PARAGUAY (24/06/2005) - Brazilian growers of genetically modified (GMO) soy, under the protection of police and paramilitary forces, have attacked a peasant community, TEKOJOJA, in Caaguazu. They have evicted 270 people, arrested 130, burned their crops and bulldozed all 54 of their homes. Angel Cristaldo (20 years old) and Leopoldo Torres (49 years old) were both shot and killed by hired gunmen.

A Canadian anthropologist witnessed this event - click here for testimony
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The peasant community of Tekojoja is a land settlement of 56 peasant families on 500 hectares, located 70 km from the city of Caaguazu in Paraguay. The Tekojoja community is part of the Organización Agraria y Popular, part of MCNOC (National coordination platform of peasant organisations) via Campesina Paraguay. They are also involved in the Frente por la Soberanía y la Vida (Front for Food Sovereignty and Life).

Caauguazu together with San Pedro are the main regions where GM soy monocultures have been expanding in Paraguay in the last 5 years. There are 2 million hectares of GM soy monocultures in Paraguay and the government has plans to expand that by another 2 million hectares. In Paraguay less than 2% of the population owns 70% of the land causing the expulsion of the peasants from their historical territories. GM soy crops grown for export are a principal cause of this severe situation. The rate of land conflicts has multiplied in recent years. In 2004, 162 land conflicts and 118 land occupations took place.

Tekojoja is one of the peasant settlements that was recovered during Paraguay's land reforms, however many of these lands have gone back to the hands of large private land owners by illegal and corrupted manoeuvres or by tricking peasants. This is the case of the Tekojoja community which has been threatened by GM soy monoculture expansion since its beginning.

Aldemir Opperman is a Brazilian GM soy producer who wants to control the land of the Tekojoja community. He has begun a juridical trial against the peasants despite the fact that the settlement was legally recognised 3 years ago by the current government of Nicanor Duarte Frutos. Carlos González, a member of the Coordinación de la Organización Agraria y Popular states "the judge in charge of the juridical process has never taken into account that the land belonged to the state and was donated to the peasant organisations with the land reform program". In August 2004, the Tekojoja was attacked during an attempted eviction. Many people were injured and several were arrested.

On Friday June, 25th at 5:30 in the morning, attorneys Pedro Torrales and Nelly Varela appeared with 150 policemen with the intention of evicting the whole community. During the eviction, and in the presence of the attorneys, people were brutally harassed and beaten. While the police were evicting and arresting the people, the paramilitary groups burned their homes and then levelled them with caterpillar tractors.

In the eviction, Aldemir Opperman, joined by hired gunmen, entered the land with trucks and from these shot the peasants, killing Angel Cristaldo (20 years old) and Leopoldo Torres (49 years old) and severely injuring 5 more people in front of the policemen present in the settlement. One is still in critical condition in the Hospital La Candelaria (Caaguazu). Anibal Gonzalez underwent emergency surgery yesterday. The Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, the National Comission of Human Rights of Paragauy is covering the health care cost as the health and social services in the country have been privatized.

In total, 130 people were arrested, 40 of them children, and they were taken to the local jail in Caaguazu. Jorge Galeano, a spoke person of the community, said that after the incident 29 men, 19 women and 40 children were released. Several peasants have been missing since Friday.

Aldemir Opperman and several of his gunmen have been arrested because of the murders. During the arrest a whole arsenal of weapons were found: 2 12-gauge shotguns, 2 20-gauge shotguns, one 38-calibre revolver, and ammunition packages for the shotguns. All these were found in the trucks that entered the peasant community to destroy the houses and crops. The actions of these paramilitary groups have been widely denounced during the last years. It is with the help of these groups that the majority of the evictions take place, usually with the collaboration of military and police groups. The last time this was denounced was in January this year when Jorge Galeano publicly denounced Opperman for hiring armed groups to terrorize the peasant communities.

Urgent help is required for the 270 people that have lost all their belongings - they have gone back to their land where nothing is left. The [disputed] landowner took away 3 trucks full of the peasants' belongings and only one has been found back and is in the hands of the police. The whole community is now facing the winter without clothes, food and shelter.

The peasant organizations have planned several demonstrations for the coming days. There will be demonstrations in Asuncion in front of the attorneys offices, denouncing the behaviour of the two attorneys that ordered the evictions. One of them, Nelly Varela, verbally ordered police to take children out of school and arrest them and take them to jail as they were criminals, stated Galeano. The peasant organization will also try to meet with the president of INDERT (Rural Development and Land Issue Institution) and demand the protection of their lands by this institute. "Ko yvyko oremba'e, ha roî roproba haguãicha upéva; roguerekopa la documento ome'eva'ekue oréve Indert ha upévare ndorosê mo'ai ko'águi" (this land belongs to us and we can show it, we have the documents from the government institution INDERT and we will not leave), stated Galeano.

We ask international organizations to spread news of this situation, network for solidarity actions and to send human rights observers to Paraguay. Many land conflicts take place during the soy crop season (December-March) when peasants try to stop pesticide fumigations in the surroundings of their communities, confronting the police and military that guard the soy fields.

The peasant communities need help in the form of support for legal advocacy and health care. They need to cover the costs of lawyers for the juridical processes defending their lands and to denounce the violation of their rights. The health care is privatized in Paraguay and the peasants do not have access to it. They are intensively poisoned by the fumigation of pesticides and the community members are suffering severe health problems and need to do tests and buy medicines. The coordination of women of peasant and indigenous women - CONAMURI - is currently maintaining the court case against two Brazilian soy producers accused of murdering an 11 year old boy, Silvino Talavera by their careless application of Monsanto's Round-Up Ready herbicide.