Eviction from the land and a hard fought victory

Men of the community being forcibly evicted from their land

Caroline here, writing on Day 7 of our amazing experience. We spent the day with another of our D&P partners, the CPT, the Pastoral Land Commission, an organization of the Brazilian Catholic Bishop's Conference. Leaving the city, we travelled to an assentamento – a word we became very familiar with today. The assentamento is an agricultural settlement made of peasants who had been formerly landless.

Arriving in the settlement we found about thirty men and women gathered in a small community hall. After a mystique (ritual and prayer) the people began to tell us their story We found that in 1997 a paramilitary group hired by the sugar cane company arrived in their self-sufficient village to evict them. They tore down their homes and left them homeless by the side of the highway. The people refused to leave the area, preferring to set up tents on the side of the road rather than disperse. The paramilitary physically and mentally abused them. They poisoned their water supply. They killed the fish they were farming. They put sand in their wells and terrified the children with big guns. They beat the men while they worked in the fields. Big trucks owned by the sugar cane company constantly drove by shaking the ground and the more than 600 people inside their tents.

On May 1st 2003, the women decided to replace the men in the field as a strategy to stop the abuse of the men. The women refused to leave despite threats from the hired goons and in the end many people came to support the community and not allow the paramilitary to attack. Today the community celebrates May 1st as a turning point in their struggle.

In November 2003 the community acquired a “land replacement” so that they were able to settle on  land that was not being used by the sugar cane company. This measure is made possible by Brazil's land reform laws. Even as the first houses were being constructed, the hired goons set up barricades so that the people had to walk for miles around their land to get anywhere.

Now the community is settled with houses and the beginning of agriculture. CPT continues to help them in their organizing and in petitioning the government to give them the material support that has been promised as part of the land replacement order.

We were welcomed with such great appreciation, pride, courage, strength and love. They know that D&P is a very important support in their struggle and we were proud to actually see the wonderful results of this support that were beyond our imagination. Needless to say it was a truly emotional day for all of us and we felt so blessed to depart feeling such love from this community.

Our evening held quite a different experience in store for us. Leo, our translator, took us to a soccer game featuring two division two teams. 17,000 people were in attendance and we cheered the underdog team from Recife to a 4-1 win. We girls enjoyed it as much or more than the guys. The fans were so dedicated and gave us a great performance themselves.