CIEL assists International Tribunal in Brazil which Condemns Violation of Rights of Landless Workers and the Environment.

November 2003
The International Tribunal for Crimes Committed by Latifundiums in Pará, took place in Belém (Pará, Brazil) from October 27-30, 2003. The Tribunal was held with the objective of drawing national and international attention to the repeated acts of violence
and human rights violations committed by latifundiums (large land holders) in the northern Brazilian state of Pará.

CIEL helped with the organization of the Tribunal and was also an official observer at the event.

Pará has a history of the worst violence and some of the greatest human rights violations against rural landless workers in Brazil. According to the Comissão Pastoral da Terra (CPT or Pastoral Land Commission), in the last 31 years (1971-2002), 726 rural landless peasants have been killed in Pará. Violence has been more marked in the southern and southeastern regions of the state. In 2003 alone, CPT has documented the death of 35 landless peasants.

The Tribunal condemned the state – particularly former President of Brazil Fernando Henrique Cardoso and the former Governor of Pará, Almir Gabriel – for violation of the rights of rural workers and indigenous peoples, and for being responsible for crimes against human rights and the environment.

The Tribunal was organized by a coalition of human rights organizations and social movements led by the MST (Landless Rural Workers’ Movement) and the CPT, and was attended by lawyers, judges, human rights advocates, artists, indigenous leaders, and people from social movements in Brazil and abroad.

The testimonies presented during the Tribunal revealed a pattern of systematic violence and repression of the rights of rural workers in Brazil. The trial included cases of assassination, arbitrary detention, slave labor, violence, and environmental crimes.

Arbitrary Detentions: Pará is also a state with the largest number of arbitrary detentions in Brazil. In the last three years, 219 rural workers have been detained; this consists of more than one-third of the national total.

Crimes against Indigenous Peoples and the Environment: CIMI or the Indigenous Missionary Council denounced the increase in invasions of indigenous lands by loggers and miners since 1995, when Fernando Henrique Cardoso signed Decree 1775. This law permits private enterprises and companies to contest the process of demarcation of indigenous territories. This has resulted in a rise in conflicts and assassination of indigenous leaders, a decrease in protected areas, and an escalation of environmental crimes. According to the National Insitute of Special Research (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais), between 1995 and 2002, the area of deforestation in Pará increased by 169 square kilometres, which represents an increase of 18.4% in 5 years.

Slavery: The Tribunal also discussed cases of slave labor in Pará. According to the CPT, in 2002, 4333 laborers working under conditions of slavery were rescued from 117 fazendas. These areas also coincide with those of illegal land transactions, the greatest deforestation, and illegal logging and timber trade. The International Labour Organisation estimates that around 40,000 people in Brazil are working under conditions of slavery. Only 10% of these workers are literate and a majority of them do not even have a birth certificate.

Judge Salete Maccalóz declared that the actions of the state violated the 1988 Constitution of Brazil as well as international human rights norms such as the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, UN Declaration on Rights of the Child, and the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.

Judgment and Sentence

The final sentence delivered by the President of the Tribunal, Hélio Bicudo, denounced the state for its complicit role in acts of violence and violation of rights of rural workers and the environment in Pará. As declared by Jennifer Harbury, a human rights attorney from the US, the final sentence also affirmed that the state and federal governments were guilty on all 5 counts of accusation: violation of the right to life; violation of the right to liberty; violation of the right to an independent
judiciary; violation of the right to work; and abuse of the environment. The impunity of the state was clearly evident in all the cases tried during the Tribunal.

The final sentence of the Tribunal as well as the verdicts of the jury will be sent to the President of the Republic of Brazil, the Ministries of Agrarian Reform, Justice, and the Environment, the Governor of the State of Pará, the President of the Legislative Assembly of Pará, President of the Justice Tribunal of Pará, the presidents of the Supreme Federal Tribunal and Superior Justice Tribunal, the Organization of American States (OAS) Human Rights Commission, the UN, the European Parliament, and the Latin American Parliament.

According to Darci Frigo, attorney for the MST and one of the organizers, the Tribunal was very important as it highlighted grave and previously ignored problems in the state of Pará, and also served to remind the state and federal governments of their duties in guaranteeing justice, bringing about agrarian reform and equitable land distribution, preserving the environment, ending slave labor, bringing the guilty to justice, and protecting the rights of rural workers.

As a step forward in the struggle for justice, the Tribunal stood for a refusal to tolerate violence, a call to combat state impunity, and homage to the victims who lost their lives to violence by the latifundiums, supported by the former state and federal governments.

International Tribunal for Crimes Committed by Latifundiums in the State of Pará:

President: Dr. Hélio Bicudo
Attorney for civil society: Rosa Maria Cardoso da Cunha
Attorney for the state (defense): Rubens Mota

Members of the Jury:

  • Salete Maccalóz (Federal judge in Rio de Janeiro)
  • James Petras (sociologist, USA)
  • Father Martinho Lens (National Conference of Brazilian Bishops (CNBB))
  • Jennifer Harbury (human rights attorney, USA)
  • Stephan Schwartzman (Environmental Defense, USA)
  • Júlio José de Souza (Indigenous Council of Roraima/Conselho

    Indígena de Roraima)

  • Fernando Fernandez (Rural Platform of Spain)
  • Mary Lawlor (Front Line, Ireland

Observers: The Tribunal had twelve official observers from national and international human rights and environmental organizations, the media, and artists’ groups.

Participants: Around 1000 rural workers from around the country came to Belém to participate in the International Tribunal.

For more information on the Tribunal, see: