BRAZIL:
'Quilombos' Fight
Exclusion
By
Fabiana Frayssinet
RIO DE JANEIRO,
(Tierramérica) - More
than a century after the
abolition of slavery,
Brazil still has small
remnant "quilombos",
free settlements created
by fugitive African
slaves in the 17th and
18th centuries.
Escaped slaves sought
refuge in dense jungles
or remote mountain
regions, where they set
up settlements across
colonial Latin America,
under different names,
such as quilombo or 'palenque.
"Today also they are
trying to resist,
creating ties of
historical and cultural
identification," Givânia
Silva, under-secretary
for traditional
community policy at the
government's Special
Secretariat for Racial
Equality Promotion
Policy (SEPPIR), told
Tierramérica.
A government development
plan seeks to improve
their living conditions,
which are among the
worst in Brazil.
Coordinated by SEPPIR,
the proposal for the "Quilombolas"
(quilombo inhabitants)
includes granting land
titles -- a process that
got underway during the
Fernando Henrique
Cardoso administration
(1995-2003) --,
improving roads, and
providing sanitation,
water, education and
health services.
The Quilombolas
Development Programme,
with participation from
seven ministries,
according to what the
programme's press
secretary Isabel
Clavelín told
Tierramérica, is
included in the
framework of another
created by the Luiz
Inácio Lula da Silva
government in 2004 "to
recover the identity and
improve the living
conditions of these
communities," according
to its mission document.
Initially it is to
benefit 525 communities
in 22 of Brazil's 26
states, with plans to
expand through 2010. The
focus will be on
guaranteeing access to
land.
"Development for a rural
community without land
is fiction," says Silva.
"If they don't have
formal title to their
land and their property
is seized or occupied,
what kind of development
can we talk about?"
According to the
Secretariat, in Brazil
quilombos are commonly
associated with school
history lessons, as
something of the past
that disappeared when
slavery ended in Brazil
in 1888.
But these communities
continue to exist
throughout the country,
with the highest
concentration in Bahía
(northeast), Mato Grosso
(west), Goiás (central),
Minas Gerais (southeast)
and Pará (north). They
can also be found in
cities like Rio de
Janeiro and Sao Paulo.
"Many of these urban
communities weren't
always urban. The cities
grew and encompassed
them, not the reverse,"
said Silva.
"The current legislation
recognises quilombos
based on Convention 169
of the International
Labour Organisation,
which establishes the
self-determination of
peoples," added Silva,
who comes from a
Quilombola community,
Conceição das Crioulas,
in the north-eastern
state of Pernambuco.
A survey by the
governmental Palmares
Foundation found 1,170
remnant quilombo
communities. But SEPPIR
estimates the total
could surpass 3,000.
This would represent
about 1.7 million
people, in a country of
189 million inhabitants.
According to the 2002
census, 48 percent of
Brazilians are black or
of mixed race.
Afro-descendants "make
up 70 percent of the
country's poorest
population. It is fair
and urgent that the same
State that repressed
them now takes effective
action to return their
conditions of dignity
and promote their
permanence," said Silva.
Historically located far
from urban centres and
in inaccessible areas,
the quilombos survived
through farming and
small businesses and
attempted to recuperate
African social
organisation. The most
famous was the Palmares
quilombo, a fortified
citadel that lasted a
century and whose
population reached
15,000.
According to Silva,
isolation made their
physical survival
possible, as well as the
survival of their
cultural identity. But
it also worsened their
living conditions,
according to a study by
the Ministry of Social
Development titled "Quilombola
Call for Nutrition -
2006".
The study shows that
among Quilombolas, the
proportion of
malnourished children up
to age five is 76
percent higher than
among the national child
population, and 44.5
percent higher than
among the rural child
population as a whole.
In addition, 91 percent
of these families have
incomes of less than 190
dollars a month.
The United Nations
Development Programme,
which runs two support
projects for the
descendants of
Quilombolas, noted that
just 3.2 percent of the
children live in homes
with access to
sanitation.
The regularisation of
lands, through
collective property
titles, is one of the
more complicated issues.
The National Institute
of Colonisation and
Agrarian Reform (INCRA)
says the communities
must first file a
declaration issued by
the Palmares Foundation
in which they are
identified as surviving
quilombos.
The process involves
experts ranging from
anthropologists to land
surveyors. After INCRA
recognises the land
boundaries, it can issue
an expropriation or
payment in cases of land
in dispute.
There are currently 585
applications for land
regularisation under way
in INCRA, and 31 titles
were issued between 2003
and 2006.
"I hope that these
initiatives serve to
compensate the historic
injustice committed
against the black
population in Brazil,"
said Silva.
(*Originally published
by Latin American
newspapers that are part
of the Tierramérica
network. Tierramérica is
a specialised news
service produced by IPS
with the backing of the
United Nations
Development Programme
and the United Nations
Environment Programme.) |
