Curitiba-Paraná-Brasil
May 15, 2000

An eviction this morning in the southwest region of the state of Paraná near the municipality of Quedas de Iguaçu has brought Paraná to a renewed state of tension. As many as three thousand Sem Terra farm laborers are on their way now to the area 180 km from Guarapuava.

Countless other worker families are on their way to the area, where about 100 police have gathered, the same police who evicted 36 families in the early hours of the morning from Assentamento Solidor. These families had been living there for 13 (thirteen!) years. Assentamento Solidor used to be state land inside the strip of land along the border, under federal public domain, and had already been decreed appropriated land. This is one more example of how rural workers' rights are taken away cruelly and arrogantly by the government of the state of Paraná. In one week the government has murdered a worker and now evicted these families from Assentamento, taking from them in one fell swoop their crops, their homes and their investments, all put together with the workers' resistance and hard work.

The latest is that during the eviction, several people were injured in the scuffle with the police, and 6 rural workers were taken into custody.

The Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) holds the government of Paraná responsible for whatever violence may ensue in the coming hours. This situation is the result of Governor Jaime Lerner's no-holds-barred policy of repression as well as his reactionary policy of siding with the forces of the landowner. Irrational behavior and lies have cruelly become the logic of Lerner's government, a government that sees itself as above any democratic or constitutional values which ought to serve as guide to any goverment in search of solutions to the problems of the rural poor.

We urge one and all, both inside Brazil and out, to continue to show that you are against the atrocities of Lerner's government. We can no longer stand by as witnesses to violence on such a scale, nor can we accept that the ideals of peace and justice and of equality and fraternity are awash in blood.

Translated by Misha Norton.