On Wednesday (11), the Brazilian Federal Police and the Ministry of Labor and Employment found and rescued two workers under conditions analogous to slavery in Primavera Farm, which neighbors Apyterewa Indigenous land in the town of São Félix do Xingu, Pará state.
The farm’s owner is the deputy mayor of Tucumã (Pará state), Wanderley Dias Vieira (Social Democratic Party), who was not found at the site during the operation. The Federal Police opened an inquiry to investigate the case, and labor inspectors from the Ministry of Labor notified the politician, who must present a series of documents to the Ministry.
Besides the Primavera Farm, Vieira is the major partner of the Santo Agostinho Maternity Hospital, located in Tucumã, and also has debts with the State. He has a tax debt of 377,000 reais (about US$74,000) of which 294,000 reais (US$ 58,000) are social security debts, owed to workers who provide services to the hospital.
To the Supreme Electoral Court, Vieira declared he had 1.1 million reais (US$ 217,000) in assets. Besides having 50% of the quota of Santo Agostinho Maternity Hospital, Tucumã’s deputy mayor indicated he had an area of land, but did not explain if he was referring to the Primavera Farm. He also mentioned medical equipment and 146,000 reais (US$ 28,0000) in savings accounts.
In the same operation, the Federal Police arrested a 32-year-old man identified only by the initial letters of his name, E. N. L. The Federal Police said the man arrested had six open arrest warrants, all of them issued by the Court of Justice of the State of Rio de Janeiro (TJ-RJ, in Portuguese) for robbery. This man had worked at Primavera Farm as a cowherd and tractor driver.
Brasil de Fato tried to contact Vieira. We remain open to publishing his answers.
“Deintrusion”
Since October 2 this year, the National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples (Funai, in Portuguese), together with the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Agrarian Development and the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra, in Portuguese) has been working on the “Operation ‘Deintrusion’ of Apyterewa and Trincheira Bacajá Indigenous Lands”, ratified in 2007 and 1996, respectively.
The operation consists of removing the non-Indigenous people from the territories so that the lands can be returned in full to the native peoples. Up until now, the ‘deintrusion’ has been peaceful and the invaders have not reacted.
The territories inhabited by the Parakanã people were the most deforested Indigenous land in Brazil during the Bolsonaro (Liberal Party) government, according to data collected by Imazon’s satellite.
