URGENT CALL FOR SIGNATURES – MURDER IN THE FIELD
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Open Letter to the Brazilian people and the international community
Rondônia, April 23, 2012
Brazil Teacher Nathan Renato Gonçalves Pereira, killed by undercover police in Rondonia state, Brazil
The organizations listed below express their deep concerns about the recent murder of Professor Nathan Renato Gonçalves Pereira, the Brazilian state of Rondonia, as well as a series of killings of peasants organized throughout the country.
Renato was a supporter of rural communities in Rondônia, working for literacy and structuring of schools in the countryside. Worked in the Peasant Family School in Corumbiara, the region where they passed one of the worst massacres of peasants in Brazil’s history, the Santa Elina ranch, directly promoted by the state in 1995. He helped assist victims. He then worked in the creation of other schools rated throughout Rondônia. He has always supported the organization of people, as in the construction of bridges and roads and demanding health services and electricity.
According to reports, he returned home on April 9, when he was stopped in a lock and cowardly murdered by undercover police officers. He was executed with three shots at close range, two in the neck and face. His bike was found with his helmet still on the handlebars, therefore, a clear demonstration that would have been rendered and then executed. According to residents, the reason would be a likely revenge the death of a prison guard and a civilian police days earlier. Reportedly, the police were involved in various crimes and murders of workers and peasants in the region of Buritis the behest of landowners and land grabbers.
This fact takes place after a series of killings of peasants organized throughout the country as well as Rondônia, under the glaring silence and complicity of the government of Brazil: Minas Gerais, Valdir Dias Ferreira, Milton Santos Leonor Nunes Nunes and Clestina, in Pernambuco, Tiningo Antonio and Bruno Pedro. Meanwhile several peasants remain arbitrarily imprisoned for fighting for land.
We have received reports that the government has supported Dilma landowners through agreements with its bench in the National Congress for approval of a Forest Code that attacks the foundations of environmental protection requirements and has done little or nothing for Agrarian Reform, and mute or be complicit assassinations, arrests and evictions of peasants and their supporters. The great achievements of the government as the works of hydroelectric plants of Jirau and San Antonio, in Rondônia, and Belo Monte, in Para, have been performed with the eviction of local communities, fishermen, coastal and indigenous peoples, and the brutal repression of workers strike.
For all these reasons, we have evidence for the Brazilian government responsible for the murders of Nathan professorRenato and peasants Valdir Pereira Gonçalves Dias Ferreira, Milton Santos Nunes, Clestina Leonor Nunes, Antonio and Pedro Bruno Tiningo.
We ask the international community to demand that the Brazilian government immediately stop the killings of peasants and their supporters, arbitrary arrests and forced evictions. We also demand the punishment of persons directly involved in these crimes.
Signed by:
– IAPL (International Association of Lawyers of People)
– Analisis y Opinión (Bolivia)
– ARPEBOL (Peruvian Association of Residents in Bolivia)
– ATIK (Confederation of Workers from Turkey in Europe)
– Center for Human Rights Mexico Deep and Alive
– CEP (Centre for Population Studies – Bolivia)
– Committee asked the Axis Migration, Refugee and Forced Evictions of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal – Section Mexico
– Fuerza World (United States)
– NUPL (National Union of People’s Lawyers – Philippines)
– PRECADEM (Prevention, Empowerment and Protection of Migrants – Mexico)
– Graduate Program for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights, Autonomous University of Mexico City (UACM)
– International Perspective Magazine
– Secretariat of the International Tribunal of Conscience of Peoples Movement (Mexico)
In Brazil:
– Abrapo (Brazilian Association of Lawyers of People)
– Cebraspo (Brazilian Center for Solidarity with the Peoples)
– Workers League (Brazil)
– MTL (Labor Movement Land and Freedom)
– Critical Review of the Law
– Fausto Aguiar Filho Arruda, Sociologist, President of the Editorial Board of the journal Democracy Anova
– Collective against Torture – Sao Paulo
– Helen Greco Institute for Human Rights and Citizenship (IHG-BH)
– Elio Cabral, President of Anigo (Association of amnesty for Human Rights and Citizenship of Goiás)
– STICBH (Union of Workers in the Construction of Belo Horizonte and Region – Sledgehammer)
– MEPR (Popular Revolutionary Student Movement)
– MOCLATE (Classista Movement of Workers in Education)
– Central Directory of Students UNITE – DCE / UNITE
– Popular School Orocílio Martins Goncalves (Belo Horizonte-MG)
– Popular School of Rondônia
– Marilsa Miranda de Souza, Professor, Department of Education, Federal University of Rondônia (UNITE)
– Marcio M. Martins, Professor, Department of History, UNITE – Campus Rolim de Moura
– Maria do Socorro Flag of Jesus, Professor, Department of Health, UNIFY
– Luis F. Novoa, Professor, Department of Social Sciences, UNITE
– Maria delle Grazie de Araujo, Professor, UNITE
– Orestes Zivieri Neto, Professor, Department of Education, UNITE – Campus Rolim de Moura
– Dioni Alisson Gomes, Master in Regional Development and Environment, UNITE
– Jacob Francisco Paiva da Silva, Professor, Federal University of Amazonas – UFAM
– Gerson Rodrigues de Albuquerque, Professor, Centre for Education, Arts and Letters from the Federal University of Acre (UFAC)
– Batella Wagner, School of Geography, University of Southern Frontier (UFFS)
– Julio Moreira, Professor, Department of Legal Sciences, PUC-Goiás
– People’s Struggle Committee in Defense of Socialism
– Jose de Jesus Eronides
– Marco Antonio Santos, Sao Paulo
– Allan Andreassa Zanelato Mermaid, Lawyer, California
– Raphael Pepper, Attorney, California
– Paula Lima Gomes, a member of Female Popular Movement (MFP)
Frontlines of Revolutionary Struggle 