Stop the Eviction of Quilombo Campo Grande!

Friday, August 7, 2020

Info Source:

MST

A little over a year ago, the MST asked for international solidarity to stop the eviction of 450 families from the MST settlement in the state of Minas Gerais. Because of the large outpouring of support and solidarity, the order of eviction was suspended in July 2019. Now, a new order of eviction has been issued with an eviction date of August 12. Information on the Quilombo Campo Grande settlement is below. On the side panel of this webpage, there is a video discussing the eviction.

CALL FOR SOLIDARITY

After more than twenty years resisting and producing healthy food, the Quilombo Campo Grande camp, producer of Café Guaií, in the south of Minas Gerais, is once again with the eviction date set for next Wednesday, August 12th.

Watch the video in the side panel and this direct appeal from the MST Minas Gerais:

HOW TO SUPPORT?

STEP 1 - Send the e-mail below to the addresses:

cpgsecretaria@tjmg.jus.br (Court of Justice of Minas Gerais)

sco64bpm@gmail.com (Police battalion)

bhe.vagraria@tjmg.jus.br (Agrarian Court)

with copy to crdh.territoriosul@gmail.com (case monitoring)

In the care of Dr. Mr. Gilson Soares Lemes

I hereby declare my request to suspend the effects of the decision on repossession of PROCESS No. 6105218-78.2015.8.13.0024, following the guidelines of the National Council of Justice, that there should be no eviction during social isolation. In accordance with the articles 22 to 23 of the UDHR, which embody social rights, the right to work, the choice of work, as families have been in possession of the area for more than 20 years, have their homes, production and reproduction of life in this place.

For the resolution of the conflict and the permanence of the families, I make this appeal.

No more to declare

Name / Organization, State, Country, Date

_____________________________________________________________________

STEP 2 - Sign the support motion: https://bit.ly/SalveQuilombo

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STEP 3 - Record a video horizontally, from 2min to 3min, expressing your support to MST’s Camp Quilombo Campo Grande, denouncing the illegality of an eviction in the middle of a pandemic.

Post on your social networks and mark @movimentosemterra and @minassemterra. Use the tag #salvequilombo and #despejozero.

We would like to thank everyone who is in solidarity with the struggle and sows with us a world of health and dignity for male and female workers.

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INFORMATION ON THE CAMPO GRANDE SETTLEMENT

From July, 2019

Since the first occupation there have been five evictions over 20 years and only resistance and popular organization have made possible achievements

The conflicts in the areas of the old Ariadnópolis Plant extend over 20 years. The area of the Plant has about 4,000 hectares, where all its production was destined to monoculture of sugar cane, and production of alcohol.

The Landless Rural Workers Movement arrived in the south of Minas Gerais, in the municipality of Campo do Meio, in 1997, in the face of labor conflicts involving the former Ariadnópolis Plant, Companhia Agropecuária Irmãos Azevedo (CAPIA), which have not yet been fully resolved to date , there are still workers who have not received their rights. We organized ourselves through these processes of struggle and resistance that later, in 1999, resulted in the occupation of the unproductive lands of the old Mill after its bankruptcy.

Since the first occupation there have been five evictions over 20 years and only resistance and popular organization have made possible achievements. In 2017-2018, landless families produced more than 8,500,000 bags of coffee; 55,000 bags of corn and 500 tons of beans. In addition to a diverse horticultural production of vegetables, beans, chickens, cattle and milk. Throughout these years, partnerships have also been established with organizations and institutions in the region that have encouraged production, the promotion of popular education and the improvement of infrastructure for families.

In September of 2015 the movement had at hand the State Decree 365 that expropriated 3,195 hectares of the bankrupt Ariadnópolis Plant. The State Decree had as its proposal to expropriate the area by paying R $66 million [US $17.7 million] to the company. However, CAPIA shareholders did not accept the agreement and brought the case to justice against the Minas Gerais government, requesting annulment of the decree.

Two months ago, we reached an agreement in which the state pledged to pay the sum in five installments, but with the advance of the fascist wave along the electoral process, through a legal collusion between the agribusiness, the ruralist group and the landowners, they made a political maneuver judging and annulling the decree, being that the same had already passed through two judgments that validated the important action of the Minas Gerais government.

Through a dubious legal operation they resumed a 2011 eviction action, with false and lying statements, and intend to remove the families who have been living in the area for more than 20 years. These are the first steps of the fascist actions of the State, of the criminalization of the struggle for land and Agrarian Reform.

The entities and partners that sign below, hereby declare the total support for the permanence of these families in the area and request the definitive resolution of one of the oldest conflicts in Brazil.