Brazil: Support Committees for AND in Maringá and Londrina carried out a debate on the 30th anniversary of the Battle of Santa Elina
We share hereby an unofficial translation of a report published by A Nova Democracia (AND).
The Support Committees for the newspaper A Nova Democracia from Maringá and Londrina carried out a debate last Sunday, August 16, at the State University of Maringá about the 30th anniversary of the Heroic Peasant Resistance of Corumbiara, known as the Battle of Santa Elina. In this battle, on August 9, 1995, landless peasants occupying the then Santa Elina latifundium, near the municipality of Corumbiara/Rondônia (RO), bravely faced and resisted the criminal siege by the Military Police (MP) of Rondônia, which, along with groups of goons, attacked the area, leaving around 350 injured and at least 11 dead, including a 7-year-old girl.
The event, titled “30 Years of the Battle of Santa Elina: Denounce the Fascist Police Violence of the MP in Rondônia and Defend the Agrarian Revolution!”, commemorated a date that has become a politically significant milestone in the history of the peasant movement in the country, as it was from there that the League of Poor Peasants (LCP) was born. The LCP leads the process of Agrarian Revolution in Brazil today. The event also took place in response to the recent criminal attacks by the Military Police of Rondônia against the Valdiro Chagas Revolutionary Area, which resulted in the expulsion of dozens of families from their lands, as well as the murder of a peasant.
To support the debate, the program A Propósito from August 8, which is about the attacks, was shown on a screen, and the LCP’s statement regarding the situation was read collectively. After this, the discussion began, demonstrating how the same reactionary and fascist character of the MP and the latifundium that resulted in the Corumbiara Massacre 30 years ago persists even more deeply until today.
