See letter from RFKM and others to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva presented to the Brazilian Embassy at the end of the march: See the Letter

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more information contact: Emily S. Goldman goldman@rfkmemorial.org or (202) 463-7575 x 235

WASHINGTON, DC, 12 April 2006. – The Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights (RFK), Friends of Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (FMST), and the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) are organizing a special event at 11 a.m. on 17 April 2006 to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the murder of 19 landless workers by Brazil’s military police and the ongoing impunity in the case. The event will begin with brief remarks on the American University Quadrangle, to be followed by a march down Massachusetts Avenue to the Brazilian Embassy, where a letter to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva will be presented to the Brazilian Ambassador to the United States, Roberto Abdenur. The event will finish at approximately 12:45 p.m. This event is undertaken as a part of the International Campaign Against Rural Violence in Brazil co-founded by RFK and WOLA in 2005.

Confirmed speakers include: Miguel Carter (Ass’t Professor, American University School of International Service); Sister Maura Brown (International Coordinator of Peace and Justice, Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur); Peter O’Driscoll (agribusiness accountability specialist); and Patrick Quirk (Master's Candidate, American University).

On 17 April 1996, 155 members of the military police, armed with shotguns and machine guns, opened fire on a peaceful demonstration organized by members of the MST, killing 19. These landless workers were part of an encampment on Fazenda Macaxeira and had traveled to Belém to press for the implementation of an agreement with the Brazilian government land reform agency (INCRA) and the Pará state government, which called for the expropriation of Macaxeira’s lands for the purposes of land reform. While the military police officers who participated in the massacre were finally brought to trial by jury, they were all acquitted. A jury trial convicted only two of those who were in charge of the military police involved in the massacre – Colonel Mário Colares Pantoja and Captain Raimundo Lameira, who currently await appeal in freedom.

A more recent case of murder motivated by a struggle for social and environmental justice occurred on 12 February 2005, when Sister Dorothy Stang, a member of the Ohio Province of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, was murdered in the Amazon forest. She was a dual citizen of the US and Brazil and lived for 39 years in Brazil working with the Pastoral Land Commission (the social justice arm of the Brazilian Catholic Church), fighting for the rights of landless workers and for the broad implementation of a land reform that strengthens human rights and encourages sustainable environmental practices. She helped landless workers combat the illegal appropriation of public lands common in the state of Pará and the impunity surrounding human rights violations in land-access cases that impedes more than a small handful from ever being brought to justice.

Her death came just a little over a week after she met with Brazil’s top human rights officials and detailed the credible death threats she had been receiving from wealthy ranchers and loggers in the region, as well as those received by local small farmers and landless peasants. While the hired gunmen were brought to trial and received stiff sentences in December 2005, the intermediary and intellectual authors have yet to be tried.

RFK is a non-profit non-governmental organization that engages in long-term partnerships with activists who win the RFK Human Rights Award, advocating for the social justice goals they champion. RFK has 36 laureates in 21 countries and employs litigation; advocacy before policy-makers; consumer awareness campaigns to foster corporate responsibility; media coverage; high-level delegations; and briefings for government and the international human rights community. RFK’s Brazil laureate is Darci Frigo, who presses for equitable land reform, promoting biodiversity conservation and sustainable agriculture, and fighting forced labor and impunity in land-access cases.

The Friends of the MST (FMST) is a network of individuals and organizations that support the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST) in the struggle for social and economic justice while securing respect for human rights. The FMST works to build solidarity and educate the public in the US and English-speaking world in order to raise the international profile of the MST. The FMST has a direct relationship to the MST and is a fiscally sponsored project of Global Exchange. The objectives of the FMST are to: organize support for MST’s economic, social, and political development projects; make information accessible to the public; build a network capable of responding to the highest priority political and human rights alerts while strengthening the global struggle for justice; and offer support with communication and coordination between the MST and likeminded US-based groups. The Washington, DC chapter was founded in 2004.

WOLA is a non-profit policy, research and advocacy organization working to advance democracy, human rights, and social justice in Latin America and the Caribbean. WOLA plays a leading role in Washington policy debates about Latin America. WOLA facilitates dialogue between governmental and non-governmental actors, monitors the impact of policies and programs of government and international organizations, and promotes alternatives through reporting, education, training, and advocacy.

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For more information about this event, please contact:
Emily Goldman at the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights. She can be reached at (202) 463-7575 ext. 235 or by email at goldman@rfkmemorial.org.
Joel Fyke at the Washington Office on Latin America. He can be reached at (202) 797-2171 ext. 204 or by email at jfyke@wola.org.