The occupation of INCRA / RS

I arrived by bus from the northern region of the state late on a Monday night and went to the Movement’s residence hall in Porto Alegre. I had originally planned to rest from my trip and find a ride the next day to the region of São Gabriel, several hours west into the countryside where most mobilizations are taking place in Rio Grande do Sul (most encampments have been moved there to form a critical mass in the struggle for land in that region). Once I arrived, however, I was informed about an “activity” early the next morning and decided to take part. Those within the Movement in Porto Alegre knew that a mobilization on the regional headquarters of the National Colonization and Agrarian Reform Institute (INCRA, the government agency in charge of such issues) was to take place soon, in conjunction with an escalation of mobilizations in São Gabriel, but it was only the night before that those in support capacities in Porto Alegre received confirmation of the mobilization.

After very few hours of sleep I made my way to the INCRA building, where some from the residence hall had already arrived somewhat earlier and taken their positions inside and around the building. I was entrusted to join two other comrades with the duty of keeping the front gate open when and while some 9 bus loads of landless peasant families arrived from their countryside encampments with their personal belongings (rolled up mattresses and some clothes) and additional gear and food for a lasting occupation (such as pots, stoves, rice and beans). These were busloads of encamped landless peasants from São Gabriel and, mostly, other camp sites around the northern region of the state (where the Judiciary has been consistently issuing orders for the removal of encamped families from occupied farms, from the sides of the roads, and, ultimately, even from other previously established agrarian reform settlements… With no place else to go, these landless families went to the government bureaucracy in charge of obtaining land for their settlement to pressure it to advance the process in São Gabriel, where simultaneous mobilizations were taking place, and elsewhere in the state.).

It was very, very rainy, but this didn’t matter for the mobilization. After the first few hundred people made their way into the building with their personal belongings, some of the men that had gone in first began to go back to the buses to bring the rest of their heavier gear (pots and stoves) and food (mostly rice and beans). Once most women, children and personal belongings were already inside, we understood that an attempt to close the gate would be futile to stop the occupation. One, then another, then finally all three of us that had been guarding the gate began to help carrying these heavy items. The Movement’s flags were placed at the gate and banners with slogans for agrarian reform and against the state government and its repressive actions (that had murdered another landless peasant in São Gabriel just three weeks before) were hung throughout the front of the occupied building. The entire process took place completely non-violently and people were remarkably well disciplined, with the entire building being occupied before 10am.

The bureaucrats that had actually arrived to work on time began to pack their bags to leave, telling their peers arriving late, “don’t even bother going in there, its packed with the landless.” I was not too near them to follow their conversations in depth, but it looked as though they wanted to take advantage of the situation to orchestrate their own strike – instead of working harder to attend the demands of the occupying landless peasants, they chose instead to extend their long holiday until “decent” work conditions were reinstated by their repressive government.

Soon families organized themselves into the “base nuclei” already set up at their encampments and the buses in which they came, and decided on which floor each group would settle during the course of the occupation. Personal belongings were soon spread throughout the entire hallway of all eight floors of the building, but the office spaces themselves were not occupied by decision of the Movement (also, most had been still locked, or where soon locked when the occupation began). Three kitchen groups soon began to set up their large gas-fired stoves (each with at least 5 tops) under the awning right in front of the building, an empty room near the front of the building was found and designated communal pantry, into which all foodstuffs were taken, and the coordinating committees began their articulation with the base nuclei to set their terms of negotiation. The INCRA superintendent wasn’t at his office, and his deputy refused the initial negotiation “as long as the building was occupied” (ignoring the fact that the purpose of the occupation was obviously to guarantee that a negotiation would take place and that its terms would be followed).

The first lunch was served to the 450 people occupying the building, and in the afternoon the first sector meetings began to take place to organize a lasting encampment in the occupied INCRA building (since by then it had already become clear that no easy negotiation would be forthcoming through the mere show of force and that the occupation would indeed be necessary). Companheira Isabela, who I had already met on my travel into the countryside a few days earlier, introduced me to some other comrades in her sector, education, and this determined the capacity in which I was to lend support to the occupation. We raised an inventory of the children participating in the occupation up through the 5th grade, split among ourselves the responsibilities over each grade and a daycare (ciranda), searched for spaces to use for the education activities, and decided on the class schedule for the following day. We chose the afternoon, since that was when most meetings would be taking place and parents would need to leave their children to participate fully in the collective decisions over their terms of negotiation and the next steps of the occupation, as well as building maintenance activities (cleaning, etc.).

Since I knew that I would likely have to take my flight back to Brasília before the end of the occupation, I decided to work in the larger group of the daycare, where my leaving would cause less problems than if I had taken on the more committed responsibility over teaching one of the grades myself (or along with one other person). We chose an empty bank facility in the main floor of the building for the daycare, since its heavy double-doors would keep inside any runaway kid, and since the space could be kept relatively isolated from the busier parts of the building (in order for the smallest kids to take their naps, play at ease, etc.). The first activity in which all kids engaged was the making of signs to stake their own claim to the spaces of education. In the daycare, they stamped their little hands and feet with different color paints on a sign where we wrote “ciranda” (daycare). Still on the afternoon of the first day of the occupation, I ran an errand back to COCEARGS to pick up some toys for the children in the daycare. (Since I didn’t have any specific duties at the occupation, unlike most others, running such errands was a task more easily entrusted to me.) School materials for the children in grades 1 through 5 only arrived on the following day, when some unionized teachers from a nearby town brought donations.

During the first three days of the occupation, INCRA requested the local judiciary to issue a removal demand, but the judge refused saying that, since INCRA is a federal agency, the federal government could send in the federal police or the military to remove the occupiers without recourse to the civil courts (i.e., him). No legal claims were filled for three full days since neither the federal agency nor the local judiciary wanted to take responsibility for forcing the removal of 450 peaceful people, including children, from the public building of the bureaucracy that has been stalling their settlement and keeping them homeless, that is, landless. During this time, a public hearing took place at the state’s legislative assembly on “the criminalization of social movements” (it was called by a representative from the Communist Party who wore a very fine three-piece suit and spoke forcefully and eloquently, and held at the legislative assembly’s “citizenship and human rights commission”) and a meeting also took place in Brasília (thousands of kilometers away) between members of the Movement and the federal-level bureaucrats from INCRA. Recommendations came out of the first meeting, but the other seemed even less productive, and no direct negotiation was obtained by the fourth day of the occupation, when the judge finally caved in and signed the order for the removal of all occupiers within the next 48 hours.

During the days of the occupation a routine began to take shape, with the previous day’s leftovers being heated up for breakfast (along with a little bit of coffee, flat breads made then and there on frying pans, and lots and lots of chimarrão, i.e., mate), a few meetings during the morning and more during the afternoon, when we operated the education programs, the same rice and beans and some donated veggies (by Mauro from Integração Gaúcha) for lunch and dinner, and in the evening a movie was shown in the largest room at the top of the building through a projector brought from COCEARGS. One night we watched the first of the new Che Guevara films, on another night we watched a documentary about the popular uprising in Oaxaca in 2006, and all other films were similarly themed. There was a lot of time to get to know these people who go camp in extremely precarious conditions for months and years in the struggle for their own piece of ground, and all these conversations were fueled by lots and lots of hot chimarrão.

While I was there, I slept on a small couch on one of the hallways since I didn’t have a mattress. A 40f sleeping bag kept me nice and comfortable, though, even while it added to the way in which I stood out. Still, I soon made friends with others in that floor, helped them cleaning our bathroom regularly, and they shared with me their toilet paper, plates and silverware (since I didn’t have any with me while at the occupation). There was always a very long wait for the few showers available in a single bathroom in the first floor, so one was rigged in the bathroom of our floor, and even still I went without a shower until the third day, when I went on another errand (to bring some extra clothes for the occupiers and another piece of gear from COCEARGS for the movie showings) and accepted Jana’s invitation to shower and rest a moment with her at her apartment.

On the Friday of that week I had to leave to take my flight back to Brasília, and although I was no longer there to follow what happened, I know that the 450 landless peasants occupying the INCRA building refused to leave at the end of the 48 hours allotted in the judiciary’s removal demand. I do not know if the military police attempted to enter the building and dismantle the occupation, but I do know that a massive siege was staged in São Gabriel against the escalated mobilizations there, and those comrades decided to end their mobilization in order to avoid another conflict like the one in which Elton Brum da Silva had been murdered by the military police just three weeks prior in that very same place. Knowing of this decision, the peasants who were mobilized in Porto Alegre decided to follow in solidarity and disband their occupation as well, on the following Tuesday, a full week after the occupation had begun. It would have been unwise, they thought, to aggravate a situation in Porto Alegre against a decision of those in São Gabriel who were under far more severe repression, seeing the occupation of the INCRA building as an extension of the broader struggle being waged in the countryside itself.

The immediate goals of the occupation were not achieved, but there is a recognition that such are only the maneuvers of a long and intricate class struggle, where, as in any other struggle, there are times to advance and times to retreat. Nationwide mobilizations have already been in the works for the month of October, and the Movement in Rio Grande do Sul “jumped the gun” in launching these mobilizations on their own during early September. This was due to the particular circumstances of state repression, criminalization and judiciary blockading that have been so prominent in that state in recent times, and it demonstrates also the independence with which each regional branch of the Movement acts, as well as the independence within the sectors of the Movement in the same region. Still, the Movement has deep roots in the South and it remains strong in that state, so no one doubts that they will launch a new wave of mobilizations soon, most likely in conjunction with the series of mobilizations planned for this October.