Pastoral groups warn: Bolsonaro's measures could increase violence in rural areas.

From the Rede Brasil Atual - In light of concrete facts and alarming prospects arising from the changes promoted by the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PSL) in the Ministry of Agriculture and Funai, Social Pastoral Groups in the Countryside issued a joint statement this Wednesday (27) to denounce the danger of increased violence in the countryside in the country.

Right at the beginning, the text recalls that in the first days of the Bolsonaro government, on January 5th, a rural worker was murdered and nine others were injured, three of them seriously, victims of an attack committed by private security guards on a farm in Colniza (MT). The city was the scene, in 2017, of a massacre that killed nine farmers.

"Violence genetically marks the agrarian structure of the country, the basis of power to this day, responsible for thousands of deaths of peasants, indigenous people, and quilombola communities, almost all of whom go unpunished. Besides displacing land and causing forced migration, it promotes work analogous to slave labor. There are signs that 2019 will ratify the historical process of violence and injustice against men and women of the countryside, waters, and forests," states the note from the pastoral groups.

According to the organizations, the "illegal and criminal invasion" of indigenous lands has intensified, "indicating the practice of a new phase of land grabbing in Brazil," crimes that are expected to increase following Provisional Measure 870/19, which restructured federal government agencies.

"The decisions already made and the speeches by the president and those who have assumed ministries and high positions in the Executive branch, as well as the first decisions of the National Congress, which is even more conservative, threaten even darker times for rural, traditional, quilombola, internal migrant, and indigenous communities, which are the preferred targets of the unlimited expansion of financial-agricultural-mining capital ventures," the statement warns.

See the full statement below.
The bright hope of the poor will overcome the darkness.

The year 2019, the beginning of the Bolsonaro government, as had been feared, began under the sign of tragedy. On January 05th, a rural worker was murdered and nine others were injured, three seriously, in an attack by private security guards on a farm in Colniza (MT), illegally occupied by powerful politicians in the state. In the same municipality, in May 2017, a massacre occurred, resulting in the death of nine peasants. The region is coveted for its immeasurable riches in timber and minerals.

Violence genetically marks the agrarian structure of the country, the basis of power to this day, responsible for thousands of deaths of peasants, indigenous people, and quilombola communities, almost all of whom go unpunished. Besides displacing land and causing forced migration, it promotes work analogous to slave labor. There are signs that 2019 will ratify the historical process of violence and injustice against men and women of the countryside, waters, and forests.

The illegal and criminal invasion of Indigenous Lands has intensified, indicating a new phase of land grabbing in Brazil. Through prejudiced speeches and administrative initiatives, especially Provisional Measure 870/19, which restructures federal government agencies, the government is blatantly violating the Brazilian Constitution and the Indigenous rights enshrined therein.

The tragedy in Brumadinho (MG), on January 25th, which was both predicted and calculated, signals that we are already living in barbaric times. A large, privatized state-owned mining company has repeated its crime by allowing the rupture of a toxic tailings dam. More than 300 human lives were lost and important ecosystems of the Paraopeba River were destroyed, a tragedy that will soon reach the already weakened São Francisco River, the touted "river of national unity." In this context, the weakening of Brazilian environmental policy and the dismantling of responsible agencies are extremely serious, allowing for less rigorous licensing processes for activities of this magnitude and failing to guarantee adequate and rigorous oversight.

The decisions already made and the speeches by the president and those who have assumed ministries and high positions in the Executive branch, as well as the first decisions of the National Congress, which is even more conservative, threaten even darker times for rural, traditional, quilombola, internal migrant, and indigenous communities, which are the preferred targets of the unlimited expansion of financial-agricultural-mining capital ventures.

The rural lobby reigns supreme. The Ministry of Agriculture, headed by the former president of the Parliamentary Agricultural Front, also known as the "rural lobby," has been given powers previously held by the Ministries of the Environment, such as the Brazilian Forest Service, and of Social Development and the Special Secretariat for Family Farming. The newly created Special Secretariat for Land Affairs, housed within the Ministry of Agriculture, will be responsible for the identification, delimitation, demarcation, and registration of lands traditionally occupied by indigenous and quilombola communities—powers that were previously exclusive to FUNAI (National Indian Foundation) and INCRA (National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform), which have been weakened and handed over to the military. Leading it is none other than the president of the UDR (Rural Democratic Union), the most complete expression of agrarian reactionism.

Also included in this portfolio is the Fisheries and Aquaculture policy, which remains a secretariat under the leadership of the industrial fishing sector in the south of the country. Recent speeches by the secretary suggest that the focus of the fisheries policy is to favor industrial fishing and aquaculture through drastic changes in environmental legislation and the weakening of inspection and management bodies. In parallel, there is a harsh discourse and prospects of increasingly rigorous actions to reduce and control artisanal fishermen's access to unemployment insurance during the closed season. Provisional Measure 870/19 proposes a break with current legislation that guarantees shared management as a principle for the organization and management of fisheries. If approved, management will be handed over solely to the private sector, with drastic consequences for fishing and fish consumption in the country.

The remaining responsibilities of FUNAI will fall under the Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights, making them entirely subordinate. The strategic position of Agrarian Ombudsman, previously held by a judge, is now in the hands of an Infantry Colonel, revealing how the militarized government will address conflicts in the countryside.

Rural populations are being labeled with derogatory terms and outdated prejudices. Indigenous people are seen as lenient and manipulated, quilombola communities as useless and lazy, and the landless as criminals, pawns of bandits, while schools in encampments and settlements are labeled "dictators' factories." The right to property is elevated to a supreme right, above effective and productive possession, throwing the constitutional requirement of the social function of property to the wind.

It is clear that the new government is betting everything on dismantling channels of dialogue, as the Secretary of Land Affairs stated explicitly when he asserted that there would be no dialogue with the MST (Landless Workers' Movement), a statement he had to retract after a pronouncement from the Public Prosecutor's Office. It is clear that what awaits social movements is policing and criminalization. Based on base and malformed ideological positions, the president is attempting to break the institutional links inherent in democratic governments, the necessary intersection – while preserving autonomy – between the established power and social movements and organizations.

The Catholic Church is not exempt from this, monitored and threatened, when it stands alongside the greatest victims of these cruel abuses through social pastoral organizations such as CIMI and CPT, which, along with the CNBB, constitute the "rotten core of the Catholic Church," according to a statement by then-candidate Bolsonaro. It also becomes a prime target when it seeks to better understand the reality and risks facing the Amazon, with its immense riches. The Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network (REPAM) has decisively collaborated in the preparation of the Synod of Bishops on the Amazon, convened by Pope Francis for October 2019 in Rome. The process of listening to the ecclesial bases of the dioceses and prelatures has fostered an awareness of the need for the Church to draw closer to the peoples of the Amazon, in their historical and growing challenges.

The announced Pension Reform, by becoming capitalized by banks under the false propaganda of greater fairness in the collection of contributions and strengthening of the State, will be a new strategy of taking from the poor to give to the rich. It shifts the burden to the real generator of the Pension deficit—uncollected debts from companies and privileges—and further sacrifices the poor with longer working and contribution periods, limiting and redefining payments below the minimum wage. It imposes the same proposal on special insured individuals, especially those in rural areas, as on other workers, disregarding the specific conditions of this social group.

For the Pastoral Ministries in Rural Areas, the gravity of the moment demands from all of us—citizens, peoples, communities, movements and organizations from the city and the countryside, churches and other civil entities—clarity, creativity, and unity, to understand and fearlessly combat the nefarious alliance formed between a colonized and militarized national political caste and the interests of global financial-agrarian-mining capital.

Since the end of the military regime in the mid-1980s, dialogue has guaranteed a minimum balance of power within the socio-political arena, thus preventing imbalances to the detriment of the most fragile and vulnerable social categories. The denial of dialogue between the legal apparatus, including the constitutional framework, and rural populations, mediated by their legitimate social representatives, will result in the worsening of this already tragic land tenure reality in Brazil.

It is urgent to persist and reinvent more efficient ways of fighting for life, woven into the invincible hope of the people, guaranteeing horizontal spaces for real dialogue and the joint construction of alternatives. In this, international solidarity is essential. We need to believe in the ancestral resistance and resilience of communities that have faced oppressors and their executioners for centuries. It is in the densest darkness of night that the dawn of a new day approaches: The God of Jesus Christ the Liberator is with us and never abandons the poor and the lowly!

As the biblical song of our communities says, "If the voice of the prophets is silenced, the stones will speak. If the few paths are closed, a thousand trails will spring up!"

Rural Social Ministries:

Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI), Pastoral Council of Fishermen (CPP), Rural Youth Ministry (PJR), Pastoral Service for Migrants (SPM) and Pastoral Land Commission (CPT)

Brasilia, February 27, 2019