Action calls for reparations for crimes against the Peasant Leagues and explains how the military strategy made social organization in the state unfeasible
O Federal Public Ministry (MPF) filed a lawsuit on Tuesday (26) public civil action against the Union and the state of Paraíba by serious human rights violations occurred during the military dictatorship. According to the document, bodies of peasants linked to the Peasant Leagues of Paraíba were burned in sugar factory furnaces from the region to hide evidence of murders and torture practiced by state agents and landowners after the 1964 coup.
The MPF investigation details the case of leaders such as João Alfredo Dias, known as “Nego Fuba”, and Pedro Inácio de Araújo, known as “Pedro Fazendeiro”. They disappeared between August and September 1964 after being held in military custody at the 15th Infantry Regiment, in João Pessoa.
João Alfredo Dias, ‘Nego Fuba’, and Pedro Inácio de Araújo, ‘Pedro Fazendeiro’
The document states that there was a coordinated strategy to make peasant organization unfeasible through enforced disappearances, illegal arrests e deaths.
According to the decision, the bodies of the militants would have been incinerated to erase traces of executions. The text mentions that “there is convergent testimony that the victims were taken to sugar factories in the region, where they were executed and their bodies destroyed in sugar furnaces to eliminate biological traces”. To the São João plants e Saint Helena are mentioned as places where these acts would have occurred.
‘Transitional Justice’
The action is based on the concept of Transitional Justicewhich establishes the State’s duty to recognize past violations and repair victims.
The MPF highlights that the repression involved a “operational symbiosis” between the Armed Forces, military police and private militias financed by large landowners.
Among the requests made by the Public Ministry are:
- The formalization of an official apology to the Brazilian population;
- Payment of compensation for collective moral damages in the amount of R$1 million;
- The opening and preservation of historical archives of the time;
- The implementation of educational measures and the creation of places of memory about the Peasant Leagues;
The document also identifies the chain of command responsible for operations at the time, citing names such as Major José Benedito Montenegro de Magalhães Cordeiro and Military Police Colonel Luiz Ferreira Barros. As those involved have already passed away, the MPF seeks civil liability of public entities to ensure that the facts are clarified and that “non-repetition” measures are adopted.
For the agency, clarifying these crimes is essential to break a pattern of violence and impunity that still persists in the field. The action highlights that the hiding of the bodies prevented the families from mourning, prolonging the suffering for decades due to the lack of official information and the denial of the right to say goodbye.
