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Column: Our Life and Times by Kevin A. Barry and Mary Holmes
Murder in Brazil
Ademir Federicci, head of the Movement for the Development of the
TransAmazon and the Xingu, was murdered in his home, in front of his
family, this past August. Dema, as Federicci was known, was a union,
campesino and environmental leader in the state of Para, an epicenter in
the fight against ranching and logging interests destroying the Amazon, and
for the struggle of landless campesinos.
While the police deemed the murder part of a robbery attempt, recent
events show that Dema was among seven leaders, activists and their families
in Para who have been killed since July 2001. The National Confederation of
Agricultural Workers submitted a list to the federal government of the
names of 20 leaders in the rural struggles who have been marked for death
by death squads linked to large landowners in the region.
Dema was also a leader in the fight against the government's dam and
hydroelectric project on the Xingu River, and had criticized the federal
Amazon development agency as a trough of corruption for large landowning
and mining interests. Environmentalists, farmers' unions and other
activists are trying to halt the government's attempts to ram through an
environmental impact study on the dam without public input.
Federal legislators who are in the pockets of the ranchers and loggers are
also trying to push through a revision of the federal forestry code for the
Amazon. The new code would lessen mandatory land set-asides from 80 to 50% of
private holdings, and eliminate strict reforestation requirements. The
murder of so many rural leaders has not intimidated the movement in Para.
Thousands marched to protest Dema's murder, and they are continuing the
struggle.
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