The Municipal Guard of Campinas (GCM) carried out an eviction action without a court order on the morning of this Monday (15) from an occupation of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) in Campinas, in the interior of São Paulo.
About 200 families occupied an unproductive farm of approximately 200 hectares, taken over by degraded pasture, owned by real estate company Zezito Empreendimentos Ltda.
Seven vehicles from the Military Police and the Civil Guard of Campinas arrived at the area at around 8 am, presenting in hand the municipal decree nº 16.920, which provides for the Control and Containment Group of Occupations, Clandestine Parcels and Environmental Damages in the Municipality of Campinas.
Nilcio Costa, lawyer of the Human Rights sector of the MST, explains that the Campinas City Hall used a municipal decree from 2010, which aims to clampdown the irregular parceling of urban land. "Lately, the city hall has been using this decree to intervene in mainly urban occupations. The problem is that this decree has a series of requirements to be met," says Costa.
"They have customarily use the argument of this decree to remove families without a court order. Without a court order, the municipality cannot use its forces to integrate possession."
Costa explains that one requirement is that the owner be notified about the occupation of the property so that measures can be taken, which was not done. "You can't say that the decree is illegal. The illegality is in how public agents apply this decree," says the MST member.
The police carried out the eviction in an action considered violent by the MST, using pepper spray and rubber bullets shots. Brasil de Fato requested a position for the Campinas Public Security Secretariat. The space will be updated as soon as there is a return.
In a note, the São Paulo Public Security Secretariat, responsible for the Military Police, informed that the state of São Paulo "does not tolerate land invasions and acts to guarantee and protect the right to public or private property."
It also stated that the Military Police "supported an action by the Municipal Guard and Group of Containment to Irregular Occupations of the Campinas city hall to prevent the occupation of an area located in Parque Shangrilá. The agents accompanied the negotiation of the municipal authorities with the movement's representatives and the subsequent release of the land without any record of injured or arrested".
The occupation is part of the Red April, a national journey of struggles that the MST does annually in the month in which, in 1996, the Eldorado do Carajás Massacre took place. This year, the motto of the journey is "Occupy to feed Brazil."
