In August 2004, Bill led 200 families towards a temporary settlement in Sandovalina (SP), in the Pontal do Paranapanema region. Jagunços entrenched behind a ravine opened fire to repel the group because they suspected that the movement represented the farm. The rural workers managed to escape and only one of them was injured when he fell.
The shooting in the west of São Paulo was just another chapter in Bill’s 40-year journey of activism, one of the pioneers of the (Landless Rural Workers Movement) in .
Its trajectory merges with the state’s own history, transforming areas of conflict into land for families who today live and produce in the settlements.
Born on September 15, 1956 in Rubim, a mining town in the Jequitinhonha Valley, he experienced the harshness of the countryside as a child. At the age of seven, he moved with his family to Paraná, where he worked on coffee plantations.
In November 1983, he crossed the border towards Pontal do Paranapanema, bringing with him his partner Dona Cida and their children. In 1985, he definitively joined the base meetings of the nascent MST.
A year later, the conquest of Gleba 15 de Novembro, in Euclides da Cunha Paulista, was his first major victory milestone. Bill led the mobilization that gave rise to the settlement that is today the second largest in São Paulo in terms of population, housing more than 2,000 people.
In 1990, he planted the movement’s flag in the occupation of the Nova Pontal farm, in Rosana, considered a watershed for the advancement of peasant struggles in the region.
Battles that cost him years of persecution. In 2011, President Bernardes was prosecuted for criminal conspiracy, accusing him of planning occupations on the São Luiz and Guarani farms. For the MST, the sentence was yet another attempt to criminalize its leaders.
“Bill also had a preventive arrest warrant for a long time due to the fight for land in Pontal, for practically seven years he was running from the police”, he told Sheet João Paulo Rodrigues, national leader of the MST and Bill’s eldest son.
Considered an architect of production in the cooperative system, he understood that the conquered land needed to be productive to guarantee permanence in the countryside.
He became a key player in the MST Production Sector, strengthening associations and leading Coopercampo, dedicated to dairy production and technical assistance that serves more than 300 families.
As president of the Pontal Peasant Cooperative, he dedicated himself to embryo transfer projects in cattle, seeking technology for small producers.
Valmir Rodrigues Chaves died at the age of 69, on April 20, 2026, in São Paulo. The cause of death was pneumonia aggravated by endocarditis.
The president () wrote on a social network that Bill dedicated more than four decades to the fight for the right to land and a better life for small farmers.
Bill leaves behind Dona Cida, five children —João Paulo, Saulo, Ana Paula, Wagner and João Pedro– and grandchildren.
As a last wish, he asked to be buried in the settlement where he lived with his family, in Gleba 15 de Euclides da Cunha Paulista.
