LCP speaks out about the death of 6 bandits in the Tiago Campim dos Santos area, in Rondônia
We publish an unofficial translation of the LCP statement. We have previously publish some reports on the topic and now we bring the full translation of the statement that we found in the newspaper The Worker.
Angry at so many thefts, peasants bring criminals to justice
On the 2nd of last month, in the Tiago Campim dos Santos area, Nova Mutum, rural district of Porto Velho- RO, 6 people who had been robbing families of their belongings and murdering people from this area ended up dead when they fought back with weapons in hand against their expulsion from the community by decision of the local Popular Assembly. Already known to almost all residents for their blatant practices of robbing the community’s residents, for threatening and intimidating them with weapons and murdering them, and having already been warned to leave the area, the residents, tired and with their patience exhausted in the face of so much abuse, called for the bandits to be expelled from the community with the use of force if necessary. Faced with the act of expulsion carried out by a large commission of volunteers from the community, these individuals reacted with firearms and ended up dead. People like these are degenerate people who do not accept minimum collective rules and, in communities that emerged from the struggle for land, who are constantly being harassed by gunmen and the police, are used by the same police, who, in exchange for not being stopped from committing their misdeeds, act as their informants and even as provocateurs to disintegrate, demoralize and disorganize these masses who are always fighting to defend their rights. This situation could not be resolved by appealing to those who only practice oppression, violence, brutality and all types of abuse against these masses.
After the incident, the trash press in Rondônia and some media monopolies, such as G1, rushed to give their version that the deaths were motivated by a dispute between criminal factions over land and control of the area. Once again, lies! Let’s look at the facts, the true story of this community that emerged and maintained itself through a tough and combative struggle, the Tiago Campim dos Santos peasant area.
The history of the Rondônia Military Police is one of massacres of peasants and extermination of their leaders
The history of the peasants is one of fierce resistance to these crimes committed by the latifundia
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, is the result of the experience of systematic violence against them by the gunmen and the repressive apparatus of the old State, both of which act as thugs for the latifundia. We will demonstrate, once again, the crimes of all kinds against these impoverished masses, committed mainly by the Military Police, whose members lend themselves to the role of gunmen for the latifundia. So many crimes and abuses that have already made the peasants hardened by so much cowardice coming from the latifundia and the organs of this old genocidal State. Therefore, none of these masses trusts anything, absolutely nothing, from the police or from the justice system, in which a large number of judges are known cronies of the latifundia.
We will not recount here the saga that gave rise to the name Tiago Campim dos Santos (TCS) for the camp, which has now become a large rural community. It is the story of Tiago and Ademar Ferreira, who were sacrificed in the fight to gain land in the Dois Amigos community, neighboring the TCS area. The peasant families of the Tiago Campim dos Santos area have been fighting for many years for the lands of the NorBrasil and Arco-íris estates, whose then-proclaimed owner, Antônio Carlos Martins, alias Galo Velho, is a habitual thief of federal lands, a notorious individual for several crimes of falsifying land deeds in this state, and has even been convicted in court cases, one of which resulted from the PF’s [Federal Police] “Operation Amicos Regen” involving federal judge Herculano Martins Nacif and other justice officials for favoring that criminal’s group in expropriation sentences. Galo Velho is also known for the practice of hiring gunmen, many of whom are active or retired military police officers, to assassinate leaders of the land struggle and humble fathers of families who worked without receiving a salary on supposedly his farms, just because they demanded their rights. His name is on the list of exploiters of labor analogous to slavery.
The families of Tiago dos Santos have already faced several eviction attempts carried out with purchased judicial injunctions, when there is plenty of evidence that those lands belong to the Union and were seized by Galo Velho to speculate as a store of value in banking transactions and all kinds of dirty business carried out by his gang. In the attempts to evict these lands that the peasant families took possession of to work, produce and live, huge contingents of the police forces of the state of RO were mobilized, which, as is their nature, committed all kinds of abuses against those workers, burning their shacks, motorcycles and even cars, destroying the few and modest household utensils of the families, such as gas stoves, tables and benches, pots and pans, in addition to stealing gas cylinders, food and other belongings, after having carried out a charge of the troops with rifles pointed at women, the elderly and children, attacking everyone with punches, slaps to the face and kicks, hurling insults of all kinds, abusing the women and children, shooting into the air and using pepper spray, as was the case in October 2020, when they managed to remove the families from the hitherto TCS Camp and transport them like cattle and throw them into the school in Vila da Penha, in the same region. This hasty action by the troops was carried out in revenge for the death of a retired lieutenant who worked as a guaxeba [lackey] for Galo Velho and accused the campers of killing him because the incident had occurred near the camp. However, the families mobilized and led by the LCP had already organized the land clearing and returned immediately, no longer to the devastated camp but rather each family to their plot, where they set up their ranch and began to prepare the land and cultivate it.
Constantly attacked by police raids, provocations and violent harassment of residents as they entered and exited the area, including targeting residents’ vehicles and making death threats, a year later, the families would face another eviction attempt. At the same time, 800 km to the south, other families were resisting the attacks of the same PM troops at the Manoel Ribeiro Camp, in the municipality of Chupinguaia, on the border with Corumbiara, on the NS Aparecida farm, the last remaining part of the former Santa Elina farm. Attacks that turned the year 2020 into 2021 and continued for months on end. In October 2020, after the death of Lieutenant Guaxeba, the shameless and failed coup-plotting president Bolsonaro posted on Twitter images of the Manoel Ribeiro campers raising the red flags of the LCP and brandishing their war cries for the agrarian revolution and death to the latifundium in front of the PM riot police, in which he said “I have my opinion. What is yours?” In 2021, on March 31, celebrating the military-civilian coup of 1964, the landowners who stole land from the Union in Rondônia gathered at the headquarters of the NS Aparecida farm, cried out to Bolsonaro as if they were a handful of beggars dispossessed of everything, “Oh President Bolsonaro, look out for us”; ridiculously calling for help from more police troops for evictions, to then begin landing in the capital the military reinforcement of the National Security Force and funds for the state security secretariat, for eviction operations. On May 1st, in a live broadcast for zebu [cattle] breeders at the Uberaba exhibition, he accused the LCP of terrorism and promised the landowners that he would end the movement to fight for land and, returning six days later (May 7th), to threaten the LCP, this time in RO, at the inauguration of the bridge over the Madeira River, on the border of this state with Acre, where he spoke to the audience of landowners and other occasional boot-lickers, stating that what the movement was doing would not be “free and cheap”. Three months later, police officers from the Military Police of Rondônia (COI) cowardly and coldly executed three peasants as they began their work in the fields at 6:00 in the morning on August 13th, the companions Amarildo and Amaral (father and son). Amarildo’s wife and Amaral’s mother were only spared from being shot because she managed to run into the woods; and the other, the youth Kevin, who was riding his motorcycle towards the place and seeing the police with their rifles pointed at him, tried to turn the motorcycle around, but was shot in the back by dozens of shots.
Following these events, the gigantic “Operation Nova Mutum” was launched, with troops from the Military Police and the National Security Force who went all out on the ground with various types of military vehicles, using two helicopters and 17 drones (the number that the residents were able to identify), an operation that cost the state coffers, according to what was rumored in political circles, around one million reais per day, for more than a week. The residents defended themselves as best they could, but in an organized manner they hid many of their belongings in the forest, threw logs of wood on the few roads and paths that were then open, and destroyed more than 15 bridges, most of which they had built themselves, isolating large areas from access by the hundreds of troops. In the area that the troops managed to enter, all kinds of abuses were committed; they destroyed everything they found in the health center and in the Popular Assembly school, threw shacks to the ground and set fire to the utensils they found, killed livestock and threw them into cisterns, carried out humiliating searches of men and women, and then transported dozens of adults and hundreds of children to the same Vila da Penha where the eviction took place a year ago, but all under the defiant protest of the masses, even with rifles pointed at them and threats made against them. In the precarious conditions of the school, with muddy water, no toilets for so many people, many of them with symptoms of malaria and unable to move to seek treatment, the revolt grew and, with the support of a large committee of solidarity organizations mobilized in various parts of the country and always singing songs of struggle, the masses squeezed there stood up and pushed the cordons formed by the troops and returned to the interior of the area. Minutes before, in response to the request for suspension of the operation made by the people’s lawyers, the Supreme Federal Court granted it. Annoyed, with the presence of the PM commander himself, who came and went from the government palace, the command of that true war operation threatened not to comply with the measure, claiming that “Operation Nova Muntum” included the eviction of several farms and not just NorBrasil and Arco-íris. But faced with the uprising of the masses in the offensive, defying brute force that could not stop them without massacring dozens and hundreds, they were unable to stop the return of the masses, who joined the others in the center of the area in a vigorous assembly of yet another victory for the justness of their cause. Two days later, during the withdrawal of the large apparatus accumulated near the TCS area, a COI commando, with information from an X9 [informant], had already located and planned to assassinate the main leadership, comrade Gedeon José Duque and comrade Rafael Gasparini Tedesco who accompanied him, both members of the LCP.
Later, the attempt to expand the area occupied by new families in the part of the farms’ headquarters, a new violent operation made it impossible to sustain at that time. During the resistance of the masses, other crimes were committed in revenge by the Military Police. Comrades Raniel Barbosa Laurindo, known as Mandruvá, and Rodrigo Hawerroth, known as Esticado, were held hostage by police officers as they were preparing to board a canoe on the Cotia River. They were handcuffed and tortured, having their mouths cut on each side up to near their ears and finally executed at point-blank range.
The sepulchral silence of the Pharisees who defend the “Democratic State of Law”: the press monopolies and the electoral opportunist bourgeois left
When all of Brazil was unhappy under the genocidal military government of Bolsonaro and his generals, the political and moral cowardice of many who beat their chests as great democrats was exposed. From Globo and other monopolies of the written, spoken and televised press, it was not strange to expect cowardly silence, not even a single line, not even a murmur. But, even worse, faced with the offensive of the extremist right-wing and fascist reaction, card-carrying socialists who snipe from behind their computers and smartphones, enhanced their immobile nature, fearful of the radicalization of the masses before their oppressors and executioners, very brave and braggarts in the electoral campaigns, ran under the bed during the entire Bolsonaro government genocide of COVID-19, only coming out of there to ask for votes and spread lies in the 2020 municipal election farce. These Heroes of Opportunism of ours turned a deaf ear to this entire monstrous and savage attack by the reaction against those who were in fact fighting against Bolsonaro and the entire reaction. Nothing different can be expected from this press monopoly of the half-dozen families of the Brazilian ruling classes, but from those who, in order to brand Bolsonaro and his brutalized mob as fascists, open their mouths to the limit, did not have the minimum of political, moral or even humanist decency to issue even a note of support for those brave peasant families, those who were at the head of the popular masses who fought and continue to fight, in fact and in words, truly, fascism and the coup. The work that the leaders of opportunism did was to try to silence and repress those in their ranks, especially the young people at their base, who were outraged by the cowardice of their leadership and expressed solidarity with the peasant struggle.
When the masses vent their anger in violence
The murders and arrests of comrades in the TCS, as described above, were a heavy loss for the struggle for land, hindered the advancement of the organization of the masses in the area, weakened its leadership, which favored degenerate elements to infiltrate the community, taking advantage of the situation and, through family relationships and other personal ties, and with this, something that had never happened since the formation of the TCS Camp began to take place: the theft of residents’ belongings, murders and other abuses committed by these degenerate elements who moved around armed at all times.
Since the victory against the “Nova Mutum” eviction operation, last October 2021 and the aforementioned murders of LCP comrades by the PM, 3 years and almost 3 months have passed, during all this time the TCS masses continued their hard work of preparing the land and their crops have already yielded several harvests of cereals, fruits, vegetables and greens. And even with the emergence of robberies and homicides committed by bandits who infiltrated the community, in addition to the growth of local production, the struggle of the Association and other work Committees has been to reorganize the logistics of the collective area, Vila Alípio de Freitas, into a health center, school, Popular Assembly warehouse and the activities of organizing local security, the women of the MFP, the Education Committee to ensure the School in the area for children, youth and adults, improvements to the Health Center, the promotion of parties, leisure and sports, cultural activities and the expansion of public works to open many roads, improve lines, transportation and increase local commerce. However, the actions of these bandits created an unbearable situation for the families, who, already tired, asked for an Assembly to be held to discuss and find a solution. The massive Popular Assembly on the 2nd of last month was intensely attended, with not only leaders speaking, but also countless residents outraged by the situation, who called for and defended a drastic solution to the problem. The indignation of the masses turned into popular commotion and fury and it was unanimously decided to expel the bandits. Many residents volunteered anonymously for the committee that forwarded the eviction that was decided there and, at the time of its execution, due to the armed reaction by the bandits, it resulted in the deaths of 6 of them, resulting in an act of justice in self-defense.
Such events are not uncommon in the midst of popular struggle throughout the history of peoples all over the world. Under the conditions of old systems of exploitation and oppression, the rebellion of the popular masses is not only inevitable but also just. In our country, the old and secular order of exploitation and oppression, through a State, previously of landowners, slave owners and large port merchants, with the so-called “Abolition of Slavery” and “Proclamation of the Republic” merely replaced the monarchy with the republic of colonels, the semi-colonial subjugation and semi-feudal condition of the country remained intact, the continued genocide of indigenous peoples, the racist oppression of black people who make up the majority of the Brazilian population, their most brutal exploitation and over that of the other popular masses.
Only the figures at the forefront changed, as the landowners became even more powerful and together with the emerging local big bourgeoisie, both as associates and intermediaries of foreign powers, they strengthened a bureaucratic State of these parasitic classes of the people and the nation as a genocidal State and a bolt against the rights of the people, who always fought and rose up in movements and rebellions for the cause of the democratic republic and independence of the country and were, in countless attempts, crushed with fire and sword for this, through their armed force which, to name just a few of these crimes in our contemporary history: the War of Canudos, Caldeirão and Pau de Colher, the War of Contestado, the two 5th of July of the Tenentista Movement and Prestes Column, the Popular Uprising of ’35, the Estado Novo of ’37, repression, arrests, torture, murders of Communist Party militants, military coups of 1954 and 1964, the Guerrilla of Porecatu and Trombas e Formoso, Araguaia Guerrilla, all episodes interspersed with slaughter and massacres of the poor in the countryside and in the favelas and all types of persecution of the people’s fighters.
Perhaps it would not be necessary to resort to such a long time, since the current reality revolts with indignation the truly democratic, progressive and honest consciences at the slaughter of the poor by the forces of this old State, genocidal by genesis and nature. And under such a brutal iron heel, still at a low level of organization, as demonstrated by all social and historical experience of human society, the exploited and oppressed masses, faced with their executioners and tormentors, as they have always done, they do and will take justice into their own hands, starting with the smallest who parasitize in their own midst and raising their level of consciousness and revolutionary organization, they will slaughter the great and important ones, part by part, building their Power in a new type of State. Where there is oppression, there is resistance, the resistance grows in proportion to the oppression and develops beneath it until it is completely destroyed in the construction of a new order. Social resentment, pent-up hatred, take on a shocking emotion and release the violent fury of the oppressed masses against their exploiters and oppressors, leaving unturned no stone of the old order.
In old China, analyzing the contradictions in the countryside, Mao Zedong made the following warning:
“In a very short time, in China’s central, southern and northern provinces, several hundred million peasants will rise like a mighty storm, like a hurricane, a force so swift and violent that no power, however great, will be able to hold it back. They will smash all the trammels that bind them and rush forward along the road to liberation. They will sweep all the imperialists, warlords, corrupt officials, local tyrants and evil gentry into their graves. Every revolutionary party and every revolutionary comrade will be put to the test, to be accepted or rejected as they decide. There are three alternatives. To march at their head and lead them? To trail behind them, gesticulating and criticizing? Or to stand in their way and oppose them? Every Chinese is free to choose, but events will force you to make the choice quickly.” (our emphasis)
He was referring to the violence of the erupting masses and the reaction of those outside and within them to their actions:
“This is what some people call ‘going too far’, or ‘exceeding the proper limits in righting a wrong’, or ‘really too much’. Such talk may seem plausible, but in fact it is wrong. First, the local tyrants, evil gentry and lawless landlords have themselves driven the peasants to this. For ages they have used their power to tyrannize over the peasants and trample them underfoot; that is why the peasants have reacted so strongly.”
Our principles, line, method and criteria
The LCP is for popular democracy at all levels of mass organization and based on the principles of democratic centralism and the method of investigation and leadership in work among the masses, starting from the masses for the masses, practicing criticism and self-criticism, linking the general to the particular and leadership to the base. As for the treatment of contradictions within the people, that is, contradictions of a non-antagonistic nature, we are for the solution through putting the problems on the table, discussing them and finding the solution through convincing people of what is fair and correct. We call for minor crimes among the people to be treated with warnings and re-education of those who commit them, through collective work, study and light disciplinary measures, such as the loss of the right to vote in decisions for a certain period and temporary removal from the organization in which they participate, the intensity of the measure varying according to the degree of responsibility invested and the level of the organization in which they are a member in the leadership structure. In cases of crimes against the masses, the measure is expulsion from the organization, if a member belongs to it, and from the community itself. All educational work is based on the revolutionary, collectivist ideology of fraternity and a sense of justice among all in the organization and the community. Correspondingly, we work to educate everyone so that all decisions, especially those involving extremely serious situations and problems, must be taken collectively, within the scope and level of the organization and according to the principles, program, line and methods of the LCP, that is, democratically and rationally. Specifically, we always draw attention to doing everything possible to avoid and prevent decisions from being made in an unjust manner, and in the event of errors, the need and obligation for self-criticism by those responsible for the error. Just as mistakes are generally inevitable, there are also situations generated by strong indignation of the masses who are assaulted by strong commotion that leads to the overflow of violence. In view of this, although we are for all decisions to be made with the utmost rationality and less driven by feelings and emotions, situations that are largely 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 this, we understand the need to raise the level of political participation, awareness of this participation and organization of the masses.
Strengthen the active and armed self-defense of the struggling masses!
Land to those who live and work on it!
Long live the Agrarian Revolution and death to latifundia!
National Commission of the Leagues of Poor Peasants – LCP
Goiania, March 4, 2025
