April 17, 1996 is a milestone in the history of the dispute over the right to land in Brazil. There is a before and after of the day in which they were murdered on the stretch of the PA-150 highway known as Curva do S, in Eldorado do Carajás.
Three decades after its most symbolic episode of violence in the countryside, Brazil continues. The number of conflicts continues to rise as the country experiences an intensification of clashes that spread from institutional policy forums to rural communities.
Since 1996, Brazil has had an average of one death in the countryside every 10 days, according to data from the CPT (Pastoral Land Commission). In total, 1,149 people were murdered from 1996 to 2025.
The number of conflicts in the countryside has grown, surpassing the mark of 2,000 cases since 2022 – the most recent data is from 2024, when Brazil registered 2,185 conflicts, the second highest mark since 1985.
In 1996, around 1,100 people linked to the (Landless Rural Workers Movement) marched from Curionópolis (PA) and went to Belém. The highway was blocked and the then governor of Pará, Almir Gabriel (PSDB), ordered the road to be cleared.
The landless people resisted and the police decided to confront them: 19 landless people were killed and another 60 people were injured, including rural workers and police officers. Of the 155 police officers who participated in the action,
At the time, the international repercussion of the massacre gave impetus to the debate on the agrarian issue in Brazil, with the creation of new settlements and expansion of the State’s institutional presence in that region.
But the momentum has lost strength and conflicts remain a persistent mark. In southeast Pará, where the 1996 massacre took place, agrarian disputes include more than 190 occupied farms and around 20 thousand families involved.
“Without a doubt, this is the region with the highest concentration of unresolved agrarian conflicts in Brazil”, says José Batista Afonso, lawyer at the Pastoral Land Commission in Marabá (PA).
The CPT reports point out not only a persistence, but a reconfiguration of violence in the countryside since the deaths in 1996. One of the marks that remains is that of , which is reflected in later episodes such as the massacres in Pau D’Arco (PA) and Colniza (MT).
Both cases took place in 2017, the year in which 74 people were murdered in conflicts in the countryside, the highest number in the historical series. In Pau D’Arco, there was a joint action between the Military and Civil Police — the 16 suspected police officers have not yet been tried.
In Colniza, nine people in a settlement on the Taquaruçu do Norte land. Only one of the three defendants was tried, being sentenced to a sentence of 200 years for qualified murder.
The dynamics of agrarian conflicts, however, have changed over the last few decades, with disputes in the countryside being more diffuse and permanent instead of isolated cases of massacres with great repercussions.
The profile of victims also changed. In the 1990s, most of those killed were landless workers and squatters. In recent years, however, attacks against indigenous people, quilombolas and traditional communities have increased — in 2024, indigenous people led the statistics of deaths in the countryside.
The agenda against the movements fighting for land gained ground in , with the strengthening of the ruralist caucus and legislative proposals that seek to restrict occupations, toughen punishments and, in some cases, classify actions as terrorism.
This discourse gained strength following the rise of 2018, when criticism of agrarian reform movements was explicitly incorporated into the presidential agenda. In this year’s election, presidential candidates such as () and () adopt a similar speech.
The adverse political scenario hinders progress in agrarian reform. “Approving any measure that interferes with land concentration today is practically unfeasible with the current composition of Congress”, assesses José Batista Afonso, from the CPT.
Movements like this emerged in this context, uniting rural landowners with the declared objective of preventing land invasions, often acting with armed men and without the support of Justice.
The entity says it acts peacefully and fights for its rights legally. Land demand movements speak of coordinated action between political groups and economic sectors against agrarian reform.
“They are legalized militias that act directly against the workers. The jagunço now has a CNPJ, it is a new guise for violence”, says Ayala Ferreira, member of the MST’s national leadership.
She highlights that conflicts in the countryside also include clashes around environmental and labor issues. And he says that the government (PT) needs to move forward with agrarian reform policies in view of the current liability of camped families – there are 145 thousand in Brazil, 30 thousand of which in Pará alone.
This week, the MST takes the BR-150 from Curionópolis to Eldorado do Carajás, expected to arrive this Friday (17).
