{"id":18115,"date":"2014-09-25T08:10:18","date_gmt":"2014-09-25T11:10:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=18115"},"modified":"2015-12-21T16:49:40","modified_gmt":"2015-12-21T19:49:40","slug":"quilombo-sacopa-recognized-by-federal-government-after-years-of-struggle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=18115","title":{"rendered":"Quilombo Sacop\u00e3 Recognized by Federal Government After Decades of Struggle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas\"\"<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

After decades of fighting for the right to stay on their inherited land, Quilombo Sacop\u00e3<\/a> was recognized by the federal government this Tuesday September 23.\u00a0Sacop\u00e3 is the first urban quilombo to be recognized by the federal government in the state of Rio and is located in Lagoa, one of the most expensive\u00a0neighborhoods in\u00a0the city.<\/p>\n

Luiz Pinto, leader of the community and president of the Quilombo Association of Rio de Janeiro State (AQUILERJ)<\/a>, received the document that guarantees ownership of the 7,000 m2 parcel\u00a0and celebrated with his community and members of over 20 quilombos<\/a> who came to witness the historic event.<\/p>\n

Quilombo Cruzeirinho, from the city of Natividade, also received their Technical Report of Identification and Delimitation (RTID) which is the first step to gaining their\u00a0land title.<\/p>\n

The community of Quilombo Sacop\u00e3 has lived in the area for over a century, but has suffered numerous attempts of forced removals<\/a> and buy-outs. In 1999, the community officially gained quilombo status, in accordance with the 1988 Brazilian Constitution<\/a>\u00a0that determined that descendants of slaves\u00a0would gain rights to the land they had historically occupied as a means of reparations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After acquiring quilombo status, the 28 people inhabiting Sacop\u00e3 had to wait 15 years until they could receive official ownership of their home and federal recognition. There have been constant conflicts between the residents of the quilombo and the wealthy\u00a0residents of the surrounding buildings.<\/p>\n

The ceremony took place in the event\u00a0space of the community and included cultural performances from the Afro-Brazilian group Afox\u00e9 Filhos de Gandhy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe stigma of racial segregation still impregnates a part of Brazilian society. But today, it is being proved that even with the force\u00a0of real estate speculation<\/a>, with its economic power and its power of influence along with the rotten judiciary\u2013they lost,\u201d Luiz said to a cheering crowd, before receiving the document. \u201cToday, excitedly, I can tell you that I was born on this land, I took my first steps here. Today I am 72 years old and I can say it\u2019s a historical day for our country.”<\/p>\n

\u201cToday we have the certainty that the path we have taken, my people, is working and there is nothing better than this quilombo, surrounded by upper\u00a0class luxury condominiums. We resisted and we won<\/a>. Today is a day I can claim: I was born here, I was raised here and here I will die.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a note to the press, the Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra)<\/a> said: \u201cThe recognition [of Quilombo Sacop\u00e3] is the last step before the definitive titling, when the ownership of the land will be registered in the name of the community, which will not be able to sell, rent or get rid of the area. This recognition means that the quilombola territory has received their final delimitation, which gives definitive judiciary security to the community since all the phases of protestation have already expired.\u201d<\/p>\n

Feijoada &\u00a0Heritage<\/h3>\n

The quilombo served feijoada<\/em> to its guests, the Brazilian national\u00a0dish, widely assumed to have heavy African influences. The food was fitting because Sacop\u00e3 was\u00a0forbidden from hosting\u00a0their weekly feijoada and samba cultural events by the former mayor C\u00e9sar Maia. This disrupted the community\u2019s right to express their Afro-Brazilian culture and earn money to support themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cC\u00e9sar Maia came here and put a thick chain on our oven,\u201d said S\u00e9rgio Pinto, Luiz\u2019s nephew and resident of Quilombo Sacop\u00e3. \u201cThat gate there? He padlocked it, no cars could come in or come out<\/a>. We had to jump the wall. Taxi drivers wanted to eat here, that\u2019s how we made money. After awhile, C\u00e9sar Maia came to apologize as a candidate to some government post.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As the women cooked the pork and beans dish in the kitchen, S\u00e9rgio spoke of how happy he was with the quilombo\u2019s victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cI work as a night guard and I kept checking my watch all the time because I was so anxious about today,\u201d he said. \u201cI think I am the happiest one here, but the victory is really my uncle\u2019s. I got tired of seeing him arrested, held by his wrists like a thief. As if we were criminals.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey tried to remove us<\/a> several times\u2013there were residents [of the luxury buildings around the quilombo] who came here and threw money on the table. There was one who gave a blank check to my uncle and said \u2018fill it out\u2019 and called my uncle stupid [when he declined].\u201d<\/p>\n

S\u00e9rgio also revealed that he is planning to engage\u00a0the younger generation of his family to make sure they will protect his uncle\u2019s legacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am the older nephew so I saw the struggle in my lifetime,\u201d he said. \u201cI am meeting with the younger ones because I want them to preserve this place like we did. They saw the struggle, but they didn\u2019t feel in their skin what it\u2019s like to be evicted. So they have to honor my uncle\u2019s legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rural vs Urban<\/h3>\n

Representatives of Quilombo Cruzeirinho Juanice Ribeiro Ferreira dos Santos and Mariley Barbosa de Souza traveled six hours overnight to receive a document that will help them get the title\u00a0to their home. Their rural quilombo is home to around 200 people who settled around a church in the northeast of Rio de Janeiro State after slavery was abolished.<\/p>\n

Unlike the struggles of Sacop\u00e3, Juanice says Cruzeirinho\u2019s six-year journey to recognition has been quick in comparison to most quilombos. This may be attributed to the fact Sacop\u00e3 is not only an urban quilombo, but one located in a wealthy neighborhood that has continuously tried to interfere in the recognition process. According to Juanice, Cruzeirinho is not in anyone\u2019s path and nobody has tried to evict\u00a0them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Even so, they seek quilombo recognition because they believe it will improve their community.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo us, this is another victory, you know? It\u2019s a document that we will use to start a process and to get more resources\u00a0[from the government] to better our community,\u201d said Juanice.<\/p>\n

Mariley added: \u201cWe think if we are officially recognized we will get more help with basic services and money for school lunches.\u201d<\/p>\n

A bittersweet\u00a0celebration<\/h3>\n

Although the event was a happy one, there was space for calls of further resistance<\/a> for other quilombos fighting for titles. Luiz, who says he’s spent 50 years fighting for this victory, was happy but disappointed in how long the whole process took.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am very happy, yes. But this is something that could have been done a lot faster since it\u2019s a constitutional right. I mean, I am happy because it happened, but I am still in denial because of\u00a0the fact that it took all this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Incra\u00a0there are currently nine quilombola<\/em> communities in the process of titling in Rio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas After decades of fighting for the right to stay on their inherited land, Quilombo Sacop\u00e3 was recognized by the federal government this Tuesday September 23.\u00a0Sacop\u00e3 is the first urban quilombo to […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":18116,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1293,1290,1333,335,329],"tags":[662,756,771,449,573,11,25,1033,354,450,124,270,1034,156,954],"writer":[1356],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18115","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-evictionswatch","8":"category-civilsociety","9":"category-event-reports","10":"category-policies","11":"category-solutions","12":"tag-afro-brazilian-culture","13":"tag-community-organizing","14":"tag-community-pride","15":"tag-constitution","16":"tag-feijoada","17":"tag-forced-evictions","18":"tag-human-rights","19":"tag-land-rights","20":"tag-law","21":"tag-quilombo","22":"tag-race","23":"tag-resistance","24":"tag-sacopa-quilombo","25":"tag-south-zone","26":"tag-victory","27":"writer-nicole-froio"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18115"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=18115"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=18115"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=18115"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=18115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}