DATE=8/19/1999
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=BRAZIL-TRIAL (L-UPDATE)
NUMBER=2-252936
BYLINE=BILL RODGERS
DATELINE=RIO DE JANEIRO
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
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/// Eds: Spanish Act in Bubble ///
Intro: Some Brazilian officials and human rights
groups have expressed dismay over a jury verdict early
Thursday acquitting three police officers accused in
the massacre of 19 landless peasants three years ago.
As V-O-A's Bill Rodgers reports from Rio de Janeiro,
the three were the first of 150 policemen to go on
trial for the murders.
Text: Brazil's Minister of Agrarian Reform, Raul
Jungmann, expressed regret over the verdict -- telling
reporters Thursday he is profoundly embarrassed by the
decision. Mr. Jungmann said he expects the verdict
will be appealed and overturned.
A jury in the northern city of Belem found there was
insufficient evidence to convict the three police
officers -- a colonel (Mario Colares Pantoja), a major
(Jose Maria Oliveira), and a captain (Raimundo Jose
Almendra). They went on trial Monday, charged with
participating in killing 19 landless peasants during a
demonstration on April 17th, 1996. It was one of the
bloodiest single incidents in recent years in the long-
running dispute involving landless rural workers
demanding agrarian reform.
The killings occurred as police attempted to disperse
some two-thousand protestors blocking a highway near
the town of Eldorado dos Carajas, in the northern
Amazon state of Para. Police opened fire to turn back
the protestors, who were wielding clubs and machetes.
The three officers were the first of 150 defendants to
go on trial. The rest will be tried in more than two-
dozen separate sessions, which are expected to continue
until December.
The verdict, handed down in the pre-dawn hours
Thursday, was quickly denounced by the Movement of
Those Without Land, M-S-T -- a militant group which had
organized the 1996 protest.
Other human rights groups joined in the condemnation.
The representative in Brazil for Human Rights Watch,
James Cavallaro, says the acquittal will have a
negative impact over the rule of law in Brazil.
/// Cavallaro Act ///
The impact of this acquittal will be to reinforce
the idea that impunity is the norm and that those
who commit serious human rights violations, that
those who kill poor landless people or others
living on the margins of mainstream society can
be fairly certain that the criminal justice
system will not prosecute them. // Opt // This
is the highest profile case of a rural killing,
of a rural massacre in this decade. And despite
all the attention and energies of the
international media and of civil society here in
Brazil, three commanders have been acquitted.
So we can't help but see a very negative message
being sent out to Brazil in general.
// End Opt //
/// End Act ///
For his part, M-S-T head Joao Pedro Stedile has
expressed dismay and pledged to appeal the decision.
M-S-T members took to the streets of Belem following
the verdict in angry protest. (Signed)
NEB/WFR/TVM/JO
19-Aug-1999 16:43 PM EDT (19-Aug-1999 2043 UTC)
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Source: Voice of America
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