US Lawmakers Cite Quilombolas to Reject Space Accord With Brazil

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – An agreement between Brazil and the United States for the lease to the US of the Alcântara missile launch site, in the Northeastern region of Brazil, has been receiving criticism from both countries, with US and Brazilian lawmakers urging their respective countries not to approve the accord.

According to critics, the agreement would lead to the displacement of hundreds of Quilombolas (slave descendants) from their homes.

“I rise today in opposition to the expansion of the Alcântara Launch Center n Brazil,” said US House Representative, Hank Johnson Jr. (Dem/GA) last week on the House floor.

“This agreement between Trump and Bolsonaro will (dis)place Afro-Brazilian families from their land, further dispersing an already marginalized community. The expansion of that base on the land will displace some additional 800 families from their protected ancestral land,” he went on to say.

“I appreciate America’s long-standing relationship with Brazil, but I cannot support policies that dehumanize native people and bring harm to vulnerable communities in Brazil,” concluded the lawmaker.

According to Karen Engle co-director of the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice at The University of Texas at Austin, the Technology Safeguards Agreement signed in March of this year by the Trump and Bolsonaro administrations will not only displace hundreds of families but the will also allow the center to block key access to fishing along the coast, affecting the livelihood and economy of quilombola communities throughout the region.

“The agreement will only make things worse. The (Brazil’s) Ministry of Defense conceded that the government will probably expropriate an additional 12,000 hectares along the coastline,” said Engle in an opinion piece to daily The Hill on Wednesday (October 2nd).

Engle says that US House Representatives, Raul Grijalva, Ro Khanna, and Deb Haaland have introduced a resolution calling for the Bolsonaro government to protect quilombolas’ and indigenous peoples’ constitutional rights.

“Congress should pass this resolution, oppose the expansion of the Alcântara Launch Center, and ensure that the U.S. government is not complicit in helping Bolsonaro achieve his goal,” urged Engle.

The criticism from the US comes after disapproval from Brazilian human rights defenders and lawmakers, who see the expansion of the center as a violation of human rights for the quilombolas who live in the area.

“We are extremely concerned about the situation of the quilombolas of Alcântara: Brazil’s agreement with the United States to exploit the airbase will cause the compulsory displacement of two thousand people,” said Diogo Cabral of the Sistema Nacional de Direitos Humanos (human rights entity).

“The agreement hurts the rights of traditional Quilombola peoples and hurts national sovereignty,” said Chamber of Deputies member Ivan Valente, who added that he will file a petition with Brazil’s Supreme Court to ensure that quilombola residents are consulted before Congress signs the agreement.

In the late 1970s, Brazil’s military government started to develop the country’s space program, with the creation of a space center. The chosen area was Cajual Island, in the city of Alcântara, in the Northeastern state of Maranhão. The site is considered to be one of the best launching zones in the world, due to its close proximity to the equator; rockets require thirty percent less fuel to launch satellites into outer space.

In 1983 to make the center operational, the government displaced 312 quilombola families from their lands without consulting them and without paying compensation. The violation of the rights of these families was reported to the International Labor Organization in Geneva, Switzerland in 2008. According to officials, the center currently is on 8,700 hectares of land. An agreement not to extend the current perimeter of the center was ratified by the courts in November of 2008.

However, last year, the administration of President Michel Temer started negotiations with the US government to lease the launch center to the United States. For this agreement to be implemented, the area of the Alcântara Launch Center must be expanded and the quilombola communities who live within the expanded area and those in surrounding locations will have to be removed to the interior of the island.

Many, however, question the removal of those who have lived in the area for decades.

“The existing conflict in Alcântara is a type of genocide that violates social groups using time as a weapon. You have generations (of quilombolas) who do not know what will happen tomorrow; if they will stay or leave, or even when they will leave. When you steal from a social unit its destiny, its future, you directly or indirectly cause insecurity in the group that can lead to its destruction. So, this is a form of genocide. This is the greatest violence that can be committed against people, stealing their future,” stated anthropologist Alfredo Wagner Berno de Almeida, researcher and professor at the State University of Maranhão, who produced a report on the matter for the Federal Public Prosecutors’ Office.

The residents of the quilombos in Alcântara are grandchildren and great-grandchildren of slaves who worked on sugarcane farms located around the island until the late 19th century and remained on the land after the abolition of slavery, which ended sugarcane planting in the region.