Denunciation forwarded by lawyers of the Brazilian Association of People's Lawyers - ABRAPO-RO:

On September 8, the Military Police of Vilhena-RO complied with the judicial order for repossession, given by the judge of the second civil court of the city district, as a result of the possession suit that was filed against the landless rural workers of the New Canaan Association. The arbitrary decision put down the improvements (houses, plantation, etc.) of the poor peasants who lived on plots 75 and 85 (the old Vilhena farm), besides leaving more than 50 families on the streets in the middle of the biggest health crisis of the last 100 years.

This decision contradicted the recommendations of the Public Power to confront the Covid-19 pandemic, of social isolation, as well as was arbitrary in the sense that the process was full of vices that hurt basic constitutional and procedural principles of the Brazilian legal system, which is the right to due process, contradictory and broad defense.

In addition, another process that aims to cancel the contracts for the sale of public land of the property in question is taking place in the sphere of federal justice, that is, it means that the dominance of the property is questionable and does not belong to the farmer, but to the Union, which should consequently be used for the national Agrarian Reform program.

The judge of the second civil court in the district of Vilhena not only decided that a land belonging to the Union should go into the hands of the farmer, but also, less than 12 hours before the Possession Reintegration operation took place, she dispatched the process so that everything that the peasants had built and planted on the site in the last 5 years of occupation would come to an end, and also, the related dispatch was made at 7 p.m. on a holiday! Being this determination very close to the time of the operation, the legal team of lawyers and people's lawyers had no more way to intervene in the process.

The legal team acting in the process tried by all legal means to demonstrate how absurd and arbitrary the eviction of these families would be, both because it was clearly a disproportionate action of the State against rural workers in social vulnerability, especially at this time of crisis and pandemic, both because the vices of the process are clear and if justice were done, the decision to reinstate possession to the farmer should be annulled.

The lawyers and people's lawyers filed several requests for the suspension of repossession, both in the main case files (which were flatly denied by the judge without any coherent grounds) and with writs of mandamus, at the second instance level, which were not even considered by the state judges.

In this legal battle, the Public Defender's Office of the State of Rondônia also requested in the case that the eviction order be suspended, both because of the health crisis and because of procedural flaws in the case. On the other hand, the Public Prosecutor's Office, which was supposed to watch over life and act as an inspector of the law, seems to have forgotten its real attributions, and accepted the judge's decision without opposing the evident illegalities committed.

In this moment of serious social, political, financial, and above all health crisis in which we are living, the "stay at home" becomes more and more the privilege of those who can pay, be it their own house or the corrupt judiciary, who instead of guaranteeing social justice and a minimum of security for vulnerable populations, from power to agribusiness and guaranteeing that the latifundium is increasingly devastating against the peoples of the countryside and the forest in Western Amazonia.