{"id":30891,"date":"2016-07-26T11:17:29","date_gmt":"2016-07-26T14:17:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=30891"},"modified":"2017-10-20T09:30:33","modified_gmt":"2017-10-20T12:30:33","slug":"paratys-trindade-traditional-fishing-community-demands-justice-for-murder-of-23-year-old-resident-in-land-dispute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=30891","title":{"rendered":"Paraty’s Trindade Traditional Fishing Community Demands Justice for Murder of Youth in Land Dispute"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

In a public hearing on Friday July 22, residents of Trindade, a small beachside community in the municipality of Paraty in southern Rio de Janeiro State, demanded justice for the killing of 23-year-old Jaison Caique Sampaio, and secured an agreement with the mayor of Paraty to dispossess\u00a0land held by a company that locals hold responsible for his death.<\/p>\n

On June 2, Jaison was shot dead in his home<\/a> by two off-duty police officers. The officers\u00a0were allegedly moonlighting as security guards for the real estate company Trindade Desenvolvimento Territorial (TDT)<\/a>, which has long been locked in a land dispute with residents of Trindade.<\/p>\n

The public hearing was organized by the Human Rights Commission of the Rio de Janeiro State Legislative Assembly (Alerj)<\/a> to discuss problems faced by the Trindade community in the wake of Jaison’s death. The event was chaired by Marcelo Freixo, the head of the committee, and was attended by many residents of Trindade, alongside several politicians and representatives of government organs, including the Civil Police and the Public Defenders Office<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trindade is historically comprised of traditional fishermen, or\u00a0cai\u00e7aras<\/em>, descended from Portuguese colonists, indigenous peoples, and enslaved Africans, who lived off artisanal fishing and subsistence agriculture. Today Trindade, with its five beaches, is a tourism<\/a> hotspot. TDT and its parent companies have had a presence in Trindade for decades, although in recent times tension between their security agents and residents has been mounting, culminating in the shooting of Jaison in June.<\/p>\n

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

At the packed public hearing in Casa da Cultura in Paraty, Davi Paiva, a member of Trindade\u2019s Neighborhood\u00a0Association, indicated that the killing was related to a land dispute. Jaison was “living in a very dubious border zone between the company\u2019s area and the community\u2019s area,\u201d he said. \u201cHis family had been threatened for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The detective in charge of the case, Fl\u00e1vio Narcizo, who also spoke at the public hearing, indicated that the two police officers \u201cacted as representatives of TDT.\u201d However, he noted that from a legal standpoint, it is hard to link them to the company because they were not contracted formally.<\/p>\n

After the killing, the community expelled all of TDT\u2019s representatives from Trindade, knocked down the company\u2019s fences, set fire to the security guards\u2019 accommodation and occupied an area that had been designated a Zone for Community, Sport and Leisure Use by a 2011 municipal law<\/a> but was still being occupied by the company, according to residents.<\/p>\n

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

At the emotionally-charged hearing, the Trindade Neighborhood\u00a0Association submitted a petition signed by more than a thousand people, demanding the dispossession of TDT\u2019s land that was part of the zone for community use. The mayor of Paraty, Carlos Jos\u00e9 Gama Miranda (known as Cas\u00e9), promised to fulfill the community\u2019s request. \u201cI vow to\u2026 make a decree of public utility so that we carry out a legal dispossession and then yes, this area will be of collective use for the community and the public,\u201d said Cas\u00e9.<\/p>\n

Residents also demanded that those responsible for the killing be brought to justice. \u201cI came here today to ask for justice and also for what my son fought for, which was the right to the land,\u201d said Dona Maria do Socorro, Jaison\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n

Socorro also spoke movingly about the suffering caused by his death: \u201cThe pain, I know, will never go away. I felt like I had no arms and no legs, but thinking about everything else that I have, I thought I may have no arms but at least my legs need to stay standing, because if I fall, my children will fall. If I cry, they will feel the pain. So I need to move forward even if it means dragging [my legs].\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The community has dedicated a square on land it occupied from TDT to the memory of Jaison Caique Santos, whose nickname was D\u00e3o.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Residents framed the murder within the history of Trindade\u2019s long and bloody land dispute. In the mid-1970s violence erupted between the cai\u00e7aras<\/em>\u00a0and jagun\u00e7os<\/em>, hired thugs allegedly sent by developers in an attempt to intimidate residents into leaving their land, with tactics including beatings and the rape of a school teacher<\/a>. A complex chain of land acquisition eventually resulted in a fragile settlement between the remaining cai\u00e7ara<\/em> families and the landowner at the time in 1982. To this day, the company, now called TDT, still owns and administers the land surrounding the Trindade community, although concrete development plans are unclear.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 1982, when an agreement was reached with Trindade Desenvolvimento Territorial\u2026 we thought that our problems were over,\u201d said Paiva. However, \u201csince 1982, we have had Trindade with fences, we have had Trindade surrounded by armed security guards.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe used to live from fishing, from agriculture, from subsistence,\u201d said Robson Dias, a resident of Trindade. \u201cWith the arrival of TDT, it removed us from our territory\u2026 We lost our rights to work and with all this we lost a part of our culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Community members at the public hearing also raised concerns about environmental restrictions in the area, including upcoming changes to regulations of the Environmentally Protected Area (APA) of Cairu\u00e7u, which covers Trindade.<\/p>\n

Boasting idyllic beaches surrounded by native Atlantic forest, the coastal area surrounding Paraty, known as the Costa Verde (“Green Coast”), has become a playground for Brazil\u2019s rich and famous and an attraction for tourists. However, it is also notorious for violent territorial conflicts. Mayor Cas\u00e9, who last year survived an assassination attempt allegedly related to a land dispute<\/a>, compared the region to the \u201cwild west\u201d and asked national politicians at the public hearing to help raise awareness about the violence<\/a> in the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a cruelty what is happening to the communities in Paraty, whether they are quilombo<\/a>, indigenous or fishing communities\u2026 We can\u2019t be silent about this,\u201d said Cas\u00e9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas In a public hearing on Friday July 22, residents of Trindade, a small beachside community in the municipality of Paraty in southern Rio de Janeiro State, demanded justice for the killing […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":30925,"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":[1854,1288,1333,336,1329],"tags":[2069,2476,1795,267,25,1627,1033,1383,630,618,2148,69,1798,194,2149,1385],"writer":[1820,2125],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-30891","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-housingwatch","8":"category-highlight","9":"category-event-reports","10":"category-violations","11":"category-by-international-observers","12":"tag-alerj","13":"tag-concession-of-use","14":"tag-costa-verde","15":"tag-fishing-colony","16":"tag-human-rights","17":"tag-human-rights-commission-alerj","18":"tag-land-rights","19":"tag-land-use","20":"tag-marcelo-freixo","21":"tag-neighborhood-association","22":"tag-paraty","23":"tag-public-defenders","24":"tag-rio-state","25":"tag-tourism","26":"tag-trindade","27":"tag-violence","28":"writer-claire-lepercq","29":"writer-daniel-gross"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30891","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\/112"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30891"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=30891"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=30891"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=30891"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=30891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}