Twenty years after the, completed on Wednesday (12), as a method of mastery of the land is incorporated into the daily life of hundreds of families living under threat in (PA).
The area is one of the most violent in the Amazon due to the persistence of land grab and deforestation.
Dorothy was 73 years old and was an agent of the CPT (Pastoral Earth Commission) when he was killed. He had been working for over two decades in the region. It was, at the behest of two farmers and by action of two gunmen, in the area of a rural settlement, the Sustainable Development Project (PDS) Esperança, in Anapu.
She had acted in defense of the settlers’ fields, asking for the external agents to the settlement to not plant grass in the area.
In two decades, life in the settlements that emerged in the course of – PDS Hope is one of them – is marked by unrest, violence, pressure and threat of land grabbers, squatters and loggers.
The areas follow in Limbo, without a definitive consolidation by Incra (National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform), which allows the uninterrupted pressure of stakeholders in the expansion of their lands.
In a statement, the institute stated that the settlement where A does not have a formal act of consolidation, but is considered as definitive by virtue of a 2018 decree, which considers a consolidated settlement after 15 years of implantation.
The same goes for PDS Virola Jatobá, also created in 2004, on the eve of the death of the missionary.
Still, invasions continue to be recorded, as well as disputes between settlers and newcomer squatters, with greater economic power.
Whole families have already needed to leave settlements due to threats and seek support from the Human Rights Defenders Protection Program, an initiative of the Federal Government, with execution by the Government of Pará.
At least three families in the Anapu region were forced to seek exile in other areas of Pará and São Paulo with support from the program.
The CPT makes an annual conflict survey in the field. In the last ten years, from 2014 to 2023, it has recorded 77 cases of. In five years, there were conflicts in the settlement where Dorothy was murdered.
In all, according to the CPT, 16 people were killed in the settlements in ten years. There have been three murder attempts and 35 people under threat of death.
The performance of Catholic missionaries such as Dorothy, who was American American and naturalized, is made with direct actions in the settlements.
These CPT agents are the ones who know the most reality of the areas, besides local leaders, many of them under constant threat.
Dorothy’s work continued with Jane Dwyer, 84, also American and naturalized Brazilian, who has been in the Anapu region since 1997. She lived with Dorothy for 15 years, until the death of the missionary.
“At the funeral, a worker shouted, ‘We’re not going to bury Dorothy, we’ll plant,'” says Jane. “They killed Dorothy, but they didn’t kill very well, because her memory lives.” A second American missionary, Katia Webster, also operates at CPT in Anapu.
Conflicts are more recurrent in five settlements in the region, as stated by CPT agents: PDS Esperança (Anapu I), where Dorothy was killed; the Dorothy Stang settlement (previously known as Lot 96), where land grabbers even set fire to the community school in 2022; PDS VIROLA JATOBÁ; and the settlements kills black and kills green.
According to the Incra database, updated in January, the five settlements have a total of 90,000 hectares, with the capacity of 760 families. According to the federal system information base, none of them are fully consolidated, but Incra said that this is only valid for three of them due to the 2018 decree.
In the case of the Dorothy Stang settlement, there is still no list of beneficiaries, and the selection is underway, according to Incra. In Virola Jatobá, there is action in court, and Incra removes invaders, said the agency. Black forest and green forest are not yet fit to the consolidation phase.
In 2019, the first year of government (PL), there was an invasion of land grabbers and loggers at PDS Esperança, according to monitoring by CPT agents. Incra said there was an invasion in 2010 and that it filed an action to withdraw from the invaders.
In 2023, the first year of government (PT), continued threats, mainly by illegal loggers, according to the CPT. An operation was even done by Federal Police and Ibama (Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources), says the commission.
“People are asking for the housing review, but arms are missing for Incra to go from home to house, from lot to lot,” says Jane.
Violence is more noticeable in PDS Virola Jatobá, with the presence of invaders cleaning areas, rounds of people linked to farmers and land grabbers, action by loggers and acting of squatters with more economic power than settlers.
Due to the flow of families, with entry and exit of squatters, there are still some without the granting of land use in both settlements, according to Jane.
“There are cases where squatters want 100 hectares of land, and the project is for 20 hectares, so that the forest is worked collectively,” says the CPT agent.
The performance of the gun left the Dorothy Stang settlement leaders. One is Erasmo Alves Theófilo, 36, who suffered an attempted murder in 2019, according to the CPT survey.
Erasmus needed inclusion in the Human Rights Defenders Protection Program and was removed from the Anapu region.
“Since 2019, alive in successive ‘exiles’, which is what they also call refuge or shelter,” he wrote in a letter addressed to the Governor of Pará (MDB) at the end of 2024. “In fact, I live in house arrest while the gilettos are loose and touching the forest. “
Since 2019, I live in successive ‘exiles’, which is what they also call refuge or shelter. In fact, I live in house arrest, while the land grabbers are loose and touching the forest
According to Erasmo, the program played by the State Government wants him to return to Anapu “without any protection”.
A letter was also written to Minister Paulo Teixeira (agrarian development and family farming), in which he denounces the reality of violence in the region of rural settlements in Anapu.
The government of Pará did not answer the questions of the report.
In the PDS Hope, a tree where a sign was fixed with names of people who were murdered in settlements – as Dorothy – was cleared, and intentionally, according to Jane Dwyer. “The plate was found and placed on a higher part of a tree.”
