
Brazil: Peasants in Struggle for Land Resist Repression in Rondônia
We share some extracts of an article by A Nova Democracia on increasing repression and criminalization of the struggle for land in Rondônia. Since the last municipal elections, the repression by the State forces – police and institutions such as Incra – against the organized peasants have increased regarding intensity and quantity. In consequence, organization, self-defense, consciousness, revolt and combativeness have increased among the peasants organized by the League of Poor Peasants (LCP), achieving victories in face of the attacks they live daily.
Brutal repression does not achieve to stop the struggle for land
The poor peasants have lived in a short period of time a lot of attacks against their camps, where the State has attacked fiercely with all kinds of police it has.
In the villages Samuel and Rio Verde, in Candeias do Jamari, during Christmas, peasants including children were attacked with tear and pepper gas bombs. The camp Nova Esperança was attacked on New Years eve with tear and pepper gas bombs, too. The peasants defended their lands while chanting songs and combative slogans, women and even children at the frontline. Police hindered the injured to get out of the camp and stole motorbikes from the peasants without judicial order. But the self-defense prevented the eviction.
This was the second attack on the camp that year, because on November 2024 they were evicted, without judicial order. Incra had already identified the land as “public”, therefore it was land that the latifundium had stolen. But due to the lack of work of the old State, the families took back their lands and they increased their organization and combativeness.
Police again attacked the Revolutionary Areas ‘Valdiro Chagas’ and ‘Gonzalo 1 and 2’, this time with more caution because, as AND explains: “Police and goons were already defeated several times by the combative peasant resistance.” During the attacks, workers were gun-pointed with heavy arms, they were forced to unlock their phones, their faces and documents were recorded, they were threatened to be hit or their homes being invaded, they received insults and offenses on their condition of being landless peasants and criminalization of the struggle for land and persecution of their leaders.
Even though the violence executed by the police and the old State was hard for some, neither the eviction of any camp, nor detaining the peasants leaders was successful. Continuing with their psychological attack, for several weeks now, they have changed the strategy and there are only three man, heavily armed, who harass the people daily, in local shops, asking for documents, taking pictures of people, etc.
New Agrarian “reform” by Incra in Rondônia
Incra is one more tool of the old State and, as a wolf in sheep skin, it states to support the peasants, but in practice it only acts against them. It was recently denounced how it has deceived peasants who were waiting for a Concession of Use Certificate for all the residents, but when they received it it was only for some residents and it was not definitive, only a “preliminary”, even though peasants have been living for 16 years on the same piece of land.
They have also tried to create a commission to mediate agrarian conflicts, which, as the leaders denounce, was created to identify combative peasants and their leaders, create division among the people and facilitate evictions. For example, in the Revolutionary Area Tiago Campin dos Santos, a visit by the judiciary and Incra to collect information from the residents was made, there has been no progress from Incra for the regularization of the land since 2018, but they have been receiving environmental fines since then. Similar in the Area Paredão, where since the visit of Incra they have received threats of eviction with court order.
In the Revolutionary Area Paulo Freire 4, in Seringueiras, Incra stated that 95% of the neighbors did not meet the requirements and their lands will not be regulated by Incra, even though they have been on the land for 15 years. A leader of the LCP denounced in AND: “The federal government does not carry out the government’s false agrarian ‘reform’, whether it is the manager of the false left, the right or the extreme right. The most conscious peasants get tired of waiting, conquer their lands through combative and organized struggle and manage to raise their standard of living, despite facing eviction attempts, arrests, assassinations and all kinds of repression, and without financing, technical assistance or insurance. After years, Incra comes and says they don’t meet the needs! But Incra himself says that the son and employees of big landlord Corbélio, a fish farmer in the Vila Palmares region, Theobroma, known as the King of Tambaqui, are worthy of receiving land from the “agrarian reform”.”
The Agrarian Revolution advances in the countryside of Brazil
Despite the continuous attacks of the latifundium, the peasants who follow the path of the Agrarian Revolution have achieved victories, they have stopped the eviction actions, they have pushed back the paramilitary gangs. As the LCP National Commission pointed out on the peasant struggle for land: “Our struggle is just, our cause sacred! We call and exhort the peasants to arm the self-defense groups for the struggle for land in the same proportion and caliber! We call on the peasant leaders who have not bowed the knee, the leaders of the squatters, the indigenous peoples, the Quilombola organizations, the people affected by dams, mining and eucalyptus plantations, the proletarian masses and other workers of the city, who are fighting more and more in defense of their trampled rights, to join ranks with our brave peasantry, with the path of the Agrarian Revolution.”