Human Rights Violations in the Amazon: Violence and Conflict in the State of Pará

The research, organized jointly by the three organizations, analyzes the situation of land distribution and violence in the state of Pará, and uncovers the relationship between environmental degradation, land issues and human rights violations.

The records of the Pastoral Land Commission illustrate a gloomy reality of more than 700 peasants, rural workers, and human rights defenders assassinated in the last 30 years in the state of Pará. The majority of the deaths were registered in the southern and southeastern regions of Pará. Many of these deaths were clearly selective, as the victims were people who performed important functions as labor and religious leaders and human rights defenders.
The objective of the assassinations is clear: to weaken the organizations and silence the fight of the rural workers.

This report aims to contribute to the dialogue regarding the question of violence and impunity that victimizes rural workers and human rights defenders in the Amazon through the following objectives:

• to place the need for agrarian reform, combating violence and impunity, and promoting sustainable development on the agenda of Brazilian society with a particular focus being on raising the awareness of urban areas;
• to encourage immediate action from governmental authorities, particularly the civil and federal police and judiciary, against impunity, environmental crime, grilagem, and threats, intimidation, “disappearances,” and assassinations faced by
  human rights defenders;
• to mobilize international civil society and human rights organizations, the Organization of American States (OAS), and the United Nations (UN) to pressure different spheres of government (federal and state executives, legislative, and judicial
  branches) to implement effective actions for agrarian reform, environmental preservation/conservation, and the protection of human rights.

Representatives of the CPT, Justiça Global, and Terra de Direitos visited the communities of Rondon do Pará, Anapu, Terra do Meio, Castelo dos Sonhos, and Porto de Moz to gather the data included and analyzed in this report. These regions illustrate the criminal acts of large estate owners, illegal land grabbers, loggers, and oftentimes, criminal actions of government authorities themselves. The various aspects of the struggle are described, focusing on the actions undertaken by legal landowners, riverine communities, rural workers, and human rights defenders as they fight for agrarian reform and sustainable development that will ensure better standards of living for themselves, their families, and their communities, as well as the preservation of the ecological integrity of the Amazon.

In order to download the electronic version of this report, click on the links below:

Human Rights Violations in the Amazon: Conflict and Violence in the State of Pará (PDF file 2MB)

Other files available for download:
Report in Portuguese: Violação dos Direitos Humanos na Amazônia: conflito e violência na fronteira paraense (PDF file, 1.4MB)

Report's cover (JPG file, 708KB)

See also a special report published on the Brazilian weekly magazine Época, on 26 November 2005. The eight-page report about violence against human rights defenders in Pará is signed by journalists Eliane Brum and Solange Azevedo. Click here to download the special report (available only in Portuguese) (PDF file, 2.3MB)