Brazil: crimes by the latifundium in Maranhão
Featured image: cartridges found at the Akroá-Gamella village. Source: A Nova Democracia
A Nova Democracia (AND) has reported on new crimes commited by the latifundium in the state of Maranhão. The latifundium has used goons to harass and even shot with alive ammunition against the peasants.
The Akroá-Gamella indigenous peasants are a group involved in the struggle for land since a long time ago in Maranhão. According to AND the indigenous peasants have been facing threats and violent attacks by the latifundium for more than a century. On 30th of March of 2017 occurred one of the biggest crimes committed by the big landlords against them. On this day a group of goons attacked an indigenous ritual and wounded 22 indigenous people. In November 2021 there was a new offensive by the goons who used weapons that are the same ones used by the Military Police (MP). The indigenous peasants rejected the attack, but afterwards the MP intervened to attack and disperse them. But those peasants are not just receiving attacks, but also responding. This year they carried out a retaking of land on August 28. They were facing invasions on their lands as well as spoiling of wastes. After the retaking of land, the latifundium started a brutal harassment which included threats at the beginning of September, as well as an attack with gunshots during the night of Sunday, 16th of September. According to the local residents most of the gunshots targeted one house in particular and the cartridges of the bullets were found on beds which, at the moment of the gunfire, had people on them. That means this attack could have resulted in many murders.
On the other hand, also in Maranhão, the latifundium has sent the police against an indigenous peasant leader, Antônio Wilson Guajajara, known as “Cacique Pistola” (what means Chief Handgun). AND explains that this is an “attempt to criminalize him due to his defense of the rights of his people”. Cacique Pistola leads the demands of his people since January of this year, to build a bridge to cross the river in the Indigenous Land Caru, where they live. The company VALE is responsible for this, but so far nothing happened. They just accepted to deliver a raft that has caused several accidents so far. Now, after the company refused to fulfill its duty and after seeing the firmness of the indigenous peasant leader, the police has started an investigation against him.
By using the most brutal ways such as attacks and massacres, or less brutal as using the old Brazilian State’s law, the peasantry is receiving attacks from the latifundium, which attempts to safeguard its interests. Those crimes by the latifundium are in the framework of the rural civil war in the Brazilian countryside, already mentioned several times by AND. There is an open and criminal offensive by the latifundium using all the means they have to suffocate a peasant struggle which is growing and tending to a further organization and self-defense.
