About a thousand families occupied this Monday (15) a bankrupt area of 8 thousand hectares of the Brazilian Bioenergetic Company Mill (CBB) in Vila Boa de Goiás. According to the Movement of Landless Rural Workers of the Federal District and surroundings (MST-DFE), the action is part of the National Journey of Struggles in defense of Agrarian Reform.
According to the MST, the purpose of the occupation is to denounce the government’s delay in expropriating the Mill that was offered to the Union’s patrimony to pay off the million-dollar debts and thus be incorporated into the National Program of Agrarian Reform and solve the liability of landless families living in the Distrito Federal and surroundings region. The National Journey of Struggles in Defense of Agrarian Reform has as its motto: Occupy, to Feed Brazil.
According to information from the MST, the Mill of the Brazilian Bioenergy Company occupies an area of 8 thousand hectares, with two main complexes: the farms Tábua de Cima and Prelude. Other regions are also in the adjudication (refereeing) process; that is, they are being transferred to the Union’s patrimony to pay off its million-dollar debt with the State.
The CBB Mill owes more than 300 million reais, which is composed of numerous taxes, labor, embargoes, and environmental fines, according to the MST (Landless Workers' Movement) . The movement emphasizes that the area of the Mill does not pay off the debts because “the farm is valued at BRL 200 million,” says the movement.
On a note, the MST from the Federal District points out that the mill has numerous labor debts, mostly from poor salaried workers who live in the region but also come from other states of Brazil. The MST even points out complaints from mill workers who received just 27 reais per day (around US$ 5), thus configuring work analogous to slavery.
Mill
According to data from the Ministry of the Environment, the CBB mill has an area of approximately 4,000 hectares of land embargoed for committing environmental crimes. The movement says the sum of the fines for crimes committed, violating environmental legislation, reaches BRL 3.2 million or U$ 620,000 .
Another issue raised by the MST is that the headquarters of the Mill has installed, irregularly and without any type of licensing, a Shooting Stand, which can serve for various irregular practices, coercing workers and using this space to inhibit state actions in the territory.
The movement affirms that the camped families “will not leave the area until the Federal Government sends solutions and advances with the process of expropriation for debt with the union, and incorporates it into the Agrarian Reform policy, via a shelf of public lands, and gives a definitive solution to the landless families who are in camped conditions in the territory.”
Brasil de Fato contacted the press office of the National Incra and the CBB mill, but no response was received until the closing of this article.
