In the night between the 20th to the 21st of November reactionary forces were drawn together around the houses, farms and fields of the peasants of Nova Cachoeirinha in Minar Gerais. Since yesterday, the people living and working there are under attack by the police, arbitrarily and indiscriminately firing gas grenades at the village and intimidating its inhabitants with over 100 policemen.
The lands the police forces are trying to drive the peasants away from, historically and legally, belong to the people of Cachoeirinha. It was already once taken away from them, during the military regime in the 60s under the notorious command of Colonel Georgino. 212 children and elderly, men and women were driven away from their land and 62 laid down their lifes, heroically raising to the task of defending their livelihood against the reactionary attacks – some the survivors later became founding members of the League of Poor Peasants (LCP). On the 3rd of August this year, in the year of the 50th anniversary of the heroic struggles of ‘67 in Cachoeirinha, 40 families took back the lands stolen from their ancestors.
Defending against the attacks of hired killers in the recent past, the peasants in Nova Cachoeirinha held their ground and defended their livelihood. Now, in another attempt to drive them away from their land in service of the big landowners, they plan to also not give up without a fight, the same as the peasents did in 1967:
“But we, the families of Nova Cachoeirinha WILL NOT GIVE UP OUR LANDS! Let’s resist, let’s defend our families our fields, our houses, our right and our dignity: that is all we have! We will not allow another Pau D'Arc to happen as it did in Pará!”
