Brazil will apologize to communities affected by the construction of the Alcântara space center
The Brazilian state will apologize to the communities of slave descendants affected by the displacements and human rights violations committed by the government in the 1980s for the construction of the Alcântara Aerospace Launch Center in the northeast of the country.
The executive secretary of the Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship of Brazil, Rita Oliveira, confirmed the apology request in declarations to Efe before the beginning of the hearing held today by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Santiago, Chile.
The secretary explained that compensation and sustainable land titling would be sought through public policies that respect these communities’ traditions and life models.
The Alcântara conflict involves 152 quilombola communities, mostly descendants of African slaves and indigenous people, who claim 85,537 hectares of ancestral lands and territories in the state of Maranhão.
“Brazil has decided to change its position on this case and will recognize its responsibility for the territorial displacement of quilombola communities and for the long period in which these communities did not have access to their territories and titles to their territories, and will also recognize the absence of sufficient provision of protection mechanisms for a long time,” explained Rita Oliveira.
“It is a partial recognition of responsibility to recognize our omission in providing protection mechanisms to this community and their territories.”
“In addition, through public policies, we are taking several measures of progressive titling of these territories,” she added.
Aligned to this argument, the executive secretary highlighted that the dialogue with the affected communities would be done through working groups to reach fair and progressive compensatory agreements with public policies that are “sustainable” and that respect the traditional way of life of these communities, with the necessary recognition of technological progress”.
“The launching center is compatible with a sustainable development of the communities and, therefore, we have been thinking about alternatives to reconcile these interests,” she stressed.
In this sense, the interest of the Brazilian Government is to go beyond a simple apology and propose commitments that allow “projecting a future of construction of alternatives in dialogue with the communities.”
According to the representative of the Brazilian Government, territorial demarcation work will be carried out that will last a year.
After this year, the working group created at the time will start the progressive titling, which will last about two years.
Rita Oliveira confirmed that the decision of the Brazilian government to change its position is also a message about the need to value the territory and respect the ways of life of these communities.
Quilombolas is the term that refers to African descendants who live in quilombos, and there are about 15,000 communities of this nature spread throughout the Brazilian territory.
The case of the Alcântara quilombola communities is one of three that the regional court based in Costa Rica will analyze during its 157th regular session, which runs in the Chilean capital until Friday.
With information from Lusa
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