NATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR REGULARIZATION OF QUILOMBO LAND
QUILOMBOL@ www.cohre.org/quilombos
Editorial
The ongoing conflicts on the rights to land and housing between the quilombo communities and the Space Launch Center at Alcântara, State of Maranhão, are now priority themes in the national campaign “A Matter of Social Justice: Regularizing Land Ownership in the Quilombo Territories”.In this edition the electronic bulletin Quilombol@ reviews a number of suggestions presented by those involved in the search for a solution to the conflicts in the region. Since the tragic forced displacement of the 32 quilombo communities originally resident at the site, the matter has been successfully inserted in the list of active items of the Federal Government’s public agenda. Furthermore, there has been an evident increase in the activities from protest organizations and in the involvement of the communities themselves in the public debate. However, the continuing danger of further displacements maintains the effected populations constantly concerned regarding the future of their communities. The agreements for commercial utilization of the space facility signed by the Federal Government with countries such as Ukraine and Russia, keep the communities in a state of constant alert and justify the fear that to fulfill these engagements the Space Center will take over more community land by forcibly displacing the communities. In the present issue we present a critical debate of the Federal Government´s proposals for the sustainable development of the Alcântara region and for the solution of the land ownership conflicts. It is COHRE´s opinion that any definitive solution to this problem must guarantee a complete abandonment of the present policy of displacing quilombo communities from their traditional lands and the implementation of a process of collectively titling quilombo territories, actions that may result in a large impact in the process of land ownership regularization, which is still unresolved due to land conflicts in other regions in Brazil.
Ethnic territory is a guarantee of rights
MABE Representatives at the GEI workshop in Alcântara
The measures recently announced by the Federal Government improve somewhat the prospects of the communities affected by the expansion plans of the Space Launch Center (CLA) in Alcântara, State of Maranhão, but the local communities still demand an end to forced displacements and to the restrictions of access to land. The official plan calls for over thirty programs regarding health, human rights, income generation, land ownership regularization, housing, social action, popular education and agriculture to be executed in 2005 and 2006. The planned investment totals 13 million reais (about US$ 5.2 million) and has been officially included as a line item in the Federal General Budget. The proposals were presented and discussed with some 200 community representatives, NGO´s, and Government entities, during a workshop promoted by the GEI (Grupo Executivo Interministerial – Inter-Ministerial Executive Group) in Alcântara on 11and 12 March 2005. The plans were generally well received by the local government and by the communities who are at present experiencing precarious situations and extreme poverty. However, MABE (Movimento dos Atingidos pela Base – Action Movement of People effected by the Space Center) and ACONERUQ (Associação das ComunidadesNegras Rurais Quilombolas de Alcântara - The Association of Rural Afro-Brazilian Quilombo communities in Alcântara) consider that the main problem these communities face remains unsolved – that is, the lack of land and the forced displacements.
The communities want a clear definition from the federal government about how the expansion of the Space Facility is to be achieved. The GEI position was conveyed to the communities by the Government Office of Civic Affairs, but is expressed in doubtful terms -new displacements will not be carried out, and if they do become necessary in the future they will not be carried out in the same manner as it was done as in the past. No official federal government decision on the CLA expansion plans and/ or the need for new displacements has been made public. Neither the federal AEB (Agência Espacial Brasileira – Brazilian Space Agency) informed anything on whether the cooperation or technological safeguard agreements signed with the Ukraine and Russia, imply in the expansion of the CLA beyond its present boundaries. The local leaders insist that a final solution to land ownership conflicts presupposes an end to the displacements of the communities, the recognition and the issue of land titles to the ethnic territory of Alcântara. The residents also want the implementation of zoning plans in the municipality, the elaboration and approval of the legally-required Environmental Impact Study (EIA/RIMA), the construction of an adequate municipal infrastructure even in those areas where future displacements may occur, as well as the regular facilities of basic education, school transport and health services. The GEI promised to issue an official report on the workshop debates and the decisions reached during the seminar - the communities lookforward with interest to receiving copies.
Quilombol@, April 2005
Social Justice
Ministry of Agrarian Development (MDA) Various entities which are following the development of the land ownership conflicts in Alcântara were invited to give their opinions on the GEI activities, to indicate what they expect or hope for from the execution of the government plans as presented, how they viewthe question of future displacements and to comment on the terms of the administrative procedures for the regularization of quilombo land. (Decree 4887/2003)
In the light of the recent federal government actions in relation to Alcântara (Maranhão), such as the visit of the GEI there, how does MDA view the continuity of the work with the local communities? MDA, by its institute INCRA, (Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária - The National Institute for Agrarian Reform) is authorized to realize all actions necessary for recognition and for the establishment of the boundaries and for the emission of title to the land belonging to the present-day quilombo communities descendents of the original occupiers. In the Alcântara case, the MDA/INCRA accepts the study published by Professor Alfred Wagner, which proves that a legitimate quilombo territory covering 85 000 hectares and occupied today by over 150 communities directly descended from the original quilombo occupants, does in fact exist in the municipality. Therefore MDA/INCRA is at present carrying out further studies on the hereditary ownership chain, performing environmental and agricultural analysis, registering all the families and the existing ownership documentation in order to permit that the INCRA Regional Superintendent issues the respective definitive technical report on the quilombo territory in Alcântara. This technical report is to be submitted to the MDA/INCRA in Brasilia for analysis and publication in the Federal Record. After this, all non-quilombo residents will be removed from the area by adequate monetary compensation or by resettlements to other areas.
Mozar Artur Dietrich - MDA Assistent
One of the main concerns of the Alcântara populations is the possibility that the communities who have traditionally lived around the area of the launch center will be displaced. Where does the Ministry of Agrarian Development stand on the question of new removals? Both MDA and INCRA are convinced that co-existence of the CLA Space Facility and the quilombo communities in their traditional lands is feasible, even if new launching sites become necessary. For this reason we understand that new displacements are not necessary. A practical debate must be carried out aiming at the elaboration of co-existence tools, bearing in mind that the quilombo community must also benefit from the construction and operation of the CLA. Promotion and orientation of this joint debate should be the objective of the ministerial working group, with the large participation of quilombola communities.
The Decree-Law number 4887/2003 lays down administrative procedures for the ownership regularization of quilombo territories. What part does the MDA play in the implantation of this Law and how do you propose to ensure that the quilombo communities participate, and However, considering that this particular are heard, during the various stages of the area includes the Space Launch Center title issue procedure? (CLA), the federal government has created a special inter-ministerial working MDA and INCRA are legally and exclusively group (GEI) to handle the land owner- responsible for all the administrative proceship regularization procedures to the dures required in order to establish the legal quilombo territory in Alcântara. This ownership of quilombo territories. In these Working Group has until the end of this procedures, and according to the above-menyear (2005) to finalize the matter. There- tioned legislation, the participation of the fore, contacts with the CLA, with the vari- quilombo communities in all phases of the proous Ministries involved and with the cedure is guaranteed and MDA/INCRA will quilombo community itself, will be neces- ensure that the legal requirements are fully resary to define how the integration of the spected. CLA may be achieved and how the many Mozar Artur Dietrich resulting legal questions might be resolved. MDA Assistent (by e-mail)
Quilombol@, April 2005
Social Justice The Special Secretariat for Human Rights, and the National Rappourteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, were invited to state their opinions on the same questions previously submitted to the Ministry of Agrarian Development.
Special Secretariat for Human Rights (SEDH)
National Rappourteur on the Right to Adequate Housing
- The SEDH is not legally competent to act directly in matters of land ownership regularization. We have, however, kept in close contact with the GEI Subgroup on the Environment, Housing and the Land Ownership Matter, which is being coordinated by the Ministry of Agrarian Development.
The National Rappourteur reviews the situation of the Quilombo communities in Alcântara since 2003 in order to provide elements for a peaceful solution to the land conflicts in the region. - Our hope is that the GEI actions will unleash the application of wide-ranging public policies concerned with local development (that is, income generation and the implantation of local municipal infrastructure) and with the protection and promotion of the ethnic diversity of the region. Such actions must involve all three level of public power, but especially that of the Municipal City Hall if the damage inflicted on the local populations during the last 20 years is to be repaired. The families who have already been removed from their traditional homes must be adequately compensated and all the quilombo communities still in place must receive legal title to the lands. The City Hall must implement its constitutional role to look after the local interests and regulate its territory by the means of the elaboration of its Master Plan. - We recommend that no new displacements be permitted in accordance with the undertaking assumed by the Brazilian State as a signatory, amongst others, of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, of the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Racial Discrimination, of Article 169 of the ILO Conventions, of the Brazilian Constitution and of the Decree Law number 4887/2003. This Decree-Law innovates by strengthening the guarantee of legal protection for the ethnic rights of the quilombo communities when it implements the principle of self-identification for all peoples and establishes the criteria for recognition of the quilombo communities and the self-identification and self-demarcation of the territories. It also establishes collective entitlement to land and recognizes as quilombo territory that necessary for the physical, economic and socialcultural continuation and reproduction of the community and not merely that needed for housing. It also establishes the quilombos communities as preferential groups in programs of technical assistance and special financing for productive activities and the construction of infrastructure, The procedures for entitlement are transferred to the INCRA, which facilitates the process at the State level because the Palmares Cultural Foundation (which was previously responsible) is a centralized entity. The Decree-Law still needs further improvement in the direction of greater participation by the social organizations. The Article 19 should be altered to include a quilombo representation in the Management Committee, which has the responsibility for the elaboration of a plan for the ethnic development of the quilombos. Nelson Saule Jr.- National Rappourteur on the Right to Adequate Housing /Polis Institute. (Extracted from an e-mail)
- On the possibility of new displacements in the CLA area, we at SEDH believe that it is essential to line-up the interests of the traditional communities with the impulse towards national development. In principle, SEDH, in agreement with the GEI position, is against new displacements. However, in the case of being a national interest that the CLA area is enlarged, the manner in which those communities dwelling in the required areas are displaced must bear in mind the rights of these local communities. SEDH understands that many errors and injustices were committed in the first displacements and it is essential that the formula that has been used in the past is NOT be repeated if any future displacements, if they do become necessary. Furthermore, any further displacements that may occur must respect the principles of Article 169 of the ILO Convention. - SEDH expects great results from the GEI actions in particular and of the Federal Government in general. The representatives of the several federal bodies forming the GEI can testify on the seriousness with which the Federal Government Office of Civic Affairs is conducing this matter. The level of commitment from several governmental areas involved in this matter is very high and the protection of the local populations is a general consensus in the group. Right from the beginning, the GEI has been concerned with the positions of the local communities – the group has visited the area twice and received representatives of the local communities in meetings carried out in Brasilia – and to ensure that only concrete and factual measures and proposals in line with local aspirations are adopted, in short and medium terms of implementation.
Carolina de Campos Melo Representative of the GEI Secretariat International Assistant to SEDH (Extracted from an e-mail received)
Quilombol@, April 2005
Community The announcement of a government plan raises expectations in Alcântara Mr. Sérvulo de Jesus Borges is the Coordinator of the MABE (Movimento dos Atingidos pela Base – Action Movement of those affected by the Space Launch Center). He lives in Alcântara and discussed with COHRE the opinions of the local population on the visit to Alcântara made by the GEI (Inter-Ministerial Executive Group) on 11 and 12 March. Sérvulo believes that the Federal Government now understands much better the requirements for the development process in Alcântara. In his opinion, the local communities need to regularize their ethic lands in the region in order to guarantee their land rights, and once having achieved this, advance to greater participation in the decision-making process of other public policies According to the MABE Coordinator the local population awaits the effective implantation of the promised federal government’s plans with enthusiasm even though now, two weeks after
Sérvulo de Jesus Borges. Coordinator of the MABE
the event, the federal commission has made no contact of any kind with local persons, groups or entities. Sérvulo frther points out that the expectation about the imminent start of the works ´´disturbs the community and generates expectation“ so that the residents question the local leaders on the results of the visit almost on a daily basis. The uncertainty about new removals“ leaves a climate of suspense hanging in the air“ continues Sérvulo. In his opinion, the community’s situation has become even more ´´complicated“ by the
failure of the Federal Government to make its position known more precisely up to the present. The residents cannot fail to note a lack of definition and incomplete discourse when representatives of some official bodies state firmly that there will be no further displacements, while other authorities say the international agreements signed by the government will require the transfer of some communities and still others declare flatly that new removals are essential if the government’s plans for a viable Brazilian Space Program are to be realized.
The Observatory of Rights and Policies CLA (Space Launch Center of Alcântara) is a strategically essential part of the Brazilian Space Program. The Federal Government has signed international agreements with countries interested in the launching of such vehicles for space-based communications and research projects. The National Congress has already approved some of these projects, but it is important to remember that such undertakings may not violate basic human rights such as those of the quilombo communities in Alcântara that are guaranteed by the Federal Constitution and protected by international treaties to which Brazil is a signatory. A short review of the legal bases of these agreements is given below Ukraine – Two agreements have been signed; (i) Denominated ´´Agreement of Technological Safeguards“. This covers the launching of Ukrainian space rockets from the CLA and has been approved by Decree-Law number 766 (16 October 2003); (ii) A Treaty of Long-term Cooperation in the utilization of the Launch Vehicle Cyclone-4 from the CLA - approved by Decree-Law number 776 (17 September 2003) Russia – A Basic Agreement for Scientific, Technical and Technological cooperation approved by Decree-Law number 75 of 6 September 1999 United States of America – An Agreement for Technological Safeguards for the use of the CLA was signed in 2000. Soon after publication of the agreement the matter became polemical and was dead-filed by the Committee for Science and Technology from the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies ordered that it be dead-filed. Although the US Ambassador, Mr. John Danilovitch, has presented a request for renegotiation of this document to the Brazilian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Celso Amorim, no official information is available on the Brazilian government’s position on the request. - The inexistence at present of the legally-required Study and Report of Environmental Impact (EIA/RIMA) on the expansion of CLA makes it impossible to define what areas (if any) could be used there without negative impact or irreversible damage to the natural, cultural, historical or landscape environment of Alcântara. The analysis of the impacts of a project of this magnitude ought not to be made by some federal administrative department acting alone, but requires the active participation of outside institutions and social and civil entities as well as careful consideration of the related land ownership and social policies issues. Therefore, the completed EIA/RIMA instrument, a detailed Master Plan, adequate territorial macro-zoning, the implantation of Areas of Special Interest and due attention to the terms of Decree-Law 4887/2033 should all be elaborated and applied with the active participation of civil society and in a democratic manner.
Quilombol@, April 2005
United Nations UN Special Rappourteur calls for a faster recognition of the right to land The recommendations of the Special Rappourteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, Mr. Miloon Khotari, reinforce the need to speed up the fulfillment of land rights and the implementation of the land reform in the country. The report on Brazil was presented and approved on the 61st session of the UN Commission on Human Rights, meeting that was carried out in March and April 2005. The document is the result of the official visit of the Special Rappourteur to Brazil. The mission took place in 2004 and had as its main objective the evaluation of the conditions and the guarantees to the access to housing as part of the right to an adequate standard of living. The UN Representative dedicated a special attention to the evaluation of the equality of conditions faced by men and women. The Rappourteur visited the quilombo traditional community of Mamuna and the resettled community of Marudá, both in the Municipality of Alcântara. In Mr. Khotari´s opinion the forced displacement of the traditional communities to the agrovilas, that was carried out in the 80s, to open space for the implementation of CLA – Space Launch Center of Alcântara, “is a clear example of a short term solution that became a long term problem”. Mr. Khotari established an open channel of dialogue with the Brazilian Federal Government, the UN and the Brazilian civil society to identify solutions and measures capable of guarantying such rights. The UN representative was pleased with the implementation of the Inter-Ministerial Working Group (GEI) coordinated by the Federal Government Office of Civic Affairs
from the Presidency of the Republic, integrated by 23 bodies of the direct governmental management, including several Ministeries. In his evaluation the work of the GEI must have as a basic principle the fulfillment of human rights and the respect to the rights of quilombo communities to land, as stated in the decree-law 4887/ 2003, beyond working to halt forced evictions and displacements. Amongst the suggested measures Mr. Khotari recommended the simplification of the federal legislation to speed up the processes of land ownership regularization to quilombo communities, the training of representatives from the judiciary and civil servants in general on the right to housing and the City Statute, the creation of special courts on land conflicts and the attribution of the competence to protect human right to the Public Prosecution Office. Mr. Khotari also recommended that the international community supports the efforts of the Brazilian Government to disassociate the initiatives destined to the fulfillment of the Millennium Goals from the measures destined to the reimbursement of the Brazilian debts. The Rappourteur highlighted the need to explicit the link between the access to land, rural and urban poverty and the right to adequate housing, beyond recommending the adoption of positive actions to groups as indigenous and afro-descent peoples. It was also highlighted the verified trend of the increase of women among the poor, what demands an even broader emphasis in guarantying the right to housing and land to this increasing social group.
Inter(Actions) The Cultural Foundation Palmares recognized all the quilombolas from Alcântara, consolidating the definition of the ethnic territory to be delimited, marked and titled by INCRA. The GEI guaranteed that INCRA would carry out the necessary administrative procedures that will be sent to the Ministry of Agrarian Development for a final decision. If the area of Alcântara is titled as an ethnic territory, including the area of CLA and excluding the urban area of Alcântara, the expropriations that were already carried out by the federal and state governments were already cancelled and the property is granted to the quilombola communities. - To regulate the usage and the occupation of the land, Alcântara must elaborate a Master Plan once the Municipality fulfills three of the established criteria by the City Statute that demands the elaboration of a Master Plan: that the municipality has more than 20.000 inhabitants, is characterized as an area of special touristy interest, and is in area under the influence of activities that produce a significant environmental impact at a national scope.
Staff Letícia Osório, Sebastian Tedeschi, Emily Walsh, Cíntia Beatriz Muller e Sinara Sandri (8073 DRT/RS) If you have any comments, or wish to subscribe to the mailing list for Quilombol@, please contact : quilombo@cohre.org If you have more information about National Campaign for Promotion of Ownership Regularization of Quilombos Territories or about other programmes and activities of Cohre Americas, please contact cohreamericas@cohre.org
Center on Housing Rights and Evictions Demétrio Ribeiro 990 / 305 Porto Alegre (RS) Cep - 90.010-313 Tel (x) - (51) 3212.1904 This publication has been made possible with the support of :