 7th of this year these same families had occupied an area of unproductive land in the city of Arujá. After almost three months of encampment, they had been unjustly evicted. Having no other alternative, the families decided to occupy another large estate in the region close to São Paulo to demand a settlement for them to plant food and house their families.