March 24, 2022

10:03

Bruno Pacheco – from Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – A century-old place where five families reside, the Vista Linda 4 Farm, an area that makes up the Bonito Farm, in the municipality of Cavalcante, in Goiás, will have the land returned to the Kalungo quilombolas, after a judicial determination. The substitute federal judge, Thadeu José Piragibe Afonso, of the Federal Court of Formosa, Goiás, granted the request of the Association Quilombo Kalunga (AQK) and granted a temporary injunction to reinstate possession of the territory.

Since it is a first instance decision, it can be appealed. In the document, the magistrate justifies that the area had been occupied, irregularly, by the farmer Juvelan de Paula e Souza without any title that supports him, demonstrating “esbulho possessório”, i.e., an injury characterized by the loss of possession of certain property by clandestine or violent means.

Thadeu Afonso ordered the immediate vacating of the property, under penalty of a R$ 10,000 fine in case of noncompliance. The federal judge in Goiás also requested that a writ of repossession be issued, and authorized, if necessary, the use of police force to enforce the order.

Secular law

For the researcher of land grabbing in Kalunga territory, Francisco Sousa, the measure determined by the judge reinforces what the quilombola association has been working for years to prove: the legitimate right they have over their secularly occupied lands. For him, the decision needs to be complied with and it is necessary that the developments of the case be followed closely.

“This decision has something special, for demonstrating the sea of mud in which supposed owners are immersed, for demonstrating the fight between Juvelan and the Dinâmica group for the ownership of the lands, without the possibility of conciliation because of the overlapping of the properties, exposing the fragilities of the wide networks of solidarity and bribery that make land theft possible. And in the middle of this confusion are the Kalunga, fighting for the maintenance of their way of life and, indirectly, for the conservation of the cerrado”, said researcher Francisco Sousa in an interview to CENARIUM MAGAZINE.

The lawsuit

According to the report of the decision, the Kalunga Quilombo Association claimed in the repossession suit, with a request for provisional injunctive relief, that the Kalunga community is the legitimate owner and possessor of the farm, and that in mid-June 2020, Juvelan invaded the territory, built a house, corral, pasture, and started planting, and threatened other families living in the area, trying to prevent the full exercise of their possessions.

In defense, Juvelan presented an answer and argued that he has occupied the territory since 2013, in the possession of Juarez Ferreira de Sousa, and that the farm is owned by him and his brothers, in addition to reporting the existence of a court decision recognizing the area as private domain, issued in 1992 and already res judicata. In the document, the farmer also defends that it is a private area and that, until the end of the expropriation procedure, there can be no possession of the quilombolas over the place.

Analysis of the records

In analyzing the case records, Federal Judge Thadeu Afonso stated that possession of the territory for the quilombolas is proven, since State Law 11,409/1991, ratified by Supplementary Law 19/1996 and by Presidential Decree of November 20, 2009, recognizes the property as part of the Kalunga Historic Site and Cultural Heritage, therefore, as being of original possession and property of the Kalunga quilombola community.

According to the magistrate, the place is also inhabited by members of the community, who perform rural tasks there on a subsistence basis, thus demonstrating compliance with the social function of possession.

“On the other hand, the defendant has not demonstrated fair and good faith possession. This is because, contrary to what is alleged in the petition for blocking, in the respective registration certificate, the plaintiff’s genitor is not listed as the owner of the Vista Linda 4 Farm, whose possession is the subject of the dispute,” reads an excerpt from the decision.