Trouble has been on-going at the site since March 2006, when three hundred activists belonging to international organisation 'Via Campesina' invaded and set up camp in the 304-acre farm owned by Syngenta.
In November 2006, the State Governor signed a decree of intent to expropriate the Syngenta farm, proposing to turn it into an agro-ecological research centre which would benefit poor rural families. Syngenta, in alliance with large landed interests including the SRO (the 'Rural Society of the Western Region' which represents commercial agri-interests and large landowners) succeeded in overturning the decree.
In July this year, the Syngenta won a court order to expel them, and 70 families relocated to the Olga Benario settlement. At this time, the Company employed security guards for its farm.
On 21st October, 2007, about 150 agricultural workers re-invaded the site, setting off fireworks, and disarmed the four security guards there. During this, one activist was injured by gunfire. The firearms were confiscated in order to turn them over to the police, and the guards left the farm.
Large media networks reported that, at this point, the protesters took hostages. Via Campesina categorically denies this. It considers the false reports a stunt to criminalise social movements and distract attention from the subsequent violence.
Hours later, a bus brought around 40 heavily armed men who opened fire on the protesters. One of the peasant's leaders was killed by two shots to the chest at point-blank range, five activists were shot and one was severely beaten. Two other leading figures of the Via Campesina were chased by the gunmen, but were able to escape. A security guard was also killed and four more injured.
Since then, seven guards have been taken into custody and face accusations of homicide and gang formation.
Syngenta insists its contract with the security company stated that the guards would be unarmed. However, it was using men supplied through a front company, NF Security. Brazilian organisations, such as the SRO, which are tied to agribusiness, seem to have a history of involvement in this company.
Even before the catastrophic incident, violence and threats of violence seem to have been commonplace. The leaders of the protesters have been threatened in the last six months by militiamen working for the Syngenta-landowner alliance. A previous GM-protest march to the farm was blockaded by armed men on horseback who fired shots in the air, and beat the marchers with sticks and clubs, injuring nine people. The families at Olga Benario have been threatened by NF Security guards who entered the settlement and remained there 40 minutes. At night, the guards would fire shots into the air. After these incidents were reported, the federal police raided NF Security's headquarters and confiscated illegal arms and ammunition. The police report concluded that NF Security contracts individuals, many with criminal records, to form armed militias to carry out forced land evictions. The organisations Syngenta has gone into alliance with are among the Company's clients.
Via Campesina is in no doubt about the motive for this attack by NF Security men: to assassinate the leaders, and to recover their illegal firearms. The events surrounding the death of the guard are unclear. Activists speculate he may have had incriminating evidence.
When asked why the SRO had confronted the Via Campesina, its president responded 'to show that the rural producers do not peacefully accept land invasions and political provocations. Attitudes such as these, of legally questionable (land) expropriations, send a bad message to investors, chasing them away and provoking 'Brazil risk'”. He threatened “For every invasion of land that occurs in the region, there will be a similar action by the (SRO). We are not going to permit the rural producers to be insulted by ideological political movements of any kind.”
An associate of the Center for Study of the Americas, newly returned from living in Brazil, said ominously that the “murder exhibits an unsettling arrogance and dismissal of the law and the government by the (SRO), NF Security and Syngenta ... It also highlights the increasing number of conflicts between agribusiness and rural civil society sweeping Latin America, as the alliance between national and international agribusiness deepens from country to country. (The) death could well signal a new era of continental violence and bloodshed as the powerful agribusiness interests come up against the progressive social movements that are shaking the Americas.”
OUR COMMENT
Syngenta, like all biotech industries, is adept at failing to notice the safety questions continuously raised about GM food. Failing to notice men with guns walking around on its farm was probably even easier, as was failing to check the credentials of the security company it was employing.
The report is, no doubt, making you feel uncomfortable. Murder was committed, seemingly, because the large land-owners felt insulted by the peasants' attempts to demand a livelihood. These same land-owners, who have sided with a foreign biotech company, now feel powerful enough to apply martial law, to prevent their government from dealing with the problem diplomatically, and to instruct murder.
GM's greatest long-term danger is that it is driving the farmers who hold traditional, sustainable agri-knowledge off the land, and actively preventing the development of crops for local conditions.
Don't encourage GM in agriculture, it is being used as an excuse for anarchy and murder.
SOURCES
- Associated Press 22.10.07
- Via Compesina Press Release 22.10.07
- CounterPunch 29.10.07