Ten years after missionary's killing, local settlers crave for govt attention

Looking back on what has changed since Dorothy Stang was murdered ten years ago, the settlers at the Esperança (Hope) Sustainable Development Project still avoid using words like “peace” and “security”. A Missionary in the Congregation of Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, Stang was a champion of land reform in western Pará. But when she was murdered on February 12, 2005, settlers became increasingly afraid that the land from which they make their living could be taken from them.

Fears of new invasions by the timber mafia and government neglect are some of the reasons cited by local peasants near the town of Anapu, Pará, to avoid the subject.

Agência Brasil was told there has been some local improvement after Stang's death, from the expansion of Project Esperança's property to funding for settlers to build brick houses and grow their own crops. However, peasants complain that with failing government support, they could face new tension.

Dorothy Stang's battle to give land to smallholder farmers angered local landowners who claimed ownership of the entire area. That was their motivation for killing her with six shots as she walked on the streets of Lot 55, which had not yet been incorporated into Project Esperança back then.

Ranchers Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura (known as “Bida”), and Regivaldo Pereira Galvão were eventually found guilty of masterminding the crime.

Isolete Wichinieski, national coordinator for the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), an organization that monitors and reports violence in rural conflicts, says logging activity in the area has not ceased although it was banned with deforesting limited to 20% of the property area and conditional upon growing sustainable crops as part of the Sustainable Development Project terms.

Wichinieski said that fellow congregation members – who still live in Anapu – and a priest who used to know Stang received threats after she was killed because they were continuing her work.

According to Wichinieski, Stang had been under threat herself since 2004, but rejected police protection. As she points out,“Not even police protection can prevent murder. The only answer to the problem is ending all conflict. If the threats had been investigated and the authors of the threats had been arrested, then maybe this could have saved Sister Dorothy and she would be here with us now.”

Erika Borges, deputy chairwoman of the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), admits that while conflicts persist in certain areas, she believes the issues have been addressed more actively. Over the past decade, she says, INCRA has stepped up its efforts to provide technical assistance and helped improve infrastructure in the settlements. “In recent times, we have tried to streamline public policies and have a stronger government presence. Overall, I think we've made progress.”

According to INCRA, after Stang was killed, there were no more murders associated with land conflicts in the area, and the cases of illegal land occupation and trade in land decreased.

However, for Notre Dame Congregation Sisters Katie Webster and Jane Dwyer, who were part of Dorothy Stang's circle, the impending downsizing of the INCRA office in Anapu raises new fears that tension could grow in the area. “[Local INCRA staff] will limit their supervisory role to technical assistance projects and this isn't much help,” Jane complained.

Rural workers share the sentiment, fearing that the lack of government supervision can have serious consequences.

“We feel threatened by this situation. With INCRA's shrinking local presence, loggers and ranchers who are occupying the land can start putting more pressure again”, says Fábio Lourenço de Souza, chairman of the Ecological Farming Association of Peasants of the Santo Antônio Community at Project Esperança.

Out of a total five staff at the INCRA Anapu location – which was established in the wake of Stang's murder – at least two are not going back to Anapu this year. The head of the special outreach unit in Altamira, Danilo Farias, realized Anapu is not sufficiently attractive as a place to live to compel employees to settle in town. “Living in Anapu is a hard experience for those coming from elsewhere. Our local office is downsizing not because INCRA decided to reduce staff, but because our hires were being assigned to work in a town with such a poor infrastructure.”

Another concern among peasants is that they are still battling to get their tenure deeds (CDRU), which entitles groups or individuals to farming land which, in the case of Sustainable Development Projects (PDS), is owned by the State.

Although the area designated for the project was officially expanded from 17,000 hectares in 2004 to 26,000 hectares in 2013, the peasants still fear that with no official proof of their rights on the land, they could still face conflicts. “We are settled in this property now, but we've got no formal documents (...). No contracts, not a single proof of tenure saying that we have the right to be here,” Souza said.

According to Danilo Farias, the law on the rights of land reform settlers which was enacted last year, requires complementary regulatory detailing before the documents can be issued. “We're still waiting for a presidential decree [with the regulatory details]. Hopefully if it happens by the end of the first quarter, they will be able to get their CDRUs,” he promised.

Nilmário Miranda, who was the incumbent head of the Human Rights Secretariat back in 2005, believes that the government is more present now than it used to be, although it traditionally fails to reach out to far-off places like Amapu. This progress, however, ends up sparking more conflict. “When you implement land reform, violent responses increase,” he said. “In the long run, [land reform] tends to improve social integration and peace. It gives access to land to people willing to farm it. But the immediate response is, the people who are trading in land – often illegally – think they have unlimited rights on it.”

Sadly, a legal practice that tends to disregard the social role of property helps little in the process. “Even though it's a basic constitutional principle, [some judges] simply consider ownership in absolute terms above all other things. So they will most likely favor the putative landowner. This is a major source of conflict and injustice.”

For the Federal Public Prosecutor in Pará, Felício Pontes, there is hardly any government presence in the Amazon. In his view, the government structure is too poor to allow it to manage migration inflows.

“The state of Pará is a border area. It's where the road ends. People are coming from throughout Brazil. Newcomers will often end up clashing with a local elite of ranchers and loggers. And when the authorities finally take action, conflict is in full swing and often people have been killed.”

Translated by Mayra Borges