STARVING TO DEATH LITTLE BY LITTLE EVERY DAY IMPACTS ON HUMAN RIGHTS CAUSED BY THE USINA TRAPICHE COMPANY TO A FISHING COMMUNITY IN THE MUNICIPALITY OF SIRINHAÉM/STATE OF PERNAMBUCO, BRAZIL 1 STARVING TO DEATH LITTLE BY LITTLE EVERY DAY IMPACTS ON HUMAN RIGHTS CAUSED BY THE USINA TRAPICHE COMPANY TO A FISHING COMMUNITY IN THE MUNICIPALITY OF SIRINHAÉM/STATE OF PERNAMBUCO, BRAZIL Pastoral Land Commission Northeast Regional Office II RECIFE, 2016 EDITORIAL STAFF STARVING TO DEATH LITTLE BY LITTLE EVERY DAY: Impacts on human rights caused by the Usina Trapiche company to a fishing community in the municipality of Sirinhaém/state of Pernambuco, Brazil PRepARED BY: Pastoral Land Commission - Northeast Regional Office II SUppORTED BY: OXFAM America and OXFAM Brasil. This report was financially supported by Oxfam, but does not necessarily represents Oxfam’s views. TEXTS: Eduardo Fernandes de Araújo Gabriella Rodrigues Santos Luísa Duque Belfort Mariana Vidal Maia Marluce Cavalcanti Melo Renata Costa C. de Albuquerque Thalles Gomes Camelo CONSULTANTS: Daniel Viegas Flávio Wanderley da Silva Frei Sinésio Araujo João Paulo Medeiros José Plácido da Silva Junior Padre Tiago Thorlby TEXT EDITING: Antônio Canuto Veronica Falcão TRANSLATION: Luiz Marcos Bianchi Leite de Vasconcelos PROOFREADING: Gabriella Muniz GRAPHIC DESIGN AND EDITING: Isabela Freire PRINTED BY: Gráfica e Editora Oito de Março COVER/BACK COVER PHOTO: CPT - Nordeste 2 PHOTOS: Collection of the Pastoral Land Commission - Northeast Regional Office II Renata Costa C. de Albuquerque José Plácido da Silva Junior Father James Thorlby ISBN: 978-85-62093-09-8 Pastoral Land Commission Northeast Office II - www.cptne2.org.br RecIFE - 2016 FOREWORD STARVING TO DEATH LITTLE BY LITTLE EVERY DAY This publication provides a living picture of but also ethanol to supply the increasing fleet of the tragic story of families expelled from the vehicles in Brazil and in the world. Sirinhaém islands, in the state of Pernambuco, The families that used to live on the Brazil, a territory where they were born and in Sirinhaém islands provide clear proof of this which they built their lives for several genera- bitter taste. They used to live with dignity tions. They ended up being expelled from that there, as according to many accounts, “a good area by the greed and power of the owners of place to live in is one where you can keep your belly large-scale sugarcane farms, materialized in full,” but they ended up being pushed to the the Trapiche sugar mill set up in the munici- outskirts of the city, without knowing where to pality of Sirinhaém, in the southern Zona da look for their daily bread. Mata region in Pernambuco state. Established Sixty years after the poet João Cabral de Melo in the late nineteenth century, that mill occu- Neto described in verse the hardships expe- pies about 72% of the area of the municipality. It rienced by the migrant Severino, “the commu- was acquired by the Serra Grande group from nity that was expelled from the Sirinhaém is- the state of Alagoas in 1997 and since then it has lands is the living and almost intact picture of been controlled by entrepreneur Luiz Antônio what Severino experienced.” Away from the de Andrade Bezerra. territory where they were born, deprived of Since that year, pressure mounted for the fa- their rights and dignity, they are facing the fate milies to leave the islands under different, in- of starving to death little by little every day*. consistent arguments, always with the support This precious research work, which was of the judiciary and other government agen- carried out by the Pastoral Land Commission cies. This is a process that has systematically (CPT) in Brazil’s northeast region, more pre- violated the most basic human rights, as the cisely in the state of Pernambuco, is a strong following pages will show. and overwhelming report of abuse of power by The sweetness of sugar has always been owners of large sugarcane farms and by agri- very bitter for workers since it began to be pro- business in general, which subordinate not duced in Brazil, back in the sixteenth century. only land and territories to their interests, but This bitterness was particularly felt by the hun- also the branches of government. dreds of thousands of blacks sold in Africa and brought here to live under the most degrading and violent conditions in sugarcane farms and sugar mills. Goiânia, August 8, 2016 This bitterness is still experienced in the twenty-first century by communities impacted Bishop Enemésio Lazzaris by the merciless expansion of sugarcane mono- Bishop of Viana, state of Maranhão culture not only to produce sugar as in the past, President of the Pastoral Land Commission - CPT * Life and death Severina – p. 2 LIST OF ACRONYMS ACP Public Civil Action IPL Police Investigation AGU Federal Attorney’s Office LEPEC/UFPE Laboratory for Studies and Research on Agrarian Space and Peasantry AI Notice of Infraction MPF Federal Prosecutor’s Office AMANE Association for Protection of the Northeast Atlantic Forest MPPE Prosecutor’s Office of the State of Pernambuco APA Environmental Protection Area PMPE Military Police of the State of Pernambuco APP Permanent Preservation Area MMA Ministry of Environment BNDES Brazilian National Economic and Social PAC Growth Acceleration Program Development Bank PEPDDH-PE Program for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders of the State of Pernambuco BO Police Report UNDP United Nations Development Program CAOP Center for Operational Support to Prosecutors’ Offices RDS Sustainable Development Reserve CEPAN Northeast Center for Environmental Research PRNP Private Natural Heritage Reserve CF/88 Federal Constitution of 1988 RESEX Extractive Reserve CIPOMA Independent Environmental Policing Group RIP Property Asset Register CIPS Suape Industrial Port Complex SECTMA Science, Technology and Environment Department CONAB National Supply Company SEMAS-PE Environment and Sustainability Department CONAMA National Environmental Council of the State of Pernambuco CONSEMA/PE Pernambuco State Council for the SINDAÇÚCAR Sugar and Ethanol Industry Union in the Environment State of Pernambuco COMPESA Sanitation Company of Pernambuco State SISAN National Food and Nutrition Security System CP Penal Code SNUC National System of Nature Conservation Units CPP Fishermen’s Pastoral Council SPU Federal Assets Department CPRH State Agency for the Environment SPU-PE Federal Assets Superintendence in the State of CPT Pastoral Land Commission Pernambuco CSER Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility STF Supreme Federal Court DOU Federal Official Gazette TAC Conduct Adjustment Term EIA Environmental Impact Study US United States of America TdD NGO Terra de Direitos FETAPE Federation of Agricultural Workers of the State TJPE Court of Appeals of the State of Pernambuco of Pernambuco IBAMA Brazilian Institute for the Environment and TRF5 Federal Regional Court of the 5th Region Renewable Natural Resources UC Conservation Unit ICMBio Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation ICP Public Civil Investigation HDI Human Development Index INCRA National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform TABLE OF INTRODUCTION 8 CONTENTS HUMAN RIGHTS 12 THE CONFLICT 21 CASES OF RIGHTS VIOLATIONS 41 THE STRUGGLE FOR ESTABLISHMENT OF AN EXTRACTIVE RESERVE 99 FINAL REMARKS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 109 REFERENCES 115 LIST OF AGENCIES AND ENTITIES INTERVIEWED 123 “Sugarcane is the mouth [...] with which they devour the land where a man used to grow his crops; and the few meters in which he built his home; and then the small space that a sitting man needs.”. This excerpt from the poem O rio (the river), written in 1953 by the poet from Pernambuco 1 state João Cabral de Melo Neto, portrayed a well-known situation in the Zona da Mata re- gion: the endless ambition of sugarcane mono- culture. That poetic observation, however, ap- plies not only to the past, but also to the present INTRODUCTION – to people of the present. Both in past times and today, countless men and women in the Zona da Mata region in Pernambuco are being devoured, on a daily basis, by the same bloody sugarcane fields described in João Cabral’s poems in the 1950s. We will now dare to tell one of many other incommensurable stories of a people exterminated by the monoculture of sugarcane. The estuary of a river called Sirinhaém is located in the southern part of the coast of Pernambuco state. Its name comes from the Tupi indigenous language and means bowl or plate of crabs. Made up of 32 islands sur- rounded by mangroves, the estuary of the Sirinhaém river is rich with this and many other crustaceans that were consumed as food by those who settled in its surroundings. “Several communities in Brazil’s northeast re- gion have sprung up around the mangrove and the estuary due to their diversity and richness of species, to their waters, to their food supply,” explains Luiz Otávio Araújo, from the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA). Because of the tidal influence it is exposed to, it is legally considered a public waterfront property; therefore, all the land in the estuary belongs to the federal administration. Today, approximately 5,000 artisanal fisherfolk are di- rectly dependent on this marine environment for their livelihoods and to support their fam- ilies, and it is therefore regarded as one of the most important estuaries in the coastal region of Pernambuco state. It was in this estuary that a traditional com- munity made up of 57 families of coastal and marine artisanal fisherfolk and gatherers set- tled (approximately 360 people). Those families 8 lived in constant harmony on 17 of the 32 estu- mental impacts that destroy the livelihoods of arine islands, which shaped the territory tradi- rural communities in the area. tionally occupied by them until the late 1980s, Therefore, this study is above of all an at- when they began to face a long and violent ter- tempt to echo the voice of the community of ritorial conflict that led to the disintegration of the Sirinhaém islands in its fierce struggle for their community.