by Senator Alan Cranston - USA
March 17, 1992
Mr. President, yesterday I had the great pleasure of meeting
with Father Ricardo Rezende, a leading figure in the struggle
against rural violence and slavery in Brazil, particularly in
the Amazon region.
For more than a decade Fr. Rezende has worked tirelessly, at
great personal risk, to help Brazil's dispossessed and landless
rural workers in their struggle for land and justice.
A formar national director of the Pastoral Land Commission
(CPT), of the council of Brazilian Bishops, Rezende has
concentrated his work in the Tocantins-Araguaia region, one of
the most lawless and bloodstained patches of territory in the
Amazon.
The southern state of Para, where Rezende works, manifest
the worst problem faced by those concerned about human right and
the plight of the environment on of the world's richest areas
of cultural and biological diversity.
Rampant deforestation, the concentration of land ownership
in a few hands, the exploration of the poor by large landholders,
and the impunity of military-run death squads who have repeatedly
massacred rural workers have made this beautiful but isolated, in
riches suitable for a chapter of the Dickens horror story.
Many of the leaders of the organizations Rezende works with
have been killed, tortured or are the targets of assassination
attempts.
In one case paramilitary forces abducted a 13-year-old girl,
raped her, then burned har alive. Pregnant women have often been
targeted, and children too. Frequently the paramilitary groups
force the public display of the bodies - a barbaric practice
dating back to the time of Portuguese colonization.
The "justice system" is that in name only of the thousands
of cases of muder, torture and rape committed in the past two
decades against rural workers; only 26 trials have been held,
and only 14 perpetrators found guilty.
Perhaps the most shocking was Rezende's documented
presentation of the use of slave labor on the large estates.
Althouph slavery in Brazil was banished more than a century
ago, the Pastoral Land Commission estimate more than 9,000 men,
womem and children have been used for slave labor in the Amazon
outback. A Sao Paolo sociologist says the real number may be as
high as 40,000.
Company stores charge new workers - lured by tales of good
jobs at decent wages - extortionary prices designed to keep them
in perpetual debt. Most of the workers do not know their rights
under Brazilian law and the geographic remotenees of where they
work puts them boyond the normal reaches of civilization's
protections.
Mr. President, Brazilian President Fernando Collor de Mello
has worked hard to bring the benefits of democracy to his people
and has fought to protect both his country's environmental
inheritance as well as that of the native peoples who live
within the vastness of the Brazilian wilds.
The benefits of democracy, however, have not reached
those who are being victimized, through violence or forced
labor, in the Brazilian Amazon.
I call on President Collor to once again exercise the
leadership that has justly made him admired around the world,
and take the following steps.
First, to guarantes immediately the safety of those
threateneed wich death or harm by the vigilantes.
Second, to unleash the might of Brazil's criminal justice
system against those who are perpetrating the violence and to
bring as many cases as possible to trial in order to ofter vivid
examples that crime does not pay.
And finally, that those engaging in proven forced labor
practices have their lands expropriated, as provided for by
Brazilian law.
Mr. President, I salute Fr. Rezende and the wonderful work
that he and his organization do, at the same time I pray for
their safety and urge the Brazilian government to take the
proper steps to guarantee their well-being.