Lula signs agreement and ends 40-year dispute in Alcântara

The federal government signed, this Thursday (19), a conciliation agreement with the quilombola communities of the municipality of Alcântara, in Maranhão, ending a 40-year dispute over the area around the Alcântara Launch Center (CLA), of the Brazilian Air Force (FAB). In a ceremony in the city of Maranhão, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva also signed the Decree of Social Interest of the quilombola territory, a fundamental step towards the titling of the area. Lula signs agreement and ends 40-year dispute in Alcântara

“The history of the people of Alcântara will change,” said Lula, highlighting the importance of the acts for the population’s access to social benefits and basic public services, such as health, education and access to water.

“Why was it necessary to expropriate so much to build a rocket launch base? Why were the fishermen bothering us? Why were people who make a living from fishing unable to access the sea? Why were you prevented from accessing the benefits that the government itself can offer? Why were you almost marginalized?” the president asked.

“Now, you can look in the mirror, with your whole family, and say ‘we are once again first-class citizens of this country, we have rights and we will demand them'”, emphasized Lula.

The president stated that the State has obligations and that the federal government wants to work together with the Alcântara city council, the state government and the legislative houses of the three spheres to, “very urgently, make up for lost time”.

The signed agreement reconciles the interests and territorial rights of the quilombola communities with the interests and needs of the Union in promoting and developing the Brazilian Space Program and consolidating the CLA. In the agreement, the federal government committed to creating the Brazilian Aerospace Projects Company (Alada) to receive investments in this strategic sector.

The Attorney General of the Union, Jorge Messias, who led the conciliation process, recalled that, after the recognition of the area, the communities will be able to make productive use of the land, have access to benefits, such as rural credit, and programs such as Minha Casa, Minha Vida (MCMV). Earlier, in visit to the quilombola community of MamunaLula committed to meeting local demands.

“Being a lawyer means doing justice, and that is what we are doing here today. How can a people like this have so much land, so much sea, and yet not be able to fish and produce because they don’t have the land?”, asked Messias.

“The agreement only lays the foundations of the house, we need to build the walls, the roof, which is to bring a health center, school, MCMV for these people. But we can only bring all of this after the decree”, said the Attorney General of the Union.

Messias thanked the Ministry of Defense and the FAB command for their partnership in the construction of the agreement. According to him, it is the wish of the Air Force commander, Marcelo Damasceno, that the quilombolas have job opportunities in the new company, Alada.

The Minister of Agrarian Development and Family Farming, Paulo Teixeira, also stated that, from now on, the quilombolas of Alcântara have the right to access resources from the National Program for Strengthening Family Farming (Pronaf) and participate in the federal government’s food acquisition programs and food in schools.

“This is a delivery for Alcântara, but it is also a delivery for the quilombos of Brazil,” he said.

During the event, Lula also delivered 21 Domain Titles to quilombola communities throughout Brazil and signed 11 decrees of Social Interest. “The deliveries represent the guarantee of rights to 4,500 families, with the allocation of more than 120,000 hectares to 19 communities in nine states,” the Presidency reported.

Resistance

Alcântara is the municipality with the largest proportion of quilombola population in the country, with 84.6% of residents self-declaring themselves. The Quilombola Territory of Alcântara has 152 communities, with around 3,350 families, and was occupied by enslaved black populations from the 18th century onwards.

The leader of the Articulation of Black Rural Quilombola Communities, Maria Socorro Nascimento, recalled the quilombola resistance over the years and the relationship of the quilombola peoples with the land.

“It is a great honor for us to be able to receive this title so that we can live. For us quilombolas, land is an immeasurable asset. What we have of it is possession and we need our rights to be respected,” said the quilombola leader.

“They brought our enslaved ancestors and when I speak of this place, of Alcântara, as the birthplace, it is because it was our ancestors who laid the stones on these streets,” continued Maria, who asked the audience to repeat the slogan: “Quilombola resistance: not one quilombo less!”

The president of the Rural Workers Union of Alcântara, Aniceto Araújo Pereira, said that this moment marks 40 years of fighting for land rights. “It is not enough to just sign the decree and have it hidden away on the shelf. The decree needs to be signed, but the titling process needs to be completed,” he said.

During his speech, Pereira mentioned some quilombola communities in Alcântara, such as Canelatiua, Areia, Manuma, Brito, Tapera, Retiro and Ponta de Areia, located on the coast, and which suffered from difficult access due to the dispute over land with the Alcântara spatial base.

“The communities of Alcântara are simple, hard-working communities, and we need to develop the fishing sector,” said the quilombola, demanding improvements in education, health, and the construction of roads to connect the communities and also to the urban area of the municipality. “We need quality and professional qualifications, and to achieve this, we need to improve education from preschool to professional training,” he demanded.

The Minister of Racial Equality, Anielle Franco, said that the ceremony to sign the agreement with the quilombola communities was the result of work that began at the beginning of the Lula administration. For her, more than just a path to land titling, the agreement represents “bringing dreams and dignity to life” for the quilombola population.

“I am very happy and excited. As old as I am, this conflict is also as old as it is. We have been fighting and struggling for 40 years to have dignity and maintain resistance, to give this place new meaning. But all the organizations, all those involved in these spaces here know that we are committed to the country’s political project, which gives rise to moments like this,” said Anielle.

Historical conflict

The Agreement on Reconciliation, Commitments and Reciprocal Recognitions, related to the Alcântara Agreement, puts an end to a historical conflict. The CLA was built in the 1980s by the Brazilian Air Force as a base for launching rockets. The location was chosen because it was considered advantageous for operations of this nature, due to its proximity to the Equator. However, to make the project viable, 312 quilombola families from 32 villages were removed from the site and resettled in agro-villages in nearby regions. Even so, the land titles were never issued, and the communities suffered from legal uncertainty and the constant threat of expulsion to expand the base.

The process of regularizing quilombola lands consists of four major phases: the publication of the Technical Identification and Delimitation Report (RTID), the Recognition Ordinance, the Social Interest Decree and the Domain Title.

In 2004, the Palmares Foundation certified the territory as quilombola. In 2008, the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra) published the RTID identifying the area of 78,105 hectares as traditionally occupied territory.

Even so, the FAB planned to expand the territory of the base from 8,700 hectares to 21,300 hectares, advancing into communities on the coast of Maranhão. After the publication of the report, the Ministry of Defense expressed the existence of interests of the Brazilian Space Program.

Last year, the Brazilian government reached recognize the violation of rights of property and legal protection of quilombola communities, during the construction of the base, and officially apologized, in the midst of a process in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) that determined the titling of the area for the remaining families of enslaved black populations.

Agreement

Also in 2023, a interministerial working group (GT) to seek a solution to the impasse, coordinated by the Attorney General’s Office. The agreement signed today, then, allows for the full titling of the quilombola territory of Alcântara, with the area recognized in the RTID, and consolidation of the current area of the Alcântara Launch Center.

The Ministry of Defense, the FAB and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation undertake not to raise new questions on this topic and to respect the Union’s allocation of the quilombola area. The communities, in turn, represented by their entities, agree with the existence and operation of the CLA in the area where it is installed.

Within 12 months, Incra will begin titling the identified and declared territory, granting the title of ownership of the areas that are already registered in the name of the Union and, within these, prioritizing the bordering areas and those located to the north of the launch base area.

Minister Jorge Messias highlighted the presence of judges and defenders at the event, who will now have to work on conciliation in the various ongoing cases in the area. “With the decree, we will begin the land regularization process and we need this partnership so that these titles can be made effective,” he said.

An agreement was signed to speed up the processing of these legal actions for the expropriation of quilombola territories in Alcântara.

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