Struggle for the land and life:displacement and resistance in a large development project in

AmazôniaDernival Venâncio Ramos

Today, the more evident face of capitalist expansion in the Amazônia are the large development projects:

- roadways: Transpacific roadway; - waterways: Araguaia-Tocantins, Tapajós, others; - railways: Ferrovia Norte-Sul; - Mining: VALE expansion of production; - Large agricultural projects: Soybeans, Eucalyptus.. - Hydroelectric power plants: Estreito, Belo Monte, Teles Pires..

•2004: Initiative for the Integration of South American Infrastructure (IIRSA);

•2007: The Growth Acceleration Plans (PAC I e II):•Nacional Plan of Power 2030:•Estreito DAM in Tocantins river is part of PAC I.

Estreito’ DAM

• 7000 families were affected;

• 1500 families were displaced;

• 500 were compensated or relocated;

• In the city of Babaçulândia about 200 families were not compensated. (CPT and MAB’ datas).

• Monoculture of waters: sustainable development with green capitalism (PINTO, 2002; PAULA,2013)

• the lakes are “latifúndios”;

• the riverside and island communities were expropriated of the water and “wet land”.

• the natural resource was ‘privatized’ and appropriated by global companies like ALCOA S. A ou VALE S.A.

Metodology

• Oral history:I interviewed 28 riverside people.

• Systematic Literature review

• Direct observation: field notebook.

• Increase of social conflicts:

• The resistance of displacement: MAB’s Marcha Araguaína/Estreito in 2010;

• Resistance to better conditions of resettlement: São José Island and the displacement by police forces.

• Occupation of APP (Environmental Protection Area): seven occupation knowledges until 2014.

Green Island Occupation

• Around 200 families had not received any compensation because the displacement in Babaçulândia municipality;

• 46 of them with help of MAB (Affect by DAMs Movement) and MST (Landless Movement) organized the occupation of APP near to the city;

• They named Green Island Occupation in tribute to São José Island: symbol of riverside life destroyed by lake..

• “the paradise reconquered” - Valderice, the leadership of the occupation.

Green Island Occupation shows that this people are fighting for the land, but also for the maintenance and upgrading of their way of life, that builded up from a multiple relationship with the river: economic (ebb farming, fishing), transportation (the boats line that drained the production), social (place of sociability: the river bath and beach- in past) and symbolic-religious (the river was the habitat of “Mother of the Water” and other enchanteds). The affirmation of the legitimacy of this way of life and their right to keep the riverbank - or lake bank - is what mean “reconquered the paradise…” - “polyculture of waters.”

Conclusion…• The Large DAM’s projects are connected with anothers

nacional and internacional initiative to “develop” the region: linked the region to internacional market needs..

• The displacement of riverside communities had increase the socials conflicts: in Green Island there is a case of shooting…

• In this struggle play important place the Social Movements (like MAB and MST) and institucions like CPT (Pastoral Commission of Land)

• People struggle for land, but also to maintain “their way of life”...

ReferencesHECHT, Sussana. The scramble for the Amazon and the Lost paradise of Euclides da Cunha. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2013.PINTO, Lúcio F. Hidrelétricas na Amazônia: predestinação, fatalidade ou engodo? Belém: Edição Jornal Pessoa, 2002.SIEBEN, Airton & CLEPS Jr, João. “Políticca energética na Amazônia: A UHE de Estreito e os camponeses tradicionais de Palmatuba/Babaçulândia (T0)”. Soc. & Nat. Uberlândia, ano 24 n. 2, 183-196, mai/ago. 2012, pp. 183-196.

PAULA, Elder. Capitalismo verde e transgressões. Dourados: Ed. UFGD, 2013.SIEBEN, Airton. ESTADO E POLÍTICA ENERGÉTICA: a desterritorialização da Comunidade rural de Palmatuba em Babaçulândia (TO) pela Usina Hidrelétrica Estreito. Uberlândia: UFT (Tese de doutorado em geografia), 2013.SILVA JÚNIOR, Cícero P. Memória, dádiva e distopia: impactos sociambientais da UHE de Estreito sobrea Ilha de São José – TO. Bragança: UFPA (Dissertação de mestrado), 2014.QUIJANO, Aníbal. Cuestiones y horizontes: de la dependencia histórico-estructural a la colonialidad/descolonialidad del poder. Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 2014.THOMPSON, Paul. A voz do passado: História Oral. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1992.

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