Focus on the Global South - India Programme

Dear friends of the MST, Human Rights organizations, Parliamentarians, citizens of the world!
 
 
This is to ask your solidarity. Our movement is suffering a true offensive of the conservative forces in the Rio Grande do Sul State. Those forces not only wish to see the land distributed, as the Constitution states, but they also want too criminalize those who are struggling for the agrarian reform and stop the MST.

To do so,  those political forces which in fact defend the powerful interests from transnational corporation's economic groups are establishing themselves in the state to control agriculture and large land owners are represented today in the Administration of  Ms. Yeda Crusius, through it Military Brigade, in the Judiciary and in the media monopoly.

Below we are sending you various documents to illustrate that, and it will require a bit of patience but it will better explain the gravity of the situation.
 
Today, June 24th, we are submitting a formal denunciation to the Human Rights Commission of the Federal senate which has moved to Porto Alegre, especially to monitor de situation. Bellow is the document-denunciation drafted by Dr. Leandro Scalabrini, our attorney. We have also enclosed the minutes of the meeting of the Public Ministry, and the coverage from the local press.
 
What do need from you?
a) To send letters in protest to the Governor Yeda Crusius, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it   and to the General Attorney of Justice, who is appointed by the governor and coordinates the State Public Ministry.  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
A standard letter has been attached. But if you prefer, simply use your creativity.
 
b) Please send us a copy of all the messages sent to the authorities, write to Human Rights sector of the national MST This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and to the press sector     This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

c) We ask those who live abroad to write to the Brazilian Embassies in your countries demanding for the federal government to assure the right of workers to freely organize.
 
Thank you for everything
 
Juvelino Strozake, Human Rights Sector, MST/ national
 
 
DENUNCIATION SUBMITED BY THE ATTORNEY LEANDRO SCALABRIN TO THE HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF THE FEDERAL SENATE
Porto Alegre, June 24th 2008

Honorable Ladies and Gentlemen and parliamentarians here today,

 

Ladies and gentlemen here today in this public hearing

 

I am the attorney president of the human rights commission of the Brazilian Attorney's Order in Passo Fundo, defensor of the eight supposed leaders of the MST accused of committing crime against the national security, and I could not omit myself, before the biggest repressive scheme, of the biggest repressive scheme, the biggest CIVIL-MILITARY conspiracy ORGANISED TO ANIHILATE A SOCIAL MOVEMENT SINCE THE END OF THE Brazilian Military dictatorship'

A conspiracy that initiated when the coronel of the Military Brigade, Waldir João Reis Cerutti, commander in chief of the CRPO Planalto, two months before being licensed to run for estate deputy for the Progressist Party – PP – in May 2006, when it was the "Situation of the MST in the northern region of Rio Grande do Sul." was formulated. This file is a systematization of an investigation that he commanded which investigated INCRA [National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform], CONAB [National Provisioning Company], MST, MAB [Movement of Those Affected by Dams], MPA [Movement of Small Farmers and Via Campesina.

The conclusions drawn from the investigation point to a link between the federal government and the MST; the MST and PCC [First Command of the Capital]; and the MST and the Farc [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia]. The report informs that those living in squat camps are a mass of maneuver for Via Campesina leaders and there is a presence of foreigners among those living in squat camps providing military and rural guerilla training. aiming at creating a Dominium Zone, controlled through territorial dominium, where the MST would replace the State (in the same way as it occurs in the slums of Rio de Janeiro). The white territorial control zone would encompass the area involving fazenda Anoni and fazenda Guerra (16000 hectares), due to its strategic location (access to the whole state, Argentina, etc) and for being one of the richest and more productive regions of the state. The document proposes to the justice the following measures:

- recognition that the leaderships promote criminal actions;
- establishing a deadline to deactivate the 4 squat camps in the region (Nonoai, Sarandi and Coqueiros);
- intervene in rented estate, where MST squat camps are found;
- concession of prohibition closure for the establishment of any new squat camp in Carazinho county within a radius of 50 km of Fazenda Coqueiros.

This document was handed in "confidence" to the judges that granted search and seizure warrant, prohibition closure [interditus probitorius], arrest orders and title recovery against members of the MST in the county of Carazinho, dispatching them to Federal Police Superintendence and the Criminal Specialist from MPE [State Public Attorney Ministry].

The thesis and information presented in the document were used on June 1st, 2006, by the owner of the Farm, part of FARSUL, to formulate a representation against the MST for the MPE.
The coronel commanded an eviction operation from Fazenda Guerra in 2006, where the action of the Military Brigade took on all contours of collective torture, having affected in generalized way even children and teenagers, according the conclusions of the case report 01-2006 from the State Committee against Torture.

When Coronel Ceruti retired in 2007, in a interview to the Central Newspaper from Passo Fundo, informed that during the Brazilian military dictatorship, he infiltrated in the squat camp Encruzilhada Natalino, for two years, using the name Toninho, and his mission was to convince those living in the camp to accept the land offered by the government in Lucas do Rio Verde, MT and to abandon the camp, as well as pass on information to the army, operating with an amateur radio which had been installed in a specific location in the region.

This file resulted in three court actions against the MST:
- by the High State from the Military Brigade,
- by the Superior Council of the RS Public Ministry;
- by the Federal Public Attorney Ministry.

 

The high State of the RS Military Brigade was requested from the former General Sub-commander of the MB Cel. QOEM – Paulo Roberto Mendes Rodrigues, current general commander of the military corps, has determined the investigation on the actions developed by the MST and allies, with regards to the actions held against  Fazenda Guerra (Coqueiros do Sul), Fazenda Palma (Pedro Osório), Fazenda Nene (Nova Santa Rita) and Fazenda Southal (São Gabriel).

 

On September 20th, 2007 the report # 1124-100-PM2-2007 was directed to the general commander of the MB, where it was issued a judgment recommending for all possible measures to be taken to stop the three columns of the MST which were marching towards Coqueiros County to be stopped from meeting. In the report there was a secret investigation about the MST, its leaders, number of members and activities in RS.

The report from the military force from RS characterizes the MST and Via Campesina as movements which do not organize typical social demand actions but rather typical and orchestrated criminal actions, tactically organized as paramilitary operations. In the conclusion of the report the "line that defends the idea that the actions organized by social movements should not be considered crimes, but a legitimate protest."The investigations were also directed towards the activities of state deputies, mayors, citizens who granted or rented areas for squat camps, members of INCRA and supposed foreigners.
The commander Mendes suggested the remittance of the report to the State Public Ministry and the Federal Public Ministry.

This document was probably passed on to the judge who appraised the interdiction request from Carazinho county in 2007. In that court case is certified in the records that the SPM passed on a confidential document to the magistrate, who saw it and returned to the PM. The attorneys requested access to see those documents but were denied.

Due to the action of the Military brigade, the SPM entered an ACP to stop the columns of the MST to enter the four counties of the judicial district of Carazinho in RS, and entered several law suits to stop children accompanying their families to stay in the marches.

From the formulation of those reports, changes are noticeable in the actions of the police and the military brigade, with regards to  protests held by teachers, small farmers, trade unionists, workers, those accused of felonies, poor people and mainly the members of Via Campesina.

From those documents the Military brigade started to adopt what the centre of contacts for Social Movements of the fraction Die Linke in German parliament calls ," rigid practices in meetings".
This is important because what is happening in recent years in RS, happened in Germany (western) in the 80s and (unified) in the 90s, when the German police adopted the so called "police preventive strategy" with regards to social movements.

This strategy completes two levels of repression:
Initial Level:
1 – broad registration of data (with massive identification of participants in protests, telephone and email wires, GPS use, searching  and apprehending documents from protestors and in the offices of organizations);
2 – rigid police practices in meetings (use of tear gas, rubber billets, chock troups, arresting protestors, anti-mutiny tactics);
On a second level, directed against organizations that have been dismantled with the previous practices, the strategy involved:
– banning the legal existence of associations;
– changes in penal legislation;.

The implementation of this strategy, in Germany was done through a special unit  a special kind of authority, called KAVALA, created in the police, to which all government authorities (through intense exchange) cooperated and received tasks from the police. KAVALA was transformed into an autonomous superior authority, where the separation between civil and military police, between federal and state units and between secret service and police disappeared. All separation demands and principles of separation of decision powers which according to the German constitution would serve to avoid excessive measures from the executive or the police were disrespected. Those principles had been inserted in the German constitution due to the experiences with fascism, exactly to avoid the creation of a police apparatus out of control. Kavala took leadership, not only in the planning but also in operational measures. It then became and addressee of the acknowledgement or not of the right to protest, always acting according its own estimate of conflict risk. Whoever wished to stay in the areas defined as conflict areas would interfere in the police concept of security becoming a potential criminal or terrorist. Kavala not only suspended the separation between police and jurisdiction, but also started to describe in its "reports of situation the truth to judges – with all the consequences that it incurs for the freedom to meet, to legal protection from police measures and actions of the penal process. Another new thing was the fact that Kavala prepared and published autonomously offensive press releases, characterized by incorrect messages and misleading risk estimates, directed towards the media and the public opinion. The result of that was the creation of "specific zones "where all rights of meeting and protesting are suppressed and in the identification of hundreds leaders and more than 1,000 people in judicial court cases.

In RS, in the last two years, there has been a process of KAVALIZATION of the Military Brigade. The implementation of this strategy initially occurred through the SOB Special Operations Battalion and now, directly through the commander of the Brigade, There is an intensive exchange, between the SPM, Brigade, FP and Judiciary Power, that cooperate and receive tasks from the MB. The SOB has been transformed into an autonomous superior authority, where the separation between civil and military police, between federal and state units and between the secret service and the police has disappeared. An example of that is the eviction of two MST squat camps close to the Coqueiros farm last week, where the attorney, judge, federal attorney, military auditing and military command, civil police were present. However the right of those living in the squat camp to have an attorney was not assured. It is a practice of the SOB, to freeze the area, stopping the attorneys of the people living in the squat camps to follow the operations. All demands for the separation of powers which according to the Brazilian constitution would act to avoid excessive measures from the executive or the police, are being disrespected. The Federal Constitution from 1988 prohibits military police to act in the investigation of penal infringements and social movements or political parties. The art. 144 from the federal constitution establishes that the military police is responsible for the ostensive policing and the maintenance of the public order. The military brigade invaded the competence of the civil police and the federal police. These principles had been inserted in the constitution due to the experiences with the Brazilian military dictatorship, exactly to avoid the organization of police apparatus uncontrolled. The SOB - EMBM assumed the leadership, not only in the planning but also in operational measures.

The creation of "special zones" results from that, where the right to meet and protest are suppressed, and in RS, today there are four special zones, around Southal, Palma, Nene and Guerra Farms, have been created from a judicial decision proposed by the SPM, where in a radius of two kilometers of those farms the right of the MST to meet and protest has been banned. In the past the shole judicial district of Carazinhoi was a special zone by decision of the justice. As a consequence of all this process, thousands of people are being identified in protests, for further legal charges. In the last few years there have been issued warrants for search and apprehension in the headquarters of Movement of peasant Women, during the State Meeting of the MST in COANOL – where the congress was squandered; and in the MST squat camps in Southal and Coqueiros do Sul, There was also a decree of arrest warrant for two supposed leaders, which was later revoked by the FSC [Federal Superior Court]. There have also been illegal seizure of diaries and documents from people living in squat camps, which have been used in the secret informs. There are strong indications of illegal telephone wires and monitoring of people. The brigade continues infiltrating agents in squat camps which are expelled when uncovered and then give unreal testimonies about the MST. Those who are not uncovered present themselves in the battalion of the brigade and give testimonies against the movement. There are at least two cases that have been documented in this situation even though it cannot be proved that they were receiving money from the military force in RS.

This is not all and it is not the worst. As police repression with the use of force did not succeed in eliminating the movement and those living in camps, the process of Kavalization has moved to its second stage which is the attempt to create a legal prohibition and the dissolution of the MST.

After six months of investigations carried out by two justice attorneys, on 3/12/07 the High Council of the Public Ministry from RS, approved UNANIMOUSLY a vote-report drafted by the justice attorney  Gilberto Thums, in the records of the case number nº 16315-09-00/07-9, where have been approved four verifications and an series of directives against the MST:

"The first verification cannot be removed. It is necessary to expose the MST as a movement that struggles for the agrarian reform. The way the members of the MST go about it is clear in that it is a criminal organization, similar others that exist in the world, which aims at gaining territorial for the installation of a "Parallel – State" with clear Leninist inspiration, and it is not a movement that struggles for land to benefit its affiliated. The MST today is a criminal organization which uses "rural guerrilla" tactics in order to take strategically chosen territory by its leaders." – fls. 96

"...agrarian conflicts are neighboring in the face of the complacency of the public power, notably from left administrations, with the agrarian issue and the treatment given to the so called "landless". In the case of the federal government it has revealed to be completely ommissive to solve the problem, limiting itself to providing the basic food basket, canvas for the tents, sugar cane spirit, training in schools to learn about Lenin first reader, etc, but the identification of non-productive land which could be designated for the agrarian reform.

A question that cannot silence is, why the land of a farm-company in invaded, which is highly productive? What represents for the economy of a country to destroy productive farms and hand them over to lazy tramps that never work the land and do not even know how to manage crops?

The picture that can be seen during an invasion of a farm causes scoffing to anyone who has the least notion of food production. What the invaders moved by sugar-cane spirit, using as mass of maneuver for MST will do in a mechanized farm which is productive (it has natural reservation, river, power mill, immense area for crops and is strategically located)?

The MST is an organization structured and juridical depersonalized, in the same way as the Colombian Farcs, and in that way cannot be made responsible for its actions against individual or collective juridical goods. However, it receives financial assistance from the public power and foreign organizations, in a masked way, using institutions apparently legal." Fls. 98-99

"However what concerns us the most is the ideology that moves the MST nowadays, characterized as a revolutionary movement, with the objective of taking power, starting from territorial space." Fls. 100

"The MST does not seek land to settle "settlers", it wants to conquer territory paied with money of the Brazilian people. Those territories will start being controlled by its leaders and will act to install a parallel-state, since those are areas strategically located in strategic spaces; where there are power mills, access to roads and absolute control of the territory." – fls. 106

"It is necessary to adopt measures to neutralize the MST in RS, de-constituting it as a " legitimate demand movement". The measure is the table adopted for the organized supporters Mancha Verde in Sao Paulo, which brought violence the football stadiums. Very well, this is ENOUGH." Fls. 107

"The predatory actions of the MST....demand an immediate and vigorous action represented by a set of measures leading to the neutralization of its activities and the declaration of the illegality of the movement.

...Therefore, removing the veil or the hood protecting the MST, it is found a group of people not well intentioned, who direct an organization, recruit or entice people with promises of access to land… it is an affront to Democracy.

..neutralizing the MST and declaring its existence illegal, the link with Via Campesina is broken and its legitimacy to negotiate with public power". Fls. 108-109

It is up to the PM too act NOW. "To break the spinal cord of the MST."This is a historical moment in the country and it constitutes the greatest challenge ever presented to the Institution post 1988. The DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACY. Any eventual wear of the measures with the sympathizers of the movement does not matter. What matters is the very reason for the measures to be taken. The Public Ministry is not a government institution, if it were, it would be watching passively the advance of a movement aiming to subvert democracy, here is a paramilitary organization…

This is my first verification and the necessary measures. Therefore, I vote to designate to designate a team of Justice Attorneys to promote a public civil action aiming at the dissolution of the MST and the declaration of its illegality. There's no need for any further investigation on what has been verified ..." fls. 110

The second verification resides in the fields of training of its members in order to constitute a legion of followers and enticers of the movement. In the State there are three locations where rural guerrilla lessons are being given by Farc technicians to members of the MST. This information comes from the military brigade. One of them is Centrão, in Palmeira das Missões, another is called CETAP in Pontão and the third in Veranópolis. – fls. 111

 "The third verification consists in deactivating and removing squat camps located in the regions of permanent conflict, where the MST chose a determined territory for occupation". Fls. 116

 "The fourth verification consists in the need for the PM to intervene in the relation between INCRA-RS and the organizations of those living in squat camps, in order to promote a new cadastro with the identification of all those who have already been allocated a plot of land from the government and if they are still in their plot, as well as those who still intend to remain in squat camps, awaiting for their settlement, indentifying who in fact comes from rural areas and those who have been recruited as urban unemployed worker, just to increase the ranks of the MST. Which settlements are productive, what they produce, and how these settlements run." – fls. 119

The fifth verification has to do with the intense migration of landless workers among squat camps, which may provoke, in thesis, local electoral imbalance. – fls. 119

Several of these directives have been materialized:
- various ACP to remove children from the company of father and mother participating in marches;
- ACP that transformed the judicial district of Carazinho into a special zone, stopping protests from the MST;
- ACP which evicted two squat camps from two rented areas and prohibited land owners from renting, under penalty of R$10 thousand a day;
- 03 ACP creating special zones around Palma, Nene and Southal farms.

 

The next steps are the dissolution of the teaching Institute [Instituto Educar] from Pontão and Iterra in Veranópolis. And the biggest step: the dissolution of the MST. These actions are already being drafted, and in the next few days we will watch its proposition.

 

The decision of the Public Ministry offends the International Pact on Civil and Political Rights, especially article 22, nº 1. This pact was recognized by the Brazilian government through the Decree nº 592, from July 6th, 1992.

 

The decision also offends the federal Constitution. The article 5th, XVII, says that it is full the freedom of association for legal ends, and forbidden those of paramilitary character."

 

Parallel to the deliberation of the CSMP-RS, the FPM from Carazinho, respecting the thesis of Coronel Cerutti, from march 11, 2008, denounced eight supposed members of the MST for being "members of groups aiming at changing the State of Right , the order in force in Brazil, practicing crimes of political non-conformism, crimes stated in the National Security Law from the former Brazilian dictatorship, referring in their denunciation that squat camps of the MST constitute a "parallel State" and that the acts against national security were being supported by foreign organizations such as Via Campesina, Farc – Armed revolutionary Forces from Colombia, besides foreigners in charge of military training.
It must be highlighted that from a request of the solicitor, the federal police investigated the MST during the year of 2007 and concluded that there were no links between the movement and the Farc, the presence of foreigners giving guerrilla  training in the squat camps and there was no crime practice against national security.

Even though, the action, seeking the recognition that those charged are terrorists, as the condition and pre-requisite for the dissolution of the movement, has been proposed. Including, today, there is an interrogation of those charged.

All these documents to which we have referred to, are being handed right now to senators and ministers, and have been passed by the Federal Patrícia Muxfeldt who is using those as evidence against eight defendants of committing crime against national security, a court case that is being conducted confidentially in the federal justice of Carazinho. If it wasn't for that we would never have access to them, since they have the RESERVED character in the Military brigade, and CONFIDENTIAL, in the State Public Ministry (confidential documents for the SPM are only made public after tem years of its drafting). My clients authorized and determined for this information to be made public, especially after the actual state public ministry made public part of them in the press last week.
Dr. Leandro Scalabrin