Alessandra Bastos
Special Report

Eldorado dos Carajás (PA) – Exactly ten years after the massacre of Eldorado dos Carajás, when Military Police killed 19 and wounded 69 members of the Landless Rural Worker Movement (MST), nobody has gone to jail. There have been two convictions, but the policemen remain free pending appeals. And 142 other policemen have been absolved in the case. Social activists see the "Massacre de Eldorado dos Carajás" as a pretty clear example of the problem of impunity in Brazl.

The police commanders, coronel Mário Colares Pantoja and major José Maria Pereira de Oliveira, have been sentenced to 228 years and 158 years in prison, respectively. The other 142 police who participated in the operation to remove the MST protesters from the PA-150 highway were all found innocent. The then-governor of Pará, Almir Gabriel, and the state secretary of Security, Paulo Sete Câmera, were not indicted although the police said that Gabriel ordered "the highway to be cleared at all costs." The order was transmitted to the police by Câmera.

Spokespersons for the MST say they believe the police commanders, Pantoja and Oliveira, should be punished because they were the authorities on the ground and responsible for what happened.

Pantoja and Oliveira have been tried twice. In the first trial, in 1999, they were found innocent. In the second trial, in 2001, they were found guilty and finally sentenced. But the decision has been appealed by their lawyers so they have not gone to jail.

The prosecution accused the police of excessive violence, killing eleven of the rural workers with gunshots to the head and executing others with point-blank shots (some were shot many times). The defense said the police were acting in the line of duty, just following orders to clear the highway.

Translation: Allen Bennett