Brazil: LCP Note on the Death of Six Bandits

After the death of six bandits in the Tiago Campin dos Santos area, decided after the People’s Assembly, now the League of Poor Peasants published a note on the issue. You can read an article on the facts here:

We share an unofficial translation of the parts highlighted by the newspaper A Nova Democracia:

In a statement, the LCP reported that the individuals “ended up dead when they reacted using weapons against their expulsion from the community by decision of the Popular Assembly,” and that they were known for the “brazen practices of robberies to the residents of the community, for threats and armed intimidation of them and murders.”

Before the expulsion, the individuals were warned several times to end the abuses, but they continued with the reprehensible practices. “The residents, tired and with exhausted patience in the face of so many abuses, called for the expulsion of the bandits from the community with the use of force if necessary.” At the time of expulsion, the bandits tried to react and ended up dead.

“Elements like these are degenerate people who do not accept minimum collective rules and, in the communities that emerged from the struggle for land, who live being harassed by goons and the police, they are used by the same police, who in exchange for not being stopped in their misdeeds, act as their informants and even as provocateurs to disintegrate, demoralize and disorganize these masses who are always in struggle in defense of their rights. Such a situation that could not be solved by appealing to those who only practice oppression, violence, brutality and all kinds of abuses against these masses,” says the LCP.

“It is clear that the reason for the violent decision of the masses there, who live by hard work under the scorching sun for survival, results from the experience of the systematic violence against them by goons and the repressive apparatuses of the old State, both as thugs of the latifundium. We will demonstrate, once again, the crimes of all kinds against these impoverished masses, practiced mainly by the Military Police, whose members put themselves in the role of guaxebas (goons) of the big landlords. So many crimes and abuses that have already made the peasants calloused with so much cowardice coming from the latifundium and the organs of this old genocidal state. Therefore, none of these masses trusts anything, nothing, on the part of the police or a justice system, in which a large part of the judges are known to be cronies of the latifundium.”, says the LCP, which also contextualizes the fact that the name of the area Tiago Campim dos Santos (TCS) is a tribute to the peasants Tiago and Ademar Ferreira, murdered in the struggle for land in the Dois Amigos community, next to TCS.

The note also says that it was precisely the repression unleashed against the TCS, the murders and arrests of peasants, that “hindered the advance of the organization of the masses in the area, weakened its leadership” and “favored degenerate elements to infiltrate the community by taking advantage of the situation and, through kinship relations and other personal ties, and with this, what had never happened since the formation of the TCS Camp, began to take place the theft of the residents’ belongings, murders and other abuses practiced by these degenerate elements who moved all the time armed”.

Even so, the masses advanced in the organization of the encampment, with “the growth of local production, the struggle of the Association and other working committees has been to reorganize the logistics of the collective area, Vila Alípio de Freitas, in a health center, school, shed of the People’s Assembly and the activities of organizing local security, of the women of the MFP, of the Education Commission to ensure the School on site for children, young people and adults, improvements to the Health Center, in the promotion of parties, leisure and sports, cultural activities and the expansion of public works to open many roads, improvement of lines, transport and increase of local commerce”. “However, the actions of these bandits created an unbearable situation for the families, who were already tired and asked the Assembly to be held to discuss and provide a solution.”

The LCP concludes the note by saying that “we stand for people’s democracy at all levels of mass organization and based on the principles of democratic centralism and method of investigation and direction in the work among the masses, from the masses to the masses, of the practice of criticism and self-criticism, of linking the general to the particular and the leadership to the base. As for the handling of contradictions among the people, that is, contradictions of a non-antagonistic nature, we are for the solution by putting the problems on the table, discussing them and finding the solution by convincing them of what is just and right. We call for small crimes among the people to be treated with warning and re-education of those who commit them, through collective work, study and light disciplinary measures, such as loss of the right to vote in decisions for a certain period of time and temporary removal from the participating body, varying the intensity of the measure according to the degree of responsibility that has been invested and the level of the body that is a member of the management structure. In cases of crimes against the masses, the measure is expulsion from the organization, if it belongs, and from the community itself. All education work is based on the revolutionary, collectivist ideology and fraternity and a sense of justice among all men and women in the organization and the community. Corresponding to this, we work on the education of all so that all decisions, especially those involving situations and problems of extreme seriousness, must be taken collectively, within the scope and level of organization and according to the principles, program, line and methods of the LCP, that is, democratic and rational”.

And they continue: “Just as mistakes are inevitable in general, there are also situations generated by strong indignation of the masses who are assailed by strong commotion that lead to the overflow of violence, in the face of which, although we are so that all decisions are made with the maximum of rationality and less moved by feelings and emotions, situations that are mostly driven by great resentments accumulated over time, the situation of the exploited and oppressed masses, we do not condemn them, on the contrary we support them, recognizing their motives and reasons. In view of what we understand of the need to raise the level of political participation, of awareness of this participation and of the organization of the masses.”

You can read the full note here: