‘Even if things get harder: This land is Ours!’: LCP issues statement on the struggle at Camp Mãe Bernadete
We publish an unofficial translation of the statement of the LCP, found in A Nova Democracia, on the struggle in Camp Mãe Bernadete, where more than 100 families resist, with the support of the LCP, attacks and attempts to evict and expel them from the land disputed by peasants against the mining company Calsete. We reproduce the statement in full below. The note can be accessed in the form of a pamphlet, with images, here .
Mãe Bernadete Camp
Even if things get harder: This land is Ours!
Despite all the injustice and the cowardly, criminal and million-dollar police operation to evict us from our lands, Camp Mãe Bernadete RESISTS and persists on the lands, aware of our rights, convinced of our reason, and our just fight.
The lands of Lagoa dos Portácios, abandoned by Calsete, belong to the families of the Caraíbas, Cheira Cabelo, Cabacinhas peasant communities and the workers who have been fighting for over 20 years to work, live in peace and with dignity!
We came back and we will come back a thousand times because these lands belong to the people who occupies it, honest workers who saw their ancestors being expelled from these lands and who will no longer bow their heads to these rich people, land grabbers, like Lineu, the manager of Calsete who came together to attack the families, they are wolves in sheep’s clothing, bad people, full of rot, cattle and wood thieves who try to pass themselves off as good people, patting themselves on the back, manipulating people’s good faith to ask for votes in the communities, while threatening them with weapons and covering up bunch of gunmen to do their dirty work.
Justice, or rather, purchased injustice, has always won the case against us, because it is the same justice that allowed all environmental and human crimes to be committed by Calsete for more than 20 years in this region and that did nothing to prevent, stop or hold responsible.
It is the same justice that allows children and teenagers to be prostituted and abused in the city of Carinhanha, it is the same justice that covers up the crimes of the latifundium, while persecuting those who fight for a true democracy! It is the same colluded justice that only knows how to order in Cerrado [Translator’s note: Savanna region of Brazil] against the people and does nothing against true injustices.
The parasitic company Calsete destroyed the forests of Pequizeiro and left no one standing to tell a story, it caused dozens of workers to become ill and die with its coal mines, used these lands as environmental sewage, removed them and to this day, together with its partners, they grab hardwood of these lands, it imposed captivity and death on the occupiers who live in neighboring communities, as they were never able to live and work in peace on these lands that were occupied, from which our relatives were expelled in the past, exploited and humiliated.
Everyone in Carinhanha knows this story, even Mayor Chica and her family, who have peasant origins, were victims of these land grabbers and recognize that the land belongs to the peasants and the crimes committed by Calsete.
All our struggle has proven and revealed who the criminals are and who are the honest and good ones!
Colonels out!
Long live the People’s Court!
We reject all threats and attempts by these colonels [TN: local oligarchs from Brazil] to intimidate us and we will defend our lives, our families and our right to produce, we announce that WE WILL DIVIDE THE LANDS and whoever tries to stop us will have to dirty their hands with the blood of the people and will pay it at a high cost!
We reject all the lies, the injustices and cowardice of the latifundium’s dogs, false bought journalists, low, sleazy people who write anything for money, defame lies and when they are charged, they hide under the bed like a coward and we warn them that their potatoes are baking.
We demand that Incra complies with the agreement and expropriates and regularizes these lands for peasant families! These lands were promised by the Agrarian Reform in 2008/2009, by the INCRA superintendence. The representative of the municipality in Bom Jesus da Lapa participated in a public hearing at the City Council in the city of Carinhanha and made a commitment that it would expropriate these lands from Lagoa dos Portácios and 3 others and even sent technicians to the area to verify the abandonment.
On June 14, 2023, a commission representing us went to INCRA in Salvador and filed a new request.
We call on the honest and good population to continue supporting the Mãe Bernadete Camp, the workers, fishermen, students, teachers, traders, the true democrats to speak out in favor of the peasants of Carinhanha, the progress that these lands will bring to our city in hands of those who produce and spend in local commerce.
