Brazil: Goons and MP Attack Peasants in Lábrea

We publish an unofficial translation of a report by A Nova Democracia.

On April 29, goons attacked peasants who were building structures in an unoccupied area located between the Fusão and Nova Holanda latifundium in Lábrea (Amazonas). The region is on the border with Acre, within the border area called Amacro (an acronym for Amazonas, Acre, and Rondônia) and is known for violent agrarian conflicts.

The peasants were forced to lie on the ground or run to avoid death. “It was a burst of gunfire,” said one of the peasants in an interview with the progressive newspaper O Varadouro.

Upon leaving the latifundium, they walked 14 kilometers to the location where they had left the truck with materials for camping or supplies, but discovered that the Military Police of Acre had towed the vehicle. Therefore, they had to walk another 20 km along the BR-317 to Vila Caquetá.

Incidents like this are common in the region. Last year, goons tortured and shot at peasants who tried to occupy the Fusão latifundium.

Despite the intimidation, torture, and attacks, the peasants continue to struggle for their piece of land as the only possible alternative.

Conflicts Region

Incra classified the Palotina lands as latifundium a and began its expropriation for peasant families who have faced threats, assaults, torture, and burned houses for years. In January 2025, a peasant from the Marielle Franco camp (occupied Palotina latifundium) was found dead with a gunshot wound to the chin.

Pointed out by workers as the author of the intimidations, the big landlord Sidnei Sanches Zamora owns properties from Acre to Amazonas. In November 2024, his son had a preventive arrest warrant issued for land grabbing. The big landlord claims that the arrest was revoked by the defense.

According to investigations, the big landlords’s son presented a document in 2019 in defense of his possession, bearing the signature of João Miguel Souza Aguiar Maia de Sousa, a colonel and former national agrarian ombudsman in the Bolsonaro government, who instructed Incra not to accept entities without “legal personality” and “land invaders,” blatantly criminalizing the peasants fighting for their land.

According to Denis da Silva Pereira, superintendent of Incra in Amazonas, Zamora Filho’s registration was canceled, and the region was recognized as unallocated land, completely undermining the big landlord’s claim that the land belonged to him.