Correio Braziliense
May 29, 2002

The life of social movement activists in Brazil became more difficult in 2001. Amnesty International's May 28, 2002 human rights report affirms that there was a tendency among the police and the Justice Department to treat group leaders as criminals. Landless, indigenous, and union organizers were the most affected, according to the document.

"After the September 11th terrorist attacks in the United States, the nation's authorities did not hesitate to invoke the National Security Law (LSN) against social activists and workers," observed Andressa Caldas, from the NGO Center for Global Justice, which collected some of the information about Brazil in the Amnesty International report. The LSN was a law created by the military dictatorship to corner people whose activities were seen as "dangerous" to the regime.

The tension between the Rural Landless Worker's Movement (MST) and local authorities in Pontal do Paranapanema, São Paulo is an example of the type of problem Amnesty International has documented. An exchange of accusations began when Presidente Prudente's mayor, Agripino Lima, complained that MST leader Jose Rainha Junior had escaped scot-free after an attempt on the mayor's life. In April, Rainha was arrested in possession of a 12-caliber rifle, and is suspected of training a group of landless workers in guerrilla activity.

The violence used by Federal Police in the removal of the landless workers who invaded the farm of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso's son in Buritis, Minas Gerais also demonstrates this tendency toward the criminalization of social movements.

In the analysis made by Amnesty International, one of the largest human rights organizations in the world, the intensification of violence is a direct consequence of the obsession with security that prompted by the terrorist attacks of September 11th. A more powerful government response to repress and control organized groups could provoke a radicalized reaction from social movements.

Armed Militias

Amnesty's report also holds the more forceful police action against the activists responsible for the increase in private groups and armed militia working for landowners in Brazil. "There is negligence on the part of the authorities that does not prohibit this type of abuse and encourages violent actions against organized farmers," states Andressa.

In Rio Grande do Sul, for example, landowners have developed a new strategy against the MST. They block the entrances to the movement's encampments on march days to prevent the participation of landless workers in protests and mobilizations.

The Amnesty document, which has been distributed worldwide, uses numbers provided by the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) to quantify the increased tension in the Brazilian countryside. "The rural activists suffered persecution and attacks by the military police which leads to the expulsion of invaded land," the report states.

According to the document, since September 2001, 73 participants in social movements in the south of the state of Pará have received death threats and 25 others have been eliminated. The CPT data is not new and was presented in a document to the Human Rights Commission of the Deputy Council. Amnesty's conclusion is frightening: "Often the contracted assassins act with the apparent acquiescence of the police and local authorities.

Problems in Brazil

The use of torture and general and systematic maltreatment in the entire criminal justice system, at the time of arrest, in jail, in prison, and in the adolescent internment units. The subhuman conditions to which the prisoners are subjected provoke large-scale insurrection across the country. Police and "death squads" linked to security forces were responsible for the deaths of many civilians, including children. Land reform activists, environmentalists, and indigenous populations in rural areas were killed or attacked by military police or armed men contracted out by landowners. The defenders of human rights continue to receive death threats and constant attacks. There were important verdicts reached regarding violators of human rights under pressure from civil society and the international community. However, the majority of those responsible for the abuse continue to go unpunished.

Routine of Torture

The picture of Brazil painted by the Amnesty International report does not reveal anything new in relation to previous documentation on the subject. Amnesty denounced systematic and general use of torture as a practice in police investigations. They also mention the overcrowding of prisons and jails. The document finds these factors, together with the subhuman conditions to which the prisoners are subjected, responsible for the constant rebellions in Brazil. The organized simultaneous insurrection in 29 detention centers in São Paulo by the criminal faction of the First Capital Command (PCC), in February 2001, is cited as an example.

"Unfortunately the human rights situation in Brazil changes very little from one year to the next and the principal explanation for this is general impunity and lack of accountability," affirms Andressa Caldas, from the NGO Center for Global Justice. The Amnesty International report is based on visits to jails and prisons in several states. Statistics collected by partner organizations like the Catholic Church's Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) are also integrated into the body of data used in the report.

Members of Amnesty International describe cases that they found in the jails of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, and Teresina, Piauí In Belo Horizonte, they observed an overcrowding rate of 1,000%. Many of the prisoners were obliged to use paper plates as toilet paper. In Piauí, the Federal Police found several instruments of torture in the capital's 10th police station.

Victims

Common people such as Francisco das Chagas, 26 years old, are the biggest victims. He spent 5 days in jail without any charge against him. He went directly to the hospital from there, where he died from wounds suffered in jail. The report also calls attention to the delay in punishing those responsible for massacres such as the Eldorado dos Carajás massacre, in which 19 landless workers were assassinated while being forced from a land occupation.

The main function of the document widely distributed and discussed every year, is to compel governments to take steps to combat human rights violations. Brazil has been exposed in front of the national and international community for years for the same reason, however, without making great strides in the area. Amnesty International hopes to force politicians at the least to respond to each of the negative points raised in its annual report.

Bad Examples

Agrarian violence

The Pastoral Land Commission revealed a list of 22 people threatened with death by landowners in the South of Pará. Between June and September of that year, 7 farmers were assassinated by gunmen in the state. The profile of those threatened and those assassinated is the same: they are representatives of small farms and unions.

PCC Rebellion

On February 18, 2001, the criminal organization, PCC, the First Command of the Capital, commanded the largest rebellion in the history of Brazil's penitentiaries. There were 29 prisons in mutiny in São Paulo, 27,000 prisoners involved and more than 5,000 hostages. The rebellion was carried out in a coordinated and organized way. The result: 20 dead prisoners.

Deaths of activists

On April 16th of this year, NGOs presented a report in Geneva about the number of deaths of human rights defenders in Brazil. According to the survey, in the past 5 years, at least 23 activists were killed. In the majority of the cases, the contracted killer was working for landowners or organized crime.

Cases of Torture

In April of last year, the United Nations special reporter Nigel Rodley presented a document listing 349 cases of torture in Brazil. The majority of the cases described took place between 1998 and 2001. A large part involved deaths and beatings in police stations. Rodley visited police stations and jails in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasília, Minas Gerais, Pernambuco and Pará.

"Beating location"

In September of last year, Belém's Center of Temporary Detention 2 (CDP) was denounced by the Order of Attorneys of Brazil (OAB-SP) as a place of beating and maltreatment by police. Prisoners accused Center employees of beating and torturing at least 11 detained people. Eight penitentiary agents were involved in torture, according to OAB.