URGENT ACTIONS

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Brazil - Lagoa Nova - Peasants struggle against Sugar Cane Mill to recover land

OPEN LETTERS

Since 1991, the agricultural company SANAGRO, one of the biggest producers of sugar cane in the north-east of Brazil, has been trying to keep off 90 peasants' families of the Lagoa Nova community from the land which legally belongs to these families, in the north-east of Brazil.

In 1994, the Brazilian government expropriated the land in order to redistribute it to small peasants in accordance to the agrarian reform programme. During the expropriation process, the SANAGRO company, who was tenant of the land at that time, succeeded in being officially recognized as the previous owner of the land. For 12 years, SANAGRO used its political and economic influence in order to stop the process of expropriation. Most of all, it blocked the transfer of the land to the agrarian reform institute INCRA by repeatedly seeking appellate remedy. Several times, one of the judges of the Brazilian Supreme Court of Justice has ruled in favour of the company, i. e. against the legal situation. In 2007, after several national and international initiatives, including interventions by FIAN, led to a final legal decision in favor of the peasant families. However, until the present moment, the decision has not been fully implemented and the company continues to illegally occupy the land.