quarta-feira, 27 de novembro de 2013

Após manifestações em rodovia, quilombolas conseguem ter reivindicações atendidas

Durante os dias 25 e 26 de novembro, as comunidades quilombolas de Aliança e Santa Joana (situadas entre os municípios de Mirinzal e Cururupu, região da Baixada Maranhense) ocuparam a rodovia MA 006, que dá acesso aos municípios de Cururupu, Serrano e Apicum Açu. As mesmas, em um legítimo direito de manifestação, exigiam que o INCRA desse prosseguimento ao processo de titulação do território quilombola que abrange as duas comunidades, bem como a efetivação da Imissão de Posse em nome do INCRA, ocorrida formalmente no dia 07 de agosto do corrente. Essa efetivação significa a imediata retirada dos grandes invasores (muitos comerciantes da cidade de Cururupu, principalmente) do território.

Foto: Igor Almeida

Durante os dois dias, as comunidades se preocuparam com a alimentação e o bom estar daqueles que estavam impossibilitados de prosseguirem viagem. Segundo o Presidente do Sindicato de Trabalhadores e Trabalhadoras Rurais de Cururupu, Ivanilson Reis, essa medida só foi adotada em virtude da falta de diálogo e comunicação pelo INCRA.

Foto: Igor Almeida

Tendo conhecimento da manifestação, os representantes do INCRA e do Centro de Cultura Negra do Maranhão (CCN) deslocaram-se até a ocupação para discutirem os pontos de reivindicação das comunidades. Após uma tensa reunião de quase três horas, na tarde da última terça-feira (26), ficou acordado entre as partes que o INCRA iniciaria os trabalhos de georreferenciamento (demarcação dos pontos limites do território) a partir do dia 28 de novembro.

Quanto à possibilidade imediata de retirada dos grandes invasores, ficou deliberada a realização de uma audiência com o juiz federal que acompanha o processo de desapropriação, tendo em vista as divergências apresentadas pelos representantes do INCRA quanto à imediata retirada dos ocupantes irregulares. Após tais deliberações, as comunidades consentiram na liberação da MA 006. 

Foto: Igor Almeida

Na tarde desta quarta-feira (27) foi realizada a audiência na Justiça Federal, com a participação dos representantes das duas comunidades, da assessoria jurídica do CCN, do Ministério Público Federal, do INCRA, da Procuradoria do Município de Cururupu e da Procuradoria Federal. Após as exposições dos motivos da solicitação da audiência ao juiz da 8ª Vara Federal, ficou deliberado que:

1 - O INCRA finalizará em até 20 dias (a contar do dia 28/11) os trabalhos de campo do georreferenciamento;

2 - Foi requerido pela Procuradoria Federal o IMEDIATO cumprimento efetivo da Imissão de Posse em nome do INCRA, inclusive com a expedição de intimação aos 06 (seis) grandes ocupantes irregulares já identificados pelo INCRA. Caso defira esse requerimento, esses ocupantes terão 15 (quinze) dias para desocuparem espontaneamente a área. Se isso não ocorrer, será concedida força policial.

Importa ressaltar que as comunidades apontam a existência de, pelo menos, mas 09 (nove) grande ocupantes irregulares dentro da área. Quanto a estes, foi acordado um prazo de 60 (sessenta) dias para que o INCRA realizasse minucioso relatório sobre a sua identificação, para posterior retirada pela Justiça Federal. 

  
Ata da audiência realizada nesta quarta (27/11)

Em audiência, o MPF informou a abertura de procedimento administrativo para acompanhar o cumprimento dos compromissos realizados pelo INCRA, até a titulação final do território para as comunidades. 

Quanto aos pequenos ocupantes do território (não-quilombolas), as comunidades reconhecem a posse de alguns deles, identificando-os como público alvo da reforma agrária. Sapientes disso, o STTR de Cururupu já indicou ao INCRA três imóveis rurais para serem desapropriados, para que esses trabalhadores rurais sejam assentados. Até o presente momento, o órgão fundiário não deu respostas concretas sobre o andamento desses processos de desapropriação. Ressalte-se que os quilombolas querem a imediata retirada dos ocupantes irregulares que não são quilombolas e também não se configuram como público alvo da reforma agrária, mas, agora, dos grandes invasores, a grande maioria, comerciantes da sede do município de Cururupu, que cercam grandes áreas para a construção de casas de veraneio e pequenas indústrias. 

Os representantes das comunidades quilombolas avaliaram positivamente todo o processo de mobilização, o que acabou resultando em compromissos firmados pelo INCRA, bem como o requerimento por parte da Procuradoria Federal da imediata retirada dos grandes invasores já identificados do território, bem como posterior identificação dos mesmos. As comunidades quilombolas agora aguardam decisão do juiz sobre esse pedido, que deve sair nos próximos dias.

Texto: Igor Almeida - advogado do Centro de Cultura Negra do Maranhão

segunda-feira, 25 de novembro de 2013

Quilombolas bloqueiam rodovia para exigir cumprimento de decisão judicial de imissão na posse

Os quilombolas do território Aliança/Santa Joana (localizado entre os municípios de Cururupu e Mirinzal, na região da Baixada Maranhense) iniciaram pela manhã o bloqueio da MA-006, que dá acesso à sede do município de Cururupu.

O motivo do bloqueio – que continua até agora - é a exigência por parte dos quilombolas do cumprimento de decisão da Justiça Federal que concedeu imissão da posse ao INCRA e a consequente retirada dos não-quilombolas e invasores da área, com mais de 7.500 hectares.

Vale ressaltar que há mais de um ano existe essa decisão da Justiça Federal para que o INCRA se imitisse na posse. A decisão fio encaminhada por carta precatória até a comarca de Cururupu. No dia 07 de junho foi realizada audiência pública para tentar uma desocupação pacífica, o que não logrrou êxito. Por isso, o juízo da comarca de Cururupu decidiu pelo dia 07 de agosto do corrente para o cumprimento da decisão. Mesmo com requisição de forças policiais estaduais e federais, até a presente data, os invasores continuam na área, causando grave insegurança para os quilombolas.


O objetivo do bloqueio da rodovia é uma resposta urgente do Estado para o cumprimento da decisão. Após interlocução entre os Sindicatos de Trabalhadores e Trabalhadoras Rurais de Cururupu e Mirinzal e o Centro de Cultura Negra do Maranhão (CCN), foi articulada uma reunião para amanhã (26) entre os quilombolas, o CCN, os STTR´s, a FETAEMA, o INCRA e o Poder Judiciário local. Até lá, a rodovia permanecerá bloqueada, afirmam as lideranças. 

Segundo as lideranças do movimento, está sendo garantida a passagem de ambulâncias e pessoas que necessitam de cuidados especiais. 

Ruralista é condenado a 15 anos de prisão por morte de trabalhador sem terra no Paraná

Ruralista é condenado a 15 anos de prisão por morte de trabalhador sem terra no Paraná 


Por Ednubia Ghisi | Foto: Joka Madruga

Em julgamento histórico, júri popular condena o ruralista Marcos Prochet a 15 anos e nove meses de prisão por homicídio duplamente qualificado, mas poderá recorrer em liberdade. O julgamento terminou por volta das 22h desta sexta-feira (22), com a presença de mais de 200 pessoas, no Tribunal do Júri de Curitiba/PR. 

A viúva o filho de Sebastião Camargo, assassinado há 15 anos, acompanharam todo o julgamento. Para Cesar Venture Camargo, filho da vítima, a decisão é uma resposta tardia: “Não vai trazer meu pai de volta, mas ele [Prochet] já vai pagar um pouco pelo que fez”. A família de Camargo é assentada em Ramilândia, região Oeste do Paraná.

“Passados 15 anos, dois extravios do processo e dois adiamentos de júri, a condenação de Marcos Prochet é um marco histórico na justiça paranaense”, é o que afirma Darci Frigo, coordenador da Terra de Direitos. Para Frigo, as recomendações da Organização dos Estados Americanos (OEA) ao estado brasileiro, em 2011, contribuiu decisivamente para o resultado. 

Depois da repercussão internacional, o caso Sebastião Camargo passou a ser acompanhado pelo programa Justiça Plena, do Conselho Nacional de Justiça, que monitora e dá transparência ao andamento de processos de grande repercussão social. Aílson Silveira Machado, coordenador de Medição de Conflitos Agrários da Secretaria de Direitos Humanos da Presidência da República que acompanhou todo o júri, frisou a importância do programa para a efetivação da justiça no Brasil: “A impunidade nesse país tem que acabar. Isso começa a aparecer com o programa Justiça Plena”. 

A Terra de Direitos irá comunicar a OEA sobre o andamento do processo e solicitar acompanhamento das próximas movimentações jurídicas da defesa de Prochet, para que não haja anulação no júri.

Novas tentativas de adiamento 

No início da sessão de julgamento, o advogado de defesa suscitou duas supostasnulidades para tentar adiar o júri, que foram negadas pelo juiz que presidia o julgamento, Leonardo Bechara Stancioli. Essas nulidades deverão ser levadas pela defesa em recuso dirigido ao Tribunal de Justiça do Paraná – TJ-PR com o objetivo de tentar anular o julgamento.

Passados 15 anos da morte do agricultor, com violações ocorridas do direito à vida, às garantias judiciais e à proteção judicial que resultaram no envio de recomendações da Organização dos Estados Americanos (OEA) ao estado brasileiro, espera-se que a decisão do julgamento seja mantida e não haja anulação pelo TJ. 

Para defender Marcos Prochet, o advogado direcionou a acusação da morte do sem terra a Firmino Borracha, já condenado pelo assassinato de Eduardo Anghinone, em 1999. Prochet esteve no julgamento de Borracha e deu declarações ao jornal Folha de S. Paulo afirmando a inocência do pistoleiro. 

A banca de acusação do julgamento foi composta por Lúcia Inês Giacometti Andrich, promotora de justiça do Ministério Público do Paraná, Fernando Gallardo Vieira Prioste, assessor jurídico popular da Terra de Direitos, e o advogado Cláudio Oliveira, ambos atuando como assistentes de acusação. 

Outros envolvidos 

Em novembro de 2012, duas pessoas foram condenadas por participação no crime: Teissin Tina, ex-proprietário da fazenda Boa Sorte, onde o agricultor foi morto, foi condenado a seis anos de prisão por homicídio simples; e Osnir Sanches, condenado a 13 anos de prisão por homicídio qualificado e constituição de empresa de segurança privada, utilizada para recrutar jagunços e executar despejos ilegais. Um ano após o julgamento, os dois condenados continuam em liberdade.


No dia 04 de fevereiro deste ano, o terceiro réu, Augusto Barbosa da Costa, acusado de homicídio doloso no envolvimento no caso, foi julgado e absolvido pelo júri. A maioria dos jurados reconheceu a participação do réu de forma efetiva e consciente no crime, portando arma de fogo e aderindo à mesma conduta dos demais presentes no despejo, mas assim mesmo votou pela absolvição do acusado.

No mês de julho deste ano, o Ministério Público do Paraná também denunciou por suspeita de participação no crime o ruralista Tarcísio Barbosa de Souza, presidente da Comissão Fundiária da Federação de Agricultura do Estado do Paraná (FAEP), ligada à Confederação Nacional da Agricultura (CNA). O ruralista é ex-tesoureiro da União Democrática Ruralista (UDR) e ex-vereador em Paranavaí pelo partido Democratas (DEM).
Entenda o caso 

Sebastião Camargo foi morto durante um despejo ilegal na cidade de Marilena, Noroeste do estado, que envolveu cerca de 30 pistoleiros. Além do assassinato de Camargo, 17 pessoas, inclusive crianças, ficaram feridas. 

O crime compõe o cenário de grande violência no campo vivido no período do governo Jaime Lerner no Paraná De 1995 a 2002, 16 trabalhadores sem terra foram assassinados no estado.


Saiba mais sobre o julgamento

quarta-feira, 20 de novembro de 2013

Justiça Federal garante execução do Luz Para Todos no Quilombo Barro Vermelho

Quilombo Barro Vermelho
Foto: Igor Almeida

Em decisão prolatada nos autos de Ação Civil Pública que tramita perante a 3ª Vara Federal da Seção Judiciária do Maranhão, o Poder Judiciário deferiu tutela antecipada, determinando que em até 60 (sessenta) dias, a UNIÃO, a CEMAR e a ELETROBRÁS-ELETRONORTE tomem as medidas necessárias para a implantação do Programa Luz Para Todos na comunidade quilombola de Barro Vermelho, município de Chapadinha.

A Ação Civil Pública foi ajuizada pela Defensoria Pública da União no Maranhão (DPU-MA) após Representação protocolada neste órgão pela Sociedade Maranhense de Direitos Humanos - SMDH, que acompanha o processo de regularização fundiária da comunidade desde 2007.

A SMDH ingressou com a Representação junto à DPU-MA após várias denúncias da comunidade de que o suposto proprietário da área estaria impedindo (e algumas vezes, ameaçando) as empresas terceirizadas pela CEMAR de executarem os serviços de implantação do Programa. Ressalte-se que as cerca de 20 famílias beneficiadas pela decisão da Justiça Federal já estavam incluídas no plano de obras do 6º contrato previsto para ser executado ainda no ano de 2012, segundo informações do Comitê Gestor do Programa no Maranhão.

Na decisão, a magistrada reconheceu a "essencialidade dos serviços de energia elétrica para a sobrevivência da comunidade quilombola em condições dignas". Ainda segundo a decisão, quando da realização da audiência de conciliação, no dia 05 de novembro, o representante da CEMAR confirmou que o único óbice para a implantação do Programa em Barro Vermelho teria sido a oposição do suposto proprietário.

Sobre a questão da ausência de titularidade do imóvel pelos quilombolas de Barro Vermelho (o processo de titulação ainda tramita no INCRA), a magistrada assim se manifestou:

"Não se justifica a inércia da Administração ante a oposição apresentada pelo suposto proprietário da terra. Não pode o interesse particular se sobrepor ao interesse público, que já havia sido reconhecido pelos próprios requeridos. A discussão sobre a titularidade das terras não pode ser óbice à implantação das políticas públicas essenciais à sobrevivência da comunidade." (grifo nosso)

Tendo em vista a informação dos requeridos de que o Programa Luz Para Todos não foi executado no quilombo Barro Vermelho por conta da oposição do suposto proprietário, a magistrada determinou ainda que, caso necessário, força policial deverá acompanhar os trabalhos para o cumprimento da liminar.

Para o advogado e assessor jurídico da SMDH, Igor Almeida, essa é mais batalha vencida na luta pela garantia de direitos fundamentais aos quilombolas: "A Administração Pública precisa suplantar o extremo legalismo para implantação de políticas públicas fundamentais às comunidades quilombolas. Trata-se de verdadeiro Racismo Institucional ainda impregnado nos nossos órgãos. A decisão é emblemática porque reconhece que a vai exatamente ao encontro do que determina a Constituição Federal. Ademais, nunca é demais ressaltar que, por conta do disposto no artigo 68 do Ato das Disposições Constitucionais Transitórias, a titularidade das terras já pertence ao Quilombo Barro Vermelho. O Estado, através do INCRA, apenas está realizando um processo burocrático, de outorga do título e respectiva indenização do fazendeiro, caso comprovado que ele realmente tenha documentos legítimos, não objetos de fraude, o que é muito comum nos cartórios daquela região do Maranhão."

O advogado relata ainda que essa é apenas uma das políticas fundamentais ausentes da comunidade. "A comunidade ainda luta, além da conquista do título definitivo de seu território, para que seja garantido seu direito de ir e vir, através da reforma da estrada vicinal que dá acesso ao quilombo, direito à água potável, pois inexiste poço artesiano que abasteça as famílias (hoje elas retiram água do poluído e seco Rio Munim), à educação e ao fomento agrícola", ressaltou Igor Almeida.

Para o defensor público federal Yuri Costa, titular do Ofício de Direitos Humanos e Tutela Coletiva da DPU no Maranhão e autor da ação, “trata-se de decisão de extrema relevância, não apenas por levar a eletrificação à comunidade de Barro Vermelho, mas por ser paradigmática no Maranhão. A decisão vai de encontro à tendência da Administração Pública em condicionar a execução de políticas públicas em quilombos à regularização fundiária do território ocupado tradicionalmente pela comunidade. O posicionamento do Judiciário mostra que a titularidade das terras não deve manter relação com o direito de acesso a serviços e aparelhos públicos vitais para a garantia da dignidade de grupos tradicionais”.

terça-feira, 12 de novembro de 2013

Funai realiza levantamento de indígenas detidos no sistema prisional maranhense


Medida é fruto de recomendação do Ministério Público Federal ao órgão indigenista, a partir de solicitações da SMDH e CIMI
A Sociedade Maranhense de Direitos Humanos (SMDH) e o Conselho Indigenista Missionário (CIMI) instaram a Defensoria Pública da União (DPU) e o Ministério Público Federal (MPF) no Maranhão, acerca da situação de indígenas encarcerados no estado.
De acordo com levantamento da Coordenação Técnica Local de São Luís, da Fundação Nacional do Índio (Funai), há nove indígenas – todos do sexo masculino – detidos no sistema penitenciário maranhense.
O levantamento foi procedido após recomendação do MPU à Funai. O órgão ministerial também recomendou ao órgão indigenista o acompanhamento das famílias dos indígenas detidos, sobretudo no que tange à assistência jurídica.
Para Igor Almeida, assessor jurídico da SMDH, “é necessário que o Estado tome as providências cabíveis não apenas para resguardar a integridade física dos indígenas que estão encarcerados nos estabelecimentos penais do Maranhão, mas também que garantam o direito à preservação de seus valores e identidades culturais. Ademais, a identificação de todos eles poderá propiciar um acompanhamento sócio-jurídico mais eficaz por parte da FUNAI e da DPU. Nesse sentido, o papel da SMDH e do CIMI foram cruciais para essa tomada de decisão do MPF.”
Através de ofício, a Funai informou estar adotando as medidas recomendadas.

segunda-feira, 11 de novembro de 2013

SMDH/Brasília debate Mapa da Violência

O Escritório Brasília/DF da Sociedade Maranhense de Direitos Humanos (SMDH) realizará no próximo dia 14 de novembro (sexta-feira), às 16h, um seminário interno para a discussão do Mapa da Violência, cuja edição deste ano tem por tema “Mortes matadas por armas de fogo”.
A atividade tem por objetivo levantar desafios e estratégias visando o fortalecimento do Programa de Proteção a Vítimas e Testemunhas Ameaçadas no enfrentamento à violência, à impunidade e à criminalidade, com ênfase nas áreas atendidas pelo Programa Federal de Proteção.
A sessão de estudo, de que participarão técnicos da SMDH e da Coordenação Geral de Proteção a Testemunhas da Secretaria de Direitos Humanos , será assessorada pela professora Márcia Esteves de Calazans, doutora (UFRGS) e pós-doutora (USP-INCT/CNPq). Ela abordará o tema “Produção da violência”, a partir de dados já disponibilizados pelo Mapa da Violência.
Para contato sobre local da discussão, os interessados poderão entrar em contato pelo email: smdhbsb@terra.com.br 
Fonte: smdh.org.br

quinta-feira, 7 de novembro de 2013

CPT repudia “manobra ruralista” que descaracteriza Trabalho Escravo

A Comissão Pastoral da Terra (CPT) em nota pública divulgada nesta semana repudiou a manobra da bancada ruralista que articula regulamentação mais leve para a PEC do Trabalho Escravo. Os ruralistas propõem nova definição para situação semelhante à escravidão e ignora legislação vigente.
O Projeto de Lei do Senado (PLS 432/2013) que regulamentaria a PEC do Trabalho Escravo (PEC 438) redefine o conceito previsto no Código Penal. Segundo a CPT e movimentos sociais, a proposta da bancada ruralista representa um retrocesso, pois retiraria condições degradantes e violações à dignidade humana como qualificantes de trabalho escravo.
Aprovada em maio de 2012 na Câmara dos Deputados, a PEC do Trabalho Escravo, prevê a desapropriação de propriedades rurais e urbanas que exploram trabalhadores em situação semelhante à escravidão. Além disso, prevê o destino dessas áreas à reforma agrária e a programas de habitação popular.
A legislação brasileira em vigor desde 2003 considera quatro elementos que podem configurar trabalho em condições semelhantes à escravidão: trabalhos forçados, jornada exaustiva, condições degradantes e servidão por dívida.
Desde 1995 mais de 44 mil pessoas ganharam a liberdade, em um universo de quase 18 milhões de trabalhadores no campo.

NOTA OFICIAL

A CPT vem a público manifestar sua indignação diante da manobra da bancada ruralista em tentar aprovar o Projeto de Lei do Senado (PLS 432/2013) que regulamentaria a PEC 57A, que prevê o confisco das terras em que forem flagradas mão de obra escrava. O PLS, ao redefinir o conceito de trabalho escravo previsto no Código Penal, representaria um grande retrocesso, pois retiraria condições degradantes e violações à dignidade humana de suas qualificantes. Confira o manifesto e assine a Petição contra a aprovação do PLS, aqui

Não adianta aprovar o confisco da propriedade dos escravagistas se o preço a pagar for a negação do que é trabalho escravo nas condições do Brasil de hoje
A persistência da escravidão foi denunciada desde o início dos anos 70, especialmente na Amazônia (especialmente a partir da Carta Pastoral de dom Pedro Casaldáliga, em 1971), tendo, porém, se revelado presente desde então em todas as regiões do país e em inúmeras atividades, da pecuária até a carvoaria, da lavoura e do canavial até a construção civil, da mineração até a confecção.
O reconhecimento oficial desta vergonhosa realidade se deu somente a partir de 1995. Iniciou-se então um novo período marcado por avanços importantes no combate ao trabalho escravo, bem como na consciência das formas perversas que este vem assumindo na atualidade: o escravo moderno encontrado pelos competentes auditores fiscais do trabalho, procuradores e policiais, integrantes dos grupos móveis especializados, não é mais aquele sujeito sem direitos (ou melhor: não-sujeito), preso a correntes, como no tempo da Colônia ou do Império.
A analogia da sua situação em relação àquela do antigo escravo se dá necessariamente por meio de critérios modernos, relacionados ao nível civilizatório atual.
Além da utilização de mecanismos de endividamento que o mantêm obrigado a seguir trabalhando, o escravo moderno tem sua liberdade negada no que desta constitui a essência: a capacidade de optar, aceitar ou recusar, por que lhe é negada a elementar dignidade que o constitui como sujeito de direitos. De uma pessoa obrigada a jornadas exaustivas, sem direito a água, a alimento, ou a alojamento minimamente decentes, pode-se dizer que é literalmente tratada como coisa ou, como muitos desses trabalhadores relatam quando conseguem fugir daquela situação: pior que animal.
Claramente degradado da sua condição de cidadão.
Por este motivo, desde 2003, a lei penal brasileira passou a identificar as condições degradantes de trabalho e a jornada exaustiva como elementos característicos do trabalho análogo a de escravo, ao lado do tradicional cerceamento da liberdade formal (trabalho forçado e impedimento de ir e vir). Um avanço civilizatório reconhecido internacionalmente, parabenizado pela ONU (na pessoa da Relatora Especial sobre a Escravidão Contemporânea, Dra Gulnara Shahinian) e pela OIT (que sempre incentivou cada país signatário das suas Convenções a construir uma legislação adequada, com base no piso mínimo nelas definidas e, quando necessário, indo além). 
É irrelevante alegar que a definição da Convenção 29 da OIT (que data de 1930, mais de 80 anos atrás) possa estabelecer um limite insuperável para identificar a realidade atual do trabalho escravo e formular adequadamente o conceito que lhe corresponde. 
Quarenta e cinco mil trabalhadores foram resgatados desde 1995 no Brasil. Sanções mais pesadas passaram a ser aplicadas. Porém, uma delas, proposta desde os anos 90, continuou atolada no Congresso: o confisco da propriedade onde for encontrado trabalho escravo (PEC 438/2001). Só saiu do esquecimento dos congressistas em função da comoção nacional criada em 2004 pela Chacina de Unaí, quando três fiscais do trabalho e seu motorista, em missão, foram friamente assassinados. Desde então houve inúmeras manifestações da sociedade em favor da imediata aprovação da PEC do confisco da propriedade. Entre elas destacam-se vários apelos da CNBB.
Em 2012, quando os Deputados enfim voltaram a discutirem essa PEC, setores ruralistas passaram a condicionar seu voto à revisão do conceito legal de trabalho escravo, o qual, na sua visão, seria vago, exagerado, sujeito a interpretações subjetivas. Em troca da aprovação da PEC que, no Senado, tramita agora sob o n° 57A/1999, congressistas geralmente ligados à bancada ruralista, exigiram que fossem retirados da  conceituação legal atual (artigo 149 CPB, aprovado pelo Congresso em 2003) seus traços distintivos modernos de violação grave da dignidade humana e que se voltasse à visão clássica do escravo antigo: aquele trabalhador aprisionado, submetido à força ao trabalho e privado de sua liberdade de ir e vir. Uma figura abolida desde 1888 e raramente encontrada formalmente na atualidade.
Este tipo de entendimento regressivo foi sancionado dia 18/10/2013 por uma Comissão Mista do Congresso, oportunamente criada. Agora está sendo apresentado pelo senador Romero Jucá na forma do PLS 432/2013, a ser submetido à votação dos senadores na próxima semana. Sua aprovação eventual em votação do plenário agendada para esta semana, significaria um dramático retrocesso no combate à escravidão moderna, uma chaga que atinge hoje milhares de trabalhadores rurais, cortadores de cana, carvoeiros, pedreiros em grandes obras e imigrantes latinos.
Sob essas restrições, de nada adiantaria aprovar o confisco da propriedade por um crime cuja materialidade formal já não seria mais plausível de ser encontrada.
Tudo não passaria de uma gritante hipocrisia.
Por isso se faz necessária uma manifestação ampla e inequívoca por parte de todos aqueles e aquelas que há anos lutam pela erradicação do trabalho escravo no Brasil.
Goiânia, 02/11/2013.
CAMPANHA NACIONAL DA CPT CONTRA O TRABALHO ESCRAVO
CPT NACIONAL

sexta-feira, 1 de novembro de 2013

Após anos de luta, comunidades rurais acompanhadas pela SMDH garantem título de domínio comunitário

Depois de mais de 5 anos lutando junto ao Estado e contra grileiros e grandes projetos na região, as comunidades de Coceira e Santa Helena, no município de Santa Quitéria do Maranhão podem, finalmente, comemorar.



Foram assinados no dia 09 de outubro (mas divulgados somente agora) os Títulos de Domínio Coletivo nºs 14.700 e 14.701, nos quais o Estado do Maranhão se compromete e constituir em favor das Associações locais o direito real resolúvel sobre os imóveis "Gleba C - Coceira" e "Gleba União II - Santa Helena", ambas com, respectivamente, 1.093 hectares e 1.032 hectares. Mais de uma centena de famílias estão sendo beneficiadas.

No documento de transferência de domínio existe uma cláusula que afirma que o imóvel tem finalidade exclusiva para a implantação de programas e projetos comunitários de atividades agropecuárias e agroindustriais, não sendo permitido o seu desmembramento em lotes individuais.

A titulação coletiva é uma forma de barrar que interesses individuais se sobreponham aos direito e interesses das comunidades na manutenção integral de seus territórios. 



Importa destacar que a presente conquista ocorreu após muita pressão das próprias comunidades, que, desde final de 2008, tem acompanhamento sócio-jurídico da Sociedade Maranhense de Direitos Humanos - SMDH. Insta rssaltar que, no ano de 2011, as atividades do ITERMA ficaram paralisadas tendo em vista a instabilidade de nomeação de seu presidente.

Nesse período, as comunidades enfrentaram ações judiciais de reintegração de posse, de supostos proprietários (ou melhor, grileiros) e também da empresa Suzano Papel & Celulose, que alegava ser proprietária de boa parte da área. Com o acompanhamento e assessoria da SMDH, as comunidades de Coceira e Santa Helena conseguiram barrar esses tais invasões.

Assim, mais do que uma concessão do Estado do Maranhão, o título de domínio é o reconhecimento da luta e da resistência das famílias, que sempre afirmaram, perante a administração pública e o Poder Judiciário, que aquelas eram "terras de Deus", "sem donos", cabendo ao Estado a realização do processo de arrecadação e posterior transferência, com o objetivo de realizar a reforma agrária.

Ressalte-se ainda que outras comunidades próximas, que também são acompanhadas pela SMDH, também aguardam o reconhecimento de domínio pelo Estado. O compromisso assumido pelo ITERMA com as comunidades de Baixão da Coceira, Lagoa das Caraíbas e São José é que a titulação ocorra até o final desse ano. 

Agora, com a segurança jurídica  de suas propriedades, as comunidades darão um novo passo: a implantação de projetos de assentamento, com a possibilidade de créditos de fomento para a produção. Se espera, mais uma vez, que o Estado assuma seu compromisso e seu dever institucional.


Insegurança Pública e aumento da violência no Maranhão são destaques em reportagem do NY Times

O portal virtual do jornal The New York Times publicou nesta quinta feira (31 de outubro), uma extensa reportagem sobre a violência e insegurança pública que tem assolado o Estado do Maranhão nos últimos meses.

Utilizando como ponto de partida o caso do árbitro de futebol decapitado após uma apitar uma falta em um jogo de futebol em Centro do Meio (interior do Estado), a reportagem dos jornalistas Jére Longman e Taylor Barnes expõe o caos instalado no sistema de segurança pública. Foram ouvidos na reportagem, além da população local, integrantes do aparato estatal.

A reportagem destaca ainda o controle do Estado pela família Sarney, e como isso deixou grande parte da população do Estado "dependente, subserviente e abandonada".

A seguir, a reportagem completa:

A Yellow Card, Then Unfathomable Violence, in Brazil

Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
A Grim Aftermath: Residents of Centro do Meio, Brazil, are still dealing with an attack on a soccer field that left two men dead. It began with a yellow card.
  • FACEBOOK
  • TWITTER
  • GOOGLE+
  • SAVE
  • E-MAIL
  • SHARE
  • PRINT
  • REPRINTS
PIO XII, Brazil — It was midafternoon that Sunday when Otávio Jordão da Silva Cantanhede left on his bike to play pickup soccer. His father said he did not see him tuck a knife into his shorts or slide a blade into his backpack.

Readers’ Comments


At 19, short and thin, Cantanhede rode through the remote town in northeastern Brazil with his younger brother George. They headed for the neighborhood of Centro do Meio, a few miles away down a red dirt road.
The lumpy soccer field had wooden goal posts with no nets. Grass had worn bare in spots, exposing the sandy soil. Informal matches were played there. One team usually wore shirts, while the other played bare chested. No bleachers or scoreboard obstructed the verdant backdrop of palm trees and banana trees and mango trees that gave wide shade to stray dogs.
During the first half, Cantanhede played on defense. Then he twisted his ankle or his knee and became the referee. It was June 30. That same day, 1,300 miles to the south in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s national team defeated Spain to win the Confederations Cup, a tuneup for the 2014 World Cup. Not until a week later would the world learn what brutality had occurred in Centro do Meio.
Fifteen or 20 minutes into the second half, Cantanhede ejected a player named Josemir Santos Abreu, 30, a friend and sometimes teammate who in an instant became an enemy. A yellow-card warning escalated into a red-card send-off, an argument, a lethal fight.
Cantanhede twice stabbed Abreu, who died by the time he reached the nearby hospital. In retaliation, the police said, Cantanhede was set upon by at least four of Abreu’s friends, whose bleakest impulses were fueled by alcohol, drugs and a crowd that stoked the violence the way wind stokes a fire. Cantanhede was tied up, smashed in the face with a bottle of cheap sugarcane liquor, pummeled with a wooden stake, run over by a motorcycle and stabbed in the throat, the police said. The moment of death remained uncertain. What came before did not stop another of the accused from a gruesome completion.
Graphic images taken by hospital workers showed that Cantanhede’s lower legs were cut off and left beside him like prostheses. His right arm and left wrist remained attached by strips of skin. He was decapitated and his head was placed on a wooden fence post across the road from the field.
“In the first moment, I didn’t believe it happened,” said Valter Costa dos Santos, the regional police chief and lead investigator in the case. “I didn’t think human beings had such perverseness to do this.”
For a week the story incubated in isolation. Then the news media picked it up, and it spread like a contagion. Two men lay in separate cemeteries beneath mounds of dirt and melted candles. A neighborhood invisible even in Brazil became visible to the world for the darkest inclinations.
People rushed to give meaning to the incomprehensible, to assign logic to the irrational. The killings were widely reported as an extreme example of soccer violence in Brazil, a grisly contradiction to jogo bonito, the beautiful game, as the country prepared to host the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics.
The truth seemed far more complicated. It involved two murder victims — a distressed teenager and an older friend with a temper — and interior Brazil’s wider culture of knives and revenge. It touched on hopelessness and rage born of poverty and inequality, and mistrust that seethed from inadequate policing and uneven access to justice. When formal justice seemed weak and unresponsive to one killing, another score was settled as scores have long been settled in this region of Brazil — with private justice, bloodshed trumped by bloodshed.
Villagers played soccer at the field in Centro do Meio, Brazil, where an argument escalated into a lethal fight in June.
Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
Villagers played soccer at the field in Centro do Meio, Brazil, where an argument escalated into a lethal fight in June.
Residents of Centro do Meio felt ashamed. The world did not know a humble community, only what had been described as a mob. Even some in nearby neighborhoods thought Centro do Meio was cursed.
When Livanete Santos, 13, told her schoolmates in Pio XII where she lived, some of the children made the sign of the cross.
“They were protecting themselves from us,” Santos said.
Escalating Violence
In the final minute of an amateur match that he refereed about a decade ago, Raimundo Sá blew his whistle and motioned for a penalty kick. The offending team began crowding around, shouting, threatening.
“You won’t get out alive,” one player said.
Another intervened.
“He’s a policeman, he probably has a gun.”
Sá, a police colonel, told the story in his office in São Luís, the capital of Maranhão state, which includes Pio XII. He now heads a police unit responsible for crowd control at professional games in Maranhão.
Sá did not absolve soccer completely in the Pio XII deaths. The great passion in Brazil, the clamor of the ball, the samba celebration of style and flair, could also foster a kind of hypnosis, he said.
“A person curses or beats somebody, and it seems as if he is in a trance,” Sá said. “Someone snaps a finger, and the guy comes back to a normal state. It’s adrenaline.”
It was rare — and illegal — for a referee to have a weapon at a soccer match, but not unheard-of. At amateur games where there was no police presence in São Luís, some referees had begun carrying a knife or pepper spray for protection, Sá said.
For meager pay, he said, some felt, “I’m not going to lose my life over this.”
A sociologist’s study found more deaths directly related to fan violence in Brazil than any other country. The number escalated from an average of 4.2 per year about a decade ago to 23 in 2012.
The Brazilian soccer weekly Lance! reported 155 soccer-related deaths between 1988 and 2012, with only 27 arrests. But these deaths were mostly linked to fan groups, which are infiltrated by criminal gangs and have complex relationships with teams and the police.
What, if anything, did soccer have to do with the murder in Pio XII? Mauricio Murad, a sociologist at Salgado de Oliveira University in Rio who is considered the foremost authority on soccer violence in Brazil, called it a mistake to connect the murders to the sport.
“It doesn’t have a direct link with football,” Murad said. “It could have happened in any other place, in a bar. When we talk about football violence, it is between fan groups cheering for their team. This is an issue of violence in Brazil more than soccer violence.”
A study published in July by the Brazilian Center for Latin American Studies, an academic research center in Rio, depicted Brazil as the world’s seventh-most violent country. Only five to eight percent of homicides are solved, compared with 65 percent in the United States.
Impunity was a word often heard about unpunished criminals and corrupt politicians. The word needed no explanation, like the single names of Brazil’s soccer stars.
Contrary to widespread belief, the study argued, the spread of organized crime and drug trafficking was less responsible for murder trends than impulse — an argument between friends or neighbors, a domestic dispute between husband and wife.
While the murder rate had fallen in big cities like Rio and São Paulo, it had dramatically increased in Brazil’s northeastern states, the study said.
Larger in size than New Mexico, Maranhão was a place of pastoral conviviality and tropical lushness, but also one of the most impoverished and increasingly violent areas of Brazil.
From 2001 to 2011, the murder rate in Maranhão more than doubled, to 23.7 homicides a year per 100,000 residents, from 9.4 a year. The police were historically undermanned there. For a population of 6.7 million, there were 11,000 officers — compared with 34,500 in New York City — and a need for 6,000 more, said Sebastião Albuquerque Uchôa, the secretary of justice for Maranhão.
Sgt. Antonio Lima de Carvalho of the Pio XII police said: “Unfortunately we are behind in everything in Maranhão — police cars, men, infrastructure, phones. We don’t even have radios.”
Knives and Justice
Pio XII, named for the pope whose response to the Holocaust has long been in dispute, is a cattle, agricultural and trucking hub of 22,000. Perhaps 200 families live in the neighborhood of Centro do Meio, an enclave of farmworkers, laborers and fishermen.
The simplest houses were made of mud with hard-packed dirt floors and roofs of tile or thatched palm fronds. Rising prosperity in northeast Brazil, coupled with land reforms and cash stipends, has helped lift millions out of stark poverty and introduced plumbing and electricity.
In this neighborhood, though, the safety net was fragile. In a country with the world’s seventh-largest economy, Centro do Meio remained a subsistence community with a grave understanding of the difference between what the state promised and what it delivered.
The simplest houses in Centro do Meio, an enclave of farmworkers, laborers and fishermen, are made of mud, with dirt floors and roofs of tile or thatched palm fronds.
Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
The simplest houses in Centro do Meio, an enclave of farmworkers, laborers and fishermen, are made of mud, with dirt floors and roofs of tile or thatched palm fronds.
Motorcycles buzzed the bumpy, unpaved roads. Nelore cattle grazed the green countryside with fatty humps on their shoulders and folds of skin like fans beneath their necks and a bovine tolerance for heat that could feel equatorial even in winter. To catch a breeze, people sat on porches and pulled chairs beneath shade trees. They peeled green beans. They kept their windows and doors open, their eyes and ears open, too, for outsiders, of whom they were both welcoming and wary.
Visitors were offered a seat out of the sun, handfuls of bananas and guava fruit, meals of rice and meat, sometimes a hammock to stay the night. Children played flutes carved from papaya stems. Chicks scurried with their heads dyed pink and purple as if for Carnival. “This is a calm place,” José Cunha, 30, a farmworker, said as he sat on a stump beneath a tree. “You can fall on the ground drinking, and no one will mess with you. If you come to my house and you are hungry, we will kill a chicken and feed you.”
Neighbors could remember only one killing in recent years, during a break-in of a home. Yet when calm retreated in Pio XII, there were only seven local policemen and two police cars to keep the peace. Some residents complained that the authorities seemed as indifferent as they were short-handed.
Recently, when a rat ran from beneath her stove, Edna Maria dos Santos, 31, a farmworker, told her son to catch it. He stood there.
“You are just like the police,” she scolded him.
It was not uncommon to see a man carrying a knife, a slight bulge visible beneath his shirt. Joaquim Arruda, 67, a planter wearing a Yankees cap, pulled a five-inch blade from his jeans and told a long tale about himself and another man’s woman. He pointed to scars on his hand, arm and neck. He smiled and called it a love story.
“You need a knife to peel oranges and pineapples and to defend yourself,” Arruda said. “The police don’t help anybody.”
Edna’s husband, Manoel dos Santos, 30, a trash collector, said trash cans at the police station often contained knives, confiscated and discarded but not destroyed. Doctors and nurses at São Sebastião Hospital said they treated wounds from knife fights once or twice a month.
Alcohol, marijuana and crack cocaine were also prevalent in the area, the authorities said. Almerinda Alves Sousa, a nurse, treated patients who entered the hospital in anguish from drugs, unaware what was wrong with them. And young people who were hallucinating.
“People always leave home afraid of a fight,” Sousa, 27, said.
Reprisal as a form of improvised justice was traced by some academics to Brazil’s colonial times and the scheming of elite landowners and their armed supporters. It was part of the afflicted history of a country that was the last in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery and was once broadly dominated by agrarian oligarchs who dispensed favors and controlled rural areas like fiefs.
A vestige of the power of political bosses remained evident in Maranhão, which had the lowest life expectancy, 68.7 years, and among the lowest rates of literacy of Brazil’s 26 states. For decades, the state has been controlled by the family of a politician named José Sarney, a former president of Brazil. His daughter, Roseana Sarney, is the governor of Maranhão.
Along with immense land holdings, the family owns a media conglomerate and has maintained its power while fighting back charges of nepotism, corruption and restriction of news media freedoms.
The Sarneys have “a lock on the state,” said James Green, a professor of Brazilian history at Brown University. Such concentrated power, he said, has left many people in the state feeling “dependent, subservient and abandoned.”
A spokeswoman for the state government of Maranhão said the fatalities could not be attributed to the social situation there, “given that tragedies like this, or even larger ones, happen in developed countries, one example being the United States.”
José's Son
Please, Otávio Cantanhede’s aunt implored him, do not leave the neighborhood anymore to play soccer. Even a few miles away in such an insular place, he would be considered an outsider.
Two days before the pickup game in Centro do Meio, his aunt asked again. Cantanhede decided to continue playing. “Don’t worry,” he said, “they are my friends.”
He lived with his father, brother and a sister in a modest home on an unpaved road in the Pio XII neighborhood of Santo Antônio. During the week, he awoke with the roosters and herded cattle and felled trees to make fences. At night, he attended his third year of high school. He wanted to be an accountant.
“That was his biggest dream,” said Lucélia Saraiva, 27, Otávio’s eldest sister.
Weekends were consumed by soccer. Cantanhede supported Fluminense, one of the big pro teams in Rio. And he admired Neymar, the star forward of the Brazilian national team, which next year will seek to win its sixth World Cup. Cantanhede especially loved the way Neymar could flick the ball over his shoulder with both feet and arc it beyond a surprised and vulnerable defender.
On June 30, Cantanhede ate lunch and took a nap before leaving for his match. He dressed in a T-shirt and blue-jean shorts. Underneath, he wore a pair of soccer shorts, a replica of those worn by Chelsea of the English Premier League. As Cantanhede left home, his father said, he appeared to carry only his cleats and his backpack.
“I don’t think he walked around with a knife,” said José Raimundo Rodrigues Cantanhede, Otávio’s father. “Maybe he did. I’ve never seen that.”
Lucélia Saraiva showed a picture of Otávio Jordão da Silva Cantanhede, her late brother, on her cellphone.
Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
Lucélia Saraiva showed a picture of Otávio Jordão da Silva Cantanhede, her late brother, on her cellphone.
Others had. Felipe França, 14, a neighbor, said he had once seen Cantanhede sitting with a knife in front of his house. A friend, Gustavo Henrique, also 14, said he had seen him pulling a knife out of his shorts at a match and putting it aside. His life seemed more complicated than the jaunty, hang-loose gestures he made with his hands when he posed for photographs.
In February, at a Carnival celebration in Pio XII, Cantanhede was stabbed by another man in the shoulder and arm and behind his ear, his father said. Otávio received stitches and spent the night in the hospital.
“Some guy confused him with another guy,” said Leonildo Lima, 20, who played soccer with Cantanhede and said he stood near him during the Carnival attack.
Hudson Rony Oliveira Lima, 18, another friend of Cantanhede’s, said the fight might have been over a woman.
“He was scared after that incident,” Lima said.
Cantanhede had also despaired after the death of his mother, Welida Marques da Silva, two years ago, his sister said. She had been killed at age 46 by a truck driver while she rode her bike along the highway. For Cantanhede, “it was a very great shock,” Saraiva said.
The truck driver was believed to be using drugs, said Hudson Lima, Cantanhede’s friend.
“He felt indignant with life,” Lima said. “He felt he had to get revenge.”
Maria’s Son
Josemir Abreu had intended only to watch the pickup soccer match, his mother said. He was an attendant at the post office in Pio XII and had spent the weekend visiting a sister. She lived a few houses from the neighborhood field in Centro do Meio. At the last minute, his mother said, Abreu had been recruited to play.
Two days earlier, he had celebrated his 30th birthday. He prayed at home with his wife, and cake and soda were served at a small party.
As a teenager, Abreu had fathered a son and had quit school to begin working, his mother said. He had since married a teacher and was taking classes toward completing high school. He was the third of Maria Abreu’s five children. She described Josemir as a dutiful son who was affectionate with his nieces and nephews and wanted another child of his own. His nickname was Mimi.
“He really liked sports,” Maria Abreu said. “He never got involved in other things.”
On the soccer field, Abreu was a sturdy midfielder known for an aggressive style and for playing with epilepsy. It was Maria Abreu’s folk belief that her son had contracted the neurological disorder by falling out of a tree when he was 13.
Maria Abreu said her murdered son, Josemir, really liked sports. "He never got involved in other things," she said.
Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
Maria Abreu said her murdered son, Josemir, really liked sports. "He never got involved in other things," she said.
Sometimes Abreu grew agitated during the stress of a match and on occasion experienced seizures, falling to the ground, local players said. His mother said he took medication to keep himself calm and control his convulsions.
“He always wanted to fight with us,” said Leonildo Lima, 20, a player from the nearby neighborhood of Vila Batalha.
Abreu could be a little unpredictable, said Leonardo Lima Ferreira, 21, Leonildo’s brother. But there was always going to be muscular play, heated disagreements, even in a pickup game. Everyone knew how to deal with it. When tempers boiled, players were separated until their anger lost steam.
“We never expected this,” Ferreira said. “They were both our friends.”
Abreu and Cantanhede were different ages and in different stages of their lives, but they sometimes played on the same pickup team. Friends and relatives said they won a neighborhood championship a week or so before the game in Centro do Meio and went to have beer in the plaza.
In February, when Cantanhede was stabbed during Carnival, Abreu visited him in the hospital, according to Abreu’s wife and a friend of Cantanhede’s.
“They weren’t great friends, but they knew each other through football,” said Leticia Abreu, Josemir’s wife.
Four months later, Cantanhede and Abreu began the match in Centro do Meio on opposite teams. Then Cantanhede became hobbled and had trouble running, players said. So he became the referee.
Deadly Fight
About 15 or 20 minutes into the second half, Cantanhede issued a yellow-card caution to Abreu. Numerous explanations were given: Abreu protested too vehemently when Cantanhede made a call in favor of his own brother, George. Abreu kicked the ball prematurely after a halt in play or complained that the other team did. He touched the ball with his hand. He raised his leg dangerously high.
Many versions of what happened next emerged in affidavits and interviews with players, witnesses and two suspects charged with homicide in Cantanhede’s death. Some accounts were sharper, some blurrier. Each was refracted through a lens of chaos, the blinkers of friendship and, for some, the warp of alcohol. Abreu dared to be given a red card and said he would not leave the field unless Cantanhede also left, some players recalled. George Cantanhede, 18, told the police in an affidavit that he ushered his brother to the sideline and that Otávio told him, “Keep calm.”
Some players thought it was settled. An older man intervened. Cantanhede and Abreu seemed ready to go home. Instead, words were said that could not be taken back.
Cantanhede called Abreu a clown, and Abreu called Cantanhede’s late mother a whore, said Hudson Lima, a teammate of Cantanhede’s.
Abreu punched Cantanhede and kicked him behind the leg, some players said. Cantanhede went to the ground, and when he got up, he had a knife in his hand. The length of the weapon expanded or contracted with each telling of the story. Five inches. Ten inches. Some witnesses saw Cantanhede draw the knife from inside his shorts. Lima said it came from a backpack. It has not been found by police.
Abreu was stabbed twice on the left side, once in the chest, once in the ribs. He fell at the edge of the field. The chest wound struck his heart, doctors said. A man who lived across from the field drove Abreu to the hospital. Someone found a rope, and Cantanhede was tied up so he could not escape.
“If he was let go, he would be in a nearby city and no one would have done anything to him,” said a player who asked that his name not be used because he feared reprisals. “He’d be laughing.”
São Sebastião Hospital, in Pio XII, Brazil, where Josemir Abreu was pronounced dead and Otávio Cantanhede was taken after he was beheaded.
Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
São Sebastião Hospital, in Pio XII, Brazil, where Josemir Abreu was pronounced dead and Otávio Cantanhede was taken after he was beheaded.
A number of calls were made to the police in Pio XII, witnesses said. Lima, Cantanhede ‘s teammate, said he called seven times himself, only to get a recording: Officers were out of service range.
Gruesome Reprisal
Luiz Morais de Souza stood just beyond the soccer field, drinking a potent sugarcane liquor called cachaça. A cheap brand, known as 51, had an alcohol content of 39 percent and was said to go from the stomach to the brain like a missile.
By his own estimation, de Souza drank three bottles of cachaça that Sunday. This seemed an extreme exaggeration, or suggested a severe drinking problem, the authorities said. It would be difficult for a man to stay on his feet with so much alcohol in his belly.
However much he drank, de Souza said he was too wobbly to continue in the game after halftime. Two players said he was removed because he was drunk. One described him leaving the field with a bottle of cachaça tucked under his arm like a newspaper.
A driver and mechanic, de Souza had traveled from 50 miles away that weekend to visit his grandmother in Pio XII. His 27th birthday was the next day. He had known Josemir Abreu since childhood. Abreu was godfather to his niece. They were almost related.
Word quickly spread about the stabbing. People came and went from the soccer field. Some arrived on foot, others on motorcycles. Twenty people seemed to gather, then more. Some went to the hospital, others made phone calls. Adrenaline and alcohol stretched time and compressed it, fermented details, stirred the order of things.
Surrounded, tied with a rope, Cantanhede pleaded to be handed over to the authorities, the police said.
“Why did you stab Josemir?” de Souza said he asked Cantanhede.
“To revenge the death of my mother.”
“Who killed her?”
“A truck driver.”
It was not clear whether the men who pressed around Cantanhede began their revenge immediately or waited to hear that Abreu was dead. De Souza said he hit Cantanhede in the face with a bottle of cachaça and beat him on the head with a wooden stake found on the ground.
“Josemir was raised with us,” de Souza said. “He was a good guy. Otávio didn’t have any motive to kill him like that.”
George Cantanhede, Otávio’s brother, was threatened and rode away on a friend’s motorcycle. Traumatized, he moved in with an uncle and would not talk about what he saw.
Raimundo da Costa Marçal, a farmworker, drove past on a motorcycle. He said he was headed to buy a chicken when he saw people running. A young boy told him that Abreu had been stabbed. The man who did it was tied up on the field.
Marçal rode into the crowd. He said he asked Cantanhede why he had stabbed Abreu. Cantanhede had not meant to do it. It happened in the moment.
“He just stared at me,” Marçal said.
By that time, Marçal said he had shared about 30 beers, and wine and cachaça, at a bar with a friend. He called himself “very drunk.” As he left the field, he fell off his motorcycle.
Days later, Marçal, 31, would turn himself into the police and be charged with homicide. He would sign a confession, saying he rode over Cantanhede three times.
The attackers were not finished. Josimar de Sousa, the man who had shared beers with Marçal, stabbed Cantanhede in the throat, the police said. He fled and was believed to have left Maranhão.
Francisco Edson Morais de Souza, Luiz’s brother, came from his home, carrying a sickle with a curved blade. Both brothers had been charged with burglarizing houses and pickpocketing, but had not been convicted, the police said. A family photograph of Francisco, 32, showed him with a trim mustache and a nose that seemed to have been on the other end of a fist.
He was widely described as a heavy drinker and user of drugs. On this afternoon, the police said, Francisco was “completely out of his mind.” He swung his sickle at one man on his way to the field. He shouted. He warned that he would kill anyone who got in his way. He beheaded Cantanhede, the police said, and tried to quarter him.
Teresa Ferreria, 52, a farmworker who lived adjacent to the field, saw Francisco holding Cantanhede’s head like a trophy. She was afraid to leave her porch. Francisco placed Cantanhede’s head on a post on a barbed wire fence, the police and witnesses said. Then Francisco left. One man saw him sitting in the middle of the road.
Calls came into São Sebastião Hospital. Someone had been dismembered. Almerinda Alves Sousa, a nurse, gathered extra plastic bags. She was met at the field by an ambulance and another nurse, Jane Cantanhede, Otávio’s aunt.
They waited a half-hour for the police, Sousa said. She called and asked if officers planned to record video of the scene. The reply, she said, was, “Film it yourselves.”
It was getting dark. A motorcycle shined its headlight on Cantanhede’s body, and Sousa pointed her cellphone.
Jane Cantanhede removed her nephew’s head from the fence post. She let out a small cry. She later told the Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo: “If they had just killed him, they would have gotten their revenge. Did they have to cut him up the way they did?”
Cantanhede’s body was cleaned and sutured and bandaged at the hospital. Abreu’s body was mended, too, and both sons were returned that night to their families. Unconcerned about the police, Luiz and Francisco de Souza attended Abreu’s wake and helped dig his grave.
The Police
At 11 the next morning, Valter Costa dos Santos, the regional police chief, received a phone call. Thin and fit at 44, with a receding hairline, dos Santos wore jeans and cowboy boots. His sidearm protruded from a flap in his sports coat. The ring tone on his cellphone played the calming sound of sea gulls.
He could not believe what he was hearing. It must be a lie. He drove 20 miles from his office to Pio XII for hideous confirmation.
Vital hours had been lost. The suspects had gone into hiding. And no autopsy report had been written before Cantanhede was buried.
Dr. Rafael Oliveira, who was not on hospital duty the night of the killings, wrote a belated report as the police investigation began. Unable to examine Cantanhede’s body, he based the autopsy on photographs and video taken by hospital workers.
Without an established cause of death, anyone arrested might walk free. The case might be closed.
“Justice likes paperwork here,” Oliveira said.
On July 2, two days after the killings, dos Santos and his investigators traced Luiz de Souza to the town where he lived 50 miles away. He was spotted in a house that appeared to be uninhabited. The giveaway was a bottle of water and a cup left on the windowsill.
For more than a week, dos Santos and his team tracked Francisco de Souza through thick woods at night. They had no dogs to assist them, only their instincts and word of an occasional sighting. Francisco was said to be carrying a machete. A month passed, then two. A few people had claimed to see Francisco. He was reported to be bearded and extremely skinny. He kept eluding police.
Dos Santos had two theories about what sparked the killings. One, Cantanhede carried a knife to the match with “bad intentions.” Two, Cantanhede was fearful and felt he needed protection, even among friends, because his refereeing had been criticized in a previous match.
“He wanted to be the authority on the field,” dos Santos said. “The only way he had to impose authority was violence.”
He considered the killings a cultural issue. He spoke of the despair of poverty and lack of education. People did not want to be humiliated in front of their friends. They often overreacted when confronted.
“The law of the strongest is what prevails,” dos Santos said.
Still, one death did not have to become two, dos Santos said. The response of the Pio XII police, he added, “really disappointed me.”
That Sunday, the chief of police in Pio XII was on vacation and two officers were on patrol, dos Santos said. One of the officers said they were working in another neighborhood that lacked a cellphone signal and never received the calls from Centro do Meio. There was a discrepancy. Some witnesses told dos Santos they did speak with the police.
Cantanhede was tied up for perhaps an hour, maybe longer, by most estimates. If the local police had come, dos Santos said, Cantanhede could have been arrested instead of killed. The law of the state might have prevailed over the law of retribution.
Some people apparently had tried to do the right thing. They restrained Cantanhede and called the authorities. Maybe the two local police officers were afraid of the crowd, dos Santos said. They could have asked for reinforcements.
“It is a shame that this happened because of the police not acting,” dos Santos wrote in a summation of the case.
Facing 30 Years
The pretrial detention center in the town of Santa Inês, 20 miles from Pio XII, had double rows of razor wire and smelled of disinfectant. Prisoners hung laundry in a sun room on a morning in mid-September. Country music wafted from the Bar of Love, a tavern across the street. Luiz de Souza wore a T-shirt and shorts. He was handcuffed. He wore a hat and a thin beard. His hands trembled, and he picked at his thumbs. He had quit school after first grade to fish with his father. His handwriting was wavy and childlike. Sometimes he spelled his name Luiz, other times Luis.
Luiz de Souza, right, who was charged with homicide, at a pretrial detention center in Santa Inês, Brazil.
Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
Luiz de Souza, right, who was charged with homicide, at a pretrial detention center in Santa Inês, Brazil.
He faces 30 years in prison if convicted of homicide. He had found religion and inked it on his arms. One tattoo said, “God is faithful.” The other said, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
He did not remember much, de Souza said. Only that he had been drinking and he hit Cantanhede in the face with a bottle of rum and a wooden stake. And he would have to pay for what he did. If he had been sober — “in a good state” — he does not think it would have happened.
“I repent,” de Souza said.
Raimundo Marçal sat with him, also wearing a T-shirt and shorts and handcuffs. He was paunchy, with a full face and thin sideburns. The names of his two children were tattooed on his arm.
He had finished high school and worked in a fancy hotel in Rio, then returned to the rural life in Centro do Meio. No one in his family had been in trouble with the law, he said.
Marçal had hired a lawyer and recanted his confession. It was a lie that he had driven over Cantanhede three times with a motorcycle, he said. He had only bumped him with the front tire.
“I never ran over him,” Marçal said.
He blamed the absent police for what happened in Pio XII. And alcohol.
If he had not been at the bar, Marçal said, he probably would not have gone to the soccer field. He would not be charged with homicide. He would not face three decades away from his children.
“One person feeds off another: ‘Let’s beat him,’ ” Marçal said. “You might not have the courage to do it, but someone else does.”
Shattered Families
José Cantanhede had meant to restore the house he bought a year ago, but it had all been too much for him. He had lost his wife in 2011. Now his eldest son was gone. He sat in his living room, the walls bare except for a clock and two calendars and photos of his granddaughters and the patron saint of Brazil.
He was 60, a laborer. He wore shorts and sat without a shirt, his tanned skin the color of almonds. When he talked about his son, his eyes watered.
“I think anyone would have done what he did in that moment,” José Cantanhede said.
His thoughts circled and collided against themselves. If he had not been sick at home that afternoon, Cantanhede said, he would be dead, too, because he would have gone to the field to defend his son. Why didn’t the police come? Why didn’t any of the players step in and say, wait, stop, this has gone too far?
José Cantanhede had meant to restore the house he bought a year ago, but he lost his wife in 2011, then his eldest son.
Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
José Cantanhede had meant to restore the house he bought a year ago, but he lost his wife in 2011, then his eldest son.
“How much time have I spent breaking up small fights in the middle of a game?” he said. “No one needed to die.”
A few miles away, in another neighborhood, Maria Abreu, 50, sat on her back porch. Her daughter read the Bible. The house was once a store. A sign painted on the front said, “Snacks sold here.”
Abreu worked as a janitor in a bank. She had light green eyes. She seemed worn out. She could not sleep. She could not stop crying. Josemir had always obeyed her, she said. She could not imagine her son dying at a neighborhood soccer match, stabbed to death two days after his birthday.
There were still many rumors about what happened, but Maria Abreu did not want to know anything that was not proved.
“I don’t have the head to listen to anyone,” she said.
A month after the killings, a formal game was organized in Centro do Meio. A peace match it was called. On a weekend in mid-September, a pickup game was played on half of the field. Two goalkeepers stood in the same goal for reinforcement. They joked. It was only for fun. Otherwise, the field went vacant.
A man took a driving lesson on the grass in a borrowed car. A donkey grazed on the sideline. A young girl climbed a tamarind tree. Sometimes the girl rode the donkey to collect coconuts when they fell to the ground.
José Cantanhede visited the cemetery where his wife and son were buried. After two years he waited, still, for the ground to settle before having a cement tomb built for his wife. He pointed to other tombs built in grief and haste and how they were cracked and crumbling.
Susan C. Beachy contributed research