Brazil: Women and men peasants from the sugar plant Prado are fighting for land

For more than six years 280 landless rural working families in Pernambuco, a state in northeast Brazil, have been fighting for the uncultivated land of the sugar plant Prado. In 1997, the families occupied and cultivated the land and harvested their food. However, in 2003 the families were violently evicted from this land due to an illegal judicial decision of the state court; their homes, schools, churches, community centre and crops were destroyed. They also had to suffer violent actions perpetrated by paramilitary groups of the sugar plant and by the state‘s Military Police. At the moment, the families live along a road without any means to produce, at the mercy of private donations and the government food aid which is scarce and delivered in irregular intervals. The land has been expropriated for the second time in 2003 through presidencial decree. The owner took legal action to counter the decree. This action is pending at the moment at the Supreme Federal Court (SFC) which – in similar cases – needed two years to take a decision.  

Confronting this situation, it is very important to write to the respective judge of the Supreme Federal Court asking him to speed up the decision, so that  INCRA (National Institute for Colonisation and Agrarian Reform) will be able to follow-up the expropriation of the land. Please write polite letters to the judge with a copy to the president of the Supreme Federal Court.