Corumbiara: the peasant’s massacre (Rondonia / Brazil) 1995

Abstract

The Corumbiara’s massacre and shows that the conflict in Santa Elina farm has the same caracteristics of thousands of conflicts for land that happened and happen in Brazil; and that the Corumbiara’s massacre happened against peasants, possessors and indians during the five hundred years of fighting for the possession and access of the land, showing that the country haven’t solve these land questions yet. In 1995, on July 14th, hundred of families occuped a small part of the Santa Elina farm in the borough of Corumbiara and in the earliness of August 9th, the Corumbiara’s massacre happened. The peasants lived twenty-five days of hope for the promissed land, sudden they stun in na anuful hell, where men were briefly executed, women were used as human shields by policemen and gun man; people were tortured for long hours and the camps was destroyed and afice. In the examination of the facts, in the judicial processes and in the jury what was showed is that the peasants payed very expensive for having dreamed with the access of the land and for having gone to the figth for materializing that dream, after all, this is the dream of the thousands of landless. Nobody was blamed for the torture that those people suffered, the orphans and the widows are abandoned, there are people disappeared and many workers are phisic and emotionally debilitaded by residue caused because of bad treats received during the disocupation of Santa Elina farm.