November 20, 2001

Members of Congress, Past Laureates, Honored Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Thank you, Frank Sesno, for that generous introduction. Frank has been a great friend to the RFK Memorial over the years, and we are honored to have him with us today.

We are also honored to have with us today the wife of our Laureate, Teresa, two colleagues from Brazil of our Laureate, and a number of our previous Laureates.

On this very special day for Robert Kennedy and for all of us in the Kennedy family, it's a great privilege to join Ethel and Kerry for this presentation of the annual Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award.

In his Christmas Play, "The Life and Death of Severino," a Brazilian poet wrote eloquently in these words of the struggle against poverty in his land:

"I know poverty is an ocean. It is not a water well. But I know that crossing it Is worthy of the hardest fight."

In Brazil, the poorest segment of the population is the landless. Today we honor Darci Frigo , who has dedicated his life's work to defending Brazil's landless poor.

Brazil's democracy has continued to strengthen since the dark days of military rule ended in 1985. Its 175 million citizens vote regularly in national and local elections. Brazilian civil society is strong and vital. Its constitution is progressive and guarantees equal rights for men and women, and many social rights.

Unfortunately, in Brazil, economic rights for millions have lagged behind political development. Despite industrial development, millions of Brazilians are plagued by the ills of poverty and hunger. Income distribution has been highly skewed for generations. The poorest half of the population receives only 10 % of the nation's wealth, while the richest tenth receives nearly 50%. Brazil accounts for a disproportionately large share of the impoverished in Latin America. According to the World Bank, 22% of Brazil's population live below the poverty line -- a level that the Bank considers well below the norm for a middle-income country.

Many noble Brazilians have dedicated their lives to eradicating this relentless poverty -- people like Dom Helder Camara, Archbishop of Recife. Dom Helder was known as a "brother of the poor." He gave a voice to the powerless, hope to the hungry, and was an inspiration to millions throughout Latin America.

Robert Kennedy was profoundly concerned about these social and economic ills in Brazil and throughout Latin America. Like President Kennedy, Bobby was moved by the wisdom of Celso Furtado -- the great Brazilian economist and statesman and pioneer of land reform -- whose life's work has been to promote economic development in Brazil.

In November 1965, on a three-week visit to Brazil and four other Latin American countries, my brother pledged to the people of the region that he would do all he could to see that the Alliance for Progress continued to have the high priority that it had received from President Kennedy.

During that visit, my brother frequently broke away from the official itinerary to visit the poor living in desperate conditions in the tin shacks of the city favelas. He visited places like Recife, in Northeast Brazil, where people living in shacks by the water dumped their refuse and garbage and ate, as the staple of their diet, the crabs which fed on that garbage. Like my brother, I was moved by the abject poverty and by the fundamental courage of the people clinging to life on my own visits to Brazil.

My brother wanted to spend as much time as he could with the impoverished, to talk to them, to give them hope, and to help lift them out of poverty. He was tenacious in challenging the leaders of Latin America to do more to combat poverty and give hope to the people. As Bobby said so many times, in the words that he loved and that remind us how much we miss him today, "Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream of things that never were and say why not."

When he returned from Latin America, my brother emphasized the need for land reform as an essential part of economic progress, social justice, and democracy in the entire region. As he said, "Land reform is the essence of human dignity and democracy in Latin America. To give land to the man who works it is to give him, for the first time, a degree of security -- something more than subsistence living -- a place to stand for his rights as a citizen, a share and a stake in the society around him."

Those words ring as true today as when my brother spoke them.

Brazilian officials have long recognized this need. Brazil's constitution supports agrarian reform, and it allows the expropriation of land not being used productively.

The struggle over this issue has persisted for decades. Land ownership is highly concentrated in Brazil. Approximately 1% of the population control 46% of all land. Despite the vast area, as many as five million rural families -- as many as 12 million people -- own no land. Because of these enormous disparities, the Brazilian people have organized to keep the issue of land reform high on the agenda for action.

Although there are people of good will in the Brazilian government, clearly, the past reforms have not met the scope of the problem. As some people receive land, others are driven off. Economic liberalization, although necessary, has also contributed to the problem of landlessness.

Sadly, this struggle in Brazil has frequently been accompanied by violence and human rights abuses. Since 1985, over a thousand Brazilians involved in the land reform movement have been assassinated.

There was cause for hope in recent years, when rural violence declined. But recently, the violence has again increased. In the year 2000, there were 660 land conflicts, and through September of this year, there have already been 630 such conflicts. Last year, 21 rural workers were murdered, and through September of this year, there had been 23 murders.

Pope John Paul II spoke eloquently in 1999 about the need to find a solution to land reform and the related problems of hunger and economic injustice. He said, "What is needed is the more profound and infinitely more creative power of hope."

Our Laureate, Darci Frigo, has dedicated his life to assisting the landless and promoting social justice in Brazil, and he has brought that hope to the landless.

Darci was born to a family of small farmers in Brazil. As a young seminary student, he founded two human rights centers in southern Brazil. After completing his studies in philosophy in 1985, he began to work full time as an advocate of human rights.

In 1986, he joined the Catholic Church's Pastoral Land Commission -- the leading organization dedicated to documenting human rights violations. While continuing his impressive human rights work, Darci obtained a law degree, so that he could more effectively advance the rights of the rural landless.

In his 16 years defending and representing them, Darci has been a skillful advocate for basic legal and human rights to landless rural laborers and the promotion of land reform. He has worked primarily in the extremely dangerous southern state of Paraná, where arbitrary arrests, detentions, repression and high levels of rural violence occur frequently.

Although the struggle for land rights has become increasingly violent in recent years, Darci has vigilantly pursued a non-violent approach and has used the law to obtain land and protect the rights of the rural poor. His efforts are rooted in his deeply held belief that safeguarding the legal rights of one landless individual strengthens the rights of all the landless poor in Brazil. His philosophy echoes the words which Robert Kennedy spoke in 1961: "We know that it is the law, which enables men to live together, that creates order out of chaos. We know that law is the glue that holds civilization together. And we know that if one man's rights are denied, the rights of all are endangered."

Our Laureate's tireless work for the landless and rural poor has faced great personal risks. Attacks on his work began almost as soon as he joined the Pastoral Land Commission. In 1986, he was accused and convicted of defamation when he revealed that a federal representative was forcing slum children to perform hard labor on his estate. In a clear act of retribution for his human rights work, he was blocked from taking his appointed seat on the Permanent Council of Human Rights of Paraná.

As his accomplishments and successes on behalf of the landless have increased, he has also become the target of physical violence and intimidation. In 1993, he was threatened by military police while inside a police station defending a client. Two years ago, he was attacked and arbitrarily detained by military police, and his telephone has been wiretapped by the government. Last year, he received three telephoned death threats, and he was warned not to leave his house if he did not want to face further retaliation.

He has not been silenced by physical or verbal threats. He has continued to serve as a courageous advocate for the rights of the landless workers he represents. He has not let intimidation undermine his efforts to bring the plight of rural landless Brazilians to the attention of national and international authorities.

He has earned a reputation as one of the most effective human rights defenders in Brazil. He works closely with many other human rights organizations, and is a leading member of the National Network of Independent Public Interest lawyers. He was invited to present a report on forced labor in Brazil to the United Nations in 1994. This year, he represented the Brazilian human rights community at a regional Latin American meeting. He is a profile in courage for our time and for all time.

Robert Kennedy also said, "families enslaved to land that they cannot hope to own are denied the dignity -- the fulfillment of talent and hope -- which is the purpose of economic progress. Progress without justice is false progress -- and a false hope."

Like my brother, Darci knows that progress on land reform requires constant political effort, and is essential for the dignity of those who live on the land. Because of his efforts, the poor and landless in Brazil are many steps closer to finding that dignity.

For all of these reasons and many more, it is now a great honor to ask Ethel to join me in presenting the 2001 Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Award to Darci Frigo for his courageous leadership on behalf of the landless workers of Brazil.

SOURCE: Ted Kennedy's website http://www.senate.gov/~kennedy/statements/01/11/2001B20053.html