This article by Gabriel Souza Bastos[i], CASAS’ member, has originally been published in Portuguese in Boletim Memória No. 2, May 2025, a monthly outreach publication of the Research, Documentation, and Reference Center on Social Movements and Public Policies in Rural Areas (NMSPP), part of the Postgraduate Program in Social Sciences in Development, Agriculture, and Society (CPDA) at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ).
On August 23, 2024, the Brazilian Amnesty Commission[1] granted the first recognition of collective political amnesty for a peasant population in Brazil, accompanied by an official state apology. The approved application, formulated with the aim of granting collective political amnesty to the community of Pedra Lisa, was based on the doctoral thesis of Gabriel Bastos [2], a researcher at NMSPP/CPDA/UFRRJ. Located in the rural borderlands between Japeri and Nova Iguaçu municipalities, Pedra Lisa lies within Baixada Fluminense – a historically marginalized lowland region of Rio de Janeiro’s metropolitan area. During Brazil’s corporate-military dictatorship (1964-1985), the inhabitants of this area faced intense repression[3].
The collective amnesty request was prepared by the thesis author in collaboration with Dr. Thales Treiger’s team – a public defender at the Federal Public Defender’s Office of Rio de Janeiro – on behalf of the Association of the Traditional Peasant Community of Pedra Lisa and Surroundings. This association operates in the same building that once housed the Society of Small Farmers and Squatters of Pedra Lisa, founded in 1948, whose members suffered political persecution during the dictatorial regime.
The recognition of Pedra Lisa as a collective political amnesty beneficiary carries profound significance, not only as Brazil’s first granted peasant community collective amnesty, but also for establishing new interpretive frameworks regarding political repression within the Amnesty Commission’s adjudication criteria for future cases. This bulletin aims to report on this experience, providing context for the events evaluated by the Amnesty Commission.
Land Conflicts and Peasant Mobilization in Baixada Fluminense in the Pre-1964 Coup Period
The land conflicts in Baixada Fluminense preceding the 1964 coup must be understood within the particular nuances of the agrarian question in this peri-urban region – ones that did not involve “fazendeiros” (farm owners) or “latifundiários” (large landowners) in the traditional sense, but rather circumstances where land functioned as speculative capital, acquired and used as a store of value. In this context, those labeled as “grileiros” (land grabbers) ranged from irregular buyers of land to large corporations, intent on displacing the posseiros (squatters/smallholders) who lived there. These conflicts were fundamentally tied to real estate appreciation and speculation, driven both by the expansion of industrial and service activities in what would become the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Area and by state investments in sanitation infrastructure implemented by the federal government—developments that accelerated land valorization across the region[4].
In some of these cases, land treated as speculative capital was connected to other forms of capital. This dynamic is exemplified by the Coimbra Bueno brothers – influential politicians from the state of Goiás – who acquired land in the Cachoeiras de Macacu municipality in 1954 through their firm Agrobrasil Rural Enterprises Ltd[5]; the América Fabril Manufacturing Company, a major textile manufactory in the municipality of Magé[6]; and the Guinle family, whose extraordinary and diversified capital holdings included the Santos Docks Company and Boavista Bank, while in Nova Iguaçu they pursued citrus cultivation, cattle ranching, and land sales through Normandia United Farms Company[7], which disputed lands with the Society of Small Farmers and Squatters of Pedra Lisa. It is crucial to note that some of these actors participated in the political maneuvers that culminated in the 1964 coup.
Given that these and other members of Brazil’s political elites, along with major media outlets, were concentrated in Rio de Janeiro—the federal capital until 1960—the struggle for land on its periphery prior to the 1964 coup functioned as a “resonance box” for the entire country[8]. To illustrate, land disputes between posseiros and the Coimbra Bueno brothers in Cachoeiras de Macacu gained prominence in newspapers, unsettling elites who felt threatened by President João Goulart’s proposed base reforms[9], particularly the agrarian reform[10].
This Bulletin does not aim to exhaustively explain the peasant mobilizations that occurred in Baixada Fluminense during this period. However, it is essential to highlight how the Society of Small Farmers and Squatters of Pedra Lisa exemplifies the political dynamics among rural workers’ organizations in Rio de Janeiro state. This association achieved significant political victories both for its members and for peasants in other regions through strategic alliances that with two federations of small farmers’ associations from Rio de Janeiro state[11], progressive media outlets, labor unions, and political parties, including the Brazilian Communist Party (Partido Comunista Brasileiro – PCB), Brazilian Labor Party (Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro – PTB), and the Social Democratic Party (Partido Social Democrático – PSD). The mobilizations led by these coalitions often resulted in land expropriations by the state government in favor of peasants.
Repressive Events in Baixada Fluminense and the Collective Amnesty Request for Pedra Lisa
In the immediate aftermath of the coup, intense repression unfolded across rural areas of Baixada Fluminense and other regions of Rio de Janeiro state that had been sites of land conflicts and peasant mobilization. In Magé, particularly in the América Fabril land parcel, grileiros began collaborating with the police to illegally evict rural workers without court orders, labeling them as “subversives” or “communists”[12]. In the municipality of Duque de Caxias, conflict zones like the São Lourenço and Capivari Farms – rural areas in the Xerém district near the National Motor Factory – witnessed documented cases of theft, arrests followed by torture, and the destruction of crops and homes by the Army[13]. At São José da Boa Morte Farm in Cachoeiras de Macacu, the Army conducted raids to expel posseiros and detain peasant leaders[14]. In northern Rio de Janeiro, reports emerged of arrests and disappearances at the Imbé Colonial Nucleus, site of a land occupation led by peasant entities[15]. Furthermore, following the coup, 22 land expropriations enacted between 1958-1964 in Rio de Janeiro state in favor of posseiros were reversed[16].
The petition submitted to the Amnesty Commission documents that in Pedra Lisa, on the very day of the coup—April 1, 1964—an armed group associated with grileiros arrived with the intent to locate and assassinate peasant leaders. Shortly thereafter, an Army detachment, equipped with war tanks, occupied the area and began hunting for “subversives,” specifically targeting members of the local peasant association while allegedly searching for weapons supposedly hidden in homes, subjecting residents to violence, according to field research testimonies. According to peasant testimonies, the army ransacked the association’s headquarters and forcibly closed the adjacent Municipal School – originally established through the association’s initiative in the 1950s before being incorporated into the municipal system. According to the same sources, the Army itself planted explosives in the school to manufacture evidence against the persecuted “subversives”.
In this context, local leaders fled and were forced into clandestine existence within the very locality; some were arrested and tortured. Following the military occupation, a climate of political persecution took hold in the area. Interview testimonies describe widespread collaboration with repressive state forces through a group referred to as the “entrega-listas” (literally “list-handers”)—those who acted as informants, supplying names of peasant leaders to the dictatorial regime[17]. In exchange, they received tools, machinery, livestock, and even lands expropriated from persecuted peasant leaders.
By analyzing documentary sources originating from repressive government agencies, it was possible to identify two cases of land appropriation linked to the entrega-lista: those of Bráulio Rodrigues da Silva and Alvino Alves dos Santos[18], both prominent leaders of the association. These cases share common elements: both men fled, were later arrested, and subsequently had their plots occupied by third parties with evident support from the dictatorial regime. However, according to oral sources, the number of victims associated with land loss is significantly greater than just Alvino and Bráulio, suggesting the phenomenon was more widespread than documented in written records. In any case, the analyzed documents strongly corroborate the social representations found in the interviewees’ memories regarding the entrega-lista and its methods of land appropriation. Furthermore, it is evident that this systematic practice operated with the knowledge of the Armed Forces, as demonstrated by a classified document circulated within the Ministry of War, which triggereg a widespread process of land grabbing (grilagem) during the 1960s and 1970s.
It is worth noting that many victims were not even affiliated with political organizations. Numerous testimonies refer to arbitrary actions during the military occupation in 1964 and the subsequent years, including even the expulsion of a family to make way for electrical towers built by military personnel. The documents also reveal that, amid the land seizures, Bráulio Rodrigues’ partner faced threats, while Alvino Alves’ wife and daughter were abducted and threatened.
There are also documentary reports of numerous violent evictions carried out by guards of the Brazilian Institute of Forestry Development (Instituto Brasileiro de Desenvolvimento Florestal – IBDF) in the region, beginning in 1979.
Finally, the collective political amnesty petition also denounces the dismantling of agricultural infrastructure originally established under pre-coup land redistribution policies, such as medical posts, pharmacies, and the railway line peasants used to transport their harvest[19].
The conceptualization of “political repression” within Brazil’s transitional justice framework and the insertion of rural conflicts during the dictatorship period
Despite the creation of Brazil’s National Truth Commission (Comissão Nacional da Verdade – CNV) in 2012, the most important – and long-delayed – transitional justice initiative undertaken in the country, recognition of this particular repressive pattern remains marginal. This occurs primarily for two reasons: First, the dominant historical narrative of the dictatorship era prioritizes victims affiliated with organized leftist groups over those unconnected to political organizations. Second, the CNV’s operational definition of “serious human rights violations”—restricted to arbitrary detention, torture, executions, and forced disappearances—excludes other forms of violence, such as the forced displacement of peasants from lands they had long occupied[20].
In this context, Gilney Viana’s work [21] provides crucial data regarding the low official recognition of peasants as victims: of the 434 deaths and disappearances officially acknowledged by the CNV, only 41 were peasants. In contrast, as noted by Viana, the Peasant Truth Commission[22] documented 1,196 murdered and disappeared peasants and their supporters between 1964 and 1988.
Moreover, as Viana notes, while serious violations against indigenous peoples are absent from both the CNV’s Collective Report (Volume I) and the official list of 434 politically motivated deaths and disappearances (Volume III), they are addressed in Volume II, which contains thematic texts authored independently. Specifically, these violations appear in Thematic Text No. 5, “Human Rights Violations Against Indigenous Peoples,” which concludes that it is “possible to estimate at least 8,350 indigenous deaths during the CNV’s investigation period resulting either from direct government action or its omission. This figure includes only those cases studied here for which reliable estimates could be produced”[23]. In Viana’s words, the CNV thus “documented but did not recognize these indigenous victims of murders and forced disappearances, hence their absence from the Report’s Volume III on Political Deaths and Disappearances.”[24].
Beyond the low number of peasants officially recognized by the CNV as killed or disappeared – and the complete absence of recognized indigenous victims – the 41 listed peasants were among those already acknowledged by the Brazilian state. This recognition originated either from the Report-Book of the Special Commission on Political Deaths and Disappearances and/or the second edition (2009) of the Dossier on Political Deaths and Disappearances Since 1964, produced by the Commission of Family Members of Political Deaths and Disappearances and the Brazilian Amnesty Committee of Rio Grande do Sul, both civil society organizations. These reports operated under a narrow conception of victimhood, restricted solely to political militants, requiring documented evidence of “participation or alleged participation in political activities,” following the pre-established criteria[25].
The under recognition of victims of forced displacements also appears reflected in the records of the Amnesty Commission. A study on Brazil’s transitional justice in this specific context[26], reveals that between 2002, when the Commission began operations, and February 2020, it received 78,589 reparation requests. Among these, only 2,413 (3%) were filed by peasants. Of the 2,413 peasant claims filed, only 263 (10%) were processed, while 851 were rejected, 348 were archived, and 950 remained pending until February 2020. Indigenous claims proved even fewer in number: only 102 (0.1% of total requests). Of these, 15 (15%) were approved, compared to 2 rejections, 12 archived cases, and 74 still under review until February 2020. By contrast, 50% of all requests (38,966) were approved, while 37% (28,748) were rejected or archived. The remaining cases were still pending during this period.
However, in 2024, the Amnesty Commission reviewed and approved the first collective claims related to forced land dispossession. In April, collective political amnesty was granted to the Krenak Indigenous people of eastern Minas Gerais state and to the Guarani Kaiowá of the Guyraroká Indigenous community in Mato Grosso do Sul state. That same year in July, collective political amnesty was extended to the Kaiowá people of the Sucurui’y Indigenous Territory, also located in Mato Grosso do Sul. In the following month, the first collective amnesty petition on behalf of peasants was examined by the Amnesty Commission.
The appraisal of Pedra Lisa’s collective reparation request: assessments and perspectives
After initial meetings between the thesis author and the Regional Human Rights public defender (along with his team) from Rio de Janeiro’s Federal Public Defender’s Office, contact was made with the Association of the Traditional Peasant Community of Pedra Lisa and Surroundings, to organize an expanded meeting at the association’s headquarters. During this gathering, victims and family members recounted human rights violations while presenting newspapers and Alvino Alves dos Santos’ political amnesty request – empirical material that exceeded the thesis’ prior research scope. Subsequently, the association documented multiple video testimonies to strengthen the petition. This evidence, combined with the thesis research, supported the formal request submitted to the Amnesty Commission in October 2023.
This was the third collective reparation request addressed to the Amnesty Commission, and the first aimed at a peasant population since the adoption of its new Rules of Procedure in March 2023, which authorized collective amnesty petitions[27].
Silvio Almeida, then serving as Brazil’s Minister of Human Rights and Citizenship, present at the event, emphasized in his opening remarks that the dictatorship sought to “reconfigure spatiotemporal frameworks (…) because they are fundamental to organizing and reorganizing labor. In doing so, it also reshaped subjectivities, placing labor at the service of specific groups.” He argued that “the dictatorship’s tentacles reached entire groups through policies aimed at building a nation based on a model of concentrated landownership and wealth.” Thus, he contended, the 1964 coup “materialized the interruption of an incipient transformation, halting the advancement of land and income redistribution policies.” Regarding Pedra Lisa, Almeida stated that “the events of April 1st in that region attest to the dictatorship’s structured plan for the area and its residents,” evidenced through multiple coordinated measures: the political persecution of local leaders, shuttering of the municipal school, systematic land dispossessions, and sustained military occupation. These interconnected actions, he concluded, produced enduring consequences that continue to reverberate, affecting both the original victims and successive generations who inherited the socioeconomic disruptions.
Subsequently, Counselor Vanda Davi Fernandes de Oliveira, the case rapporteur, not only recommended approval of the collective amnesty petition but began her remarks by fully endorsing the Minister’s argumentation. During his intervention, Counselor Mário Albuquerque asserted that, as the first collective case involving peasants, it would “establish a sort of precedent,” since this was hardly Brazil’s only instance of “territorial reconfiguration” and repression targeting the very political functioning of an existing peasant organization. Counselor José Carlos Moreira da Silva Filho reinforced this perspective, emphasizing the case’s potential to set a benchmark for evaluating future collective amnesty claims. He particularly noted how the dictatorship’s repression had specifically targeted forms of collective organization intrinsically tied to their land-based foundations.
Whether this case’s approval will indeed establish a new paradigm for assessing similar situations—involving forced land dispossessions and other forms of violence previously unrecognized—remains uncertain. However, the recent granting of collective political amnesty, both for Indigenous peoples and for Pedra Lisa, suggests early signs of a potential trend reversal. This raises a critical question: Could this shift eventually extend to individual requests in the future?
In any case, it is crucial to emphasize that the struggle for symbolic reparations—particularly through formal state apologies to collective entities—can and should serve as an instrument of political mobilization. After all, collective reparation can only be materially achieved through political contestation, by “picking up the thread of history precisely where they sought to cut it” – to borrow Leonel Brizola’s phrase[28]. It is, therefore, about reinserting the agrarian reform agenda into public debate, at local, regional, and national levels.
Note:
The collective amnesty application for Pedra Lisa, including all attached documents compiled in a single file, is available for consultation in the archives of NMSPP/CPDA/UFRRJ.
[1] Established by Law No. 10.559/2002, the Amnesty Commission is responsible for examining amnesty applications that provide clear evidence of persecution of an exclusively political nature, as well as issuing advisory opinions to assist the relevant Minister of State. Since its creation, the Amnesty Commission had been under the Ministry of Justice. However, starting in early 2023, it was transferred to the Ministry of Human Rights.
[2] BASTOS, G. (2022). Memória e Resistência Camponesa em Tempos de Repressão na Baixada Fluminense [PhD Thesis]. Programa de Pós-Graduação de Ciências Sociais em Desenvolvimento, Agricultura e Sociedade, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. n addition to fieldwork, the thesis utilized documentary sources from the Rio de Janeiro State Public Archive (APERJ); the NMSPP collection; newspapers made available by the National Library’s Digital Newspaper Archive and the Documentation and Image Center (CEDIM/UFRRJ); the Diocese of Nova Iguaçu, which maintains documentary records on the studied conflicts; personal archives provided by residents of Pedra Lisa; the National Archive, particularly the Memórias Reveladas collection, which provides extensive documentation from the dictatorial period; minutes from the Nova Iguaçu Municipal Council; and amnesty requests supplied by the National Association of Retired and Pensioned Political Amnesty Recipients (ANAPAP).
[3] Conceptually, the term “Pedra Lisa Region” is used to refer to a political territory in the border area between these two municipalities, historically influenced by the former Society of Small Farmers and Squatters of Pedra Lisa, where it consolidated its membership base between 1948 and 1964. This region encompasses the vicinity of the Pedra Lisa neighborhood – which contains the association’s headquarters and the municipal school – now located within Japeri’s administrative boundaries. (Bastos, 2022).
[4] Grynszpan, M. (1987). Mobilização Camponesa e Competição Política no Estado do Rio de Janeiro (1950-1964) [Master’s Dissertation]. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Antropologia Social, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro.
[5] Brito, R. B. (2018). “Luta-se pela terra livre”: conflitos fundiários e ocupações de terra na região da Fazenda São José da Boa Morte. In L. Medeiros (Ed.), Ditadura, Conflito e Repressão no Campo: A resistência camponesa no estado do Rio de Janeiro (pp. 205–243). Consequência.
[6] Ribeiro, F. (2015). A foice, o martelo e outras ferramentas de ação política: Os trabalhadores rurais e têxteis de Magé/RJ (1956-1973) [PhD Thesis]. Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação Histórica, Fundação Getúlio Vargas; Teixeira, M. A. (2018). Tempo da Ditadura: Conflitos por terra e repressão política contra trabalhadores rurais em Magé. In L. Medeiros (Ed.), Ditadura, Conflito e Repressão no Campo: A resistência camponesa no estado do Rio de Janeiro (pp. 169–204). Consequência.
[7] Bulcão, C. (2015). Os Guinle: A história de uma dinastia. Intrínseca; Ferreira, Á. M. (2021). Ocupações de Terra e Políticas Agrárias no Estado do Rio de Janeiro: a trajetória do assentamento de Campo Alegre (Nova Iguaçu e Queimados). Revista IDeAS, 15(jan/dez), 1–26.
[8] Lerrer, D. F. (2023). Memória, recalque e questão agrária no Brasil. Raízes: Revista de Ciências Sociais e Econômicas, 43(1), 79–105. https://doi.org/10.37370/raizes.2023.v43.820.
[9] The Base Reforms proposed economic changes that would transform the banking, tax, and administrative systems, alongside reforms that confronted social and developmental perspectives, including university, urban, political, and agrarian reforms.
[10] Lerrer, D.F. (2023).
[11] These were the Federation of Small Farmers’ Associations of the State of Rio de Janeiro (FALERJ) and the Federation of Small Farmers of the State of Rio de Janeiro (FLERJ). For further details about the founding circumstances of both federations, as well as their political disputes, see: Bastos (2022). For a more concise analysis, see: Bastos, G. (2024a). Camponeses, operários e a tentativa de resistência armada ao golpe de 1964 na Baixada Fluminense. Revista Mundos Do Trabalho, 16, 1–25.
[12] Teixeira, 2018.
[13] Maia, A. (2018). O lugar do rural na Baixada Fluminense: incorporação urbana, luta pela terra e articulações ruro-fabris em Duque de Caxias. In L. S. (org) Medeiros (Ed.), Ditadura, conflitos e repressão no campo: A resistência camponesa no estado do Rio de Janeiro (pp. 93–130). Consequência.
[14] Brito, 2018.
[15] Neves, D. (2018). Posseiros e comunistas: reparações diferenciais de direitos humanos. In Medeiros, L. (Ed.), Ditadura, Conflito e Repressão no Campo: A resistência camponesa no estado do Rio de Janeiro (pp. 287–325). Consequência.
[16] Ernandez, M. (2010). Sementes em trincheiras: estado do Rio de Janeiro (1948-1996). In L. Sigaud, M. Ernandez, & M. Rosa (Eds.), Ocupações e acampamentos: estudo comparado sobre a sociogênese das mobilizações por reforma agrária no Brasil (Rio Grande do Sul, Rio de Janeiro e Pernambuco) 1960-2000 (pp. 133–266). Garamond.
[17] Wordplay alluding to the integralistas of the Brazilian Integralist Action (Ação Integralista Brasileira – AIB), a fascist-inspired ultranationalist political movement founded in 1932.
[18] Although their land losses were not mentioned, both Alvino and Bráulio had their applications for political amnesty granted by the Amnesty Commission in the 2000s, due to persecution suffered during the dictatorship for their affiliation with the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) and their roles as local leaders. A similar case was that of Wanthoyr Dias Lacerda – spelled as “Vantuil” in the thesis, following the local writing convention of Pedra Lisa at the time – whose posthumous process benefited his widow and was also approved in the same decade. These three cases formed the basis for Pedra Lisa’s collective amnesty request.
[19] All repressive events mentioned here are analyzed in Bastos (2022). For a more concise analysis, see: Bastos, G. (2024b). A repressão esquecida: os camponeses e a ditadura em uma zona rural da Baixada Fluminense. RURIS (Campinas, Online), 15(2), 39–83. https://doi.org/10.53000/rr.v15i2.17798.
[20] Teló, F., Gasparotto, A., Medeiros, L., & Saraiva, R. (2021). Land and transitional justice in Brazil. International Journal of Transitional Justice, 15(1), 190-209.
[21] Viana, G. (2020). Camponeses na Comissão Nacional da Verdade. In S. Sauer (Ed.), Lutas, Memórias e Violações no Campo Brasileiro: Conflitos, Repressão e Resistências no Passado e Presente (pp. 283–306). Outras Expressões.
[22] his initiative was formed by academic researchers and members of civil society organizations, emerging from the Unified National Gathering of Workers and Peoples of the Countryside, Waters, and Forests in August 2012. The Peasant Truth Commission collaborated with the National Truth Commission’s Working Group dedicated to these populations.
[23] Kehl, M. R. (as cited in Viana, 2020, p. 293).
[24] VIANA, 2018, p. 293.
[25] According to Viana (2020).
[26] Teló, F., Gasparotto, A., Medeiros, L., & Saraiva, R. (2021, p. 203).
[27] According to information obtained by the “Fala.BR” platform on November 9, 2023, there were only three collective political amnesty requests filed, in the name of: Chinese Mission, Civil Air Patrol, and Association of the Traditional Community of Peasants of Pedra Lisa and Surroundings. By April 25, 2024, a new response indicated that the registered applications now covered the following groups: Guyraroká Indigenous Community, Japanese Immigrants Collective, Krenak Indigenous Community, Civil Air Patrol, Chinese Diplomatic Mission, Association of the Traditional Community of Peasants of Pedra Lisa and Surroundings, Federation of Favela Associations of the State of Rio de Janeiro (FAFERJ), Kaiowá Indigenous Community of the Sucuriy Indigenous Territory, Metalworkers Collective of São Paulo and Mogi das Cruzes, and PANAIR Collective.
[28] Brazilian nationalist politician who was a steadfast opponent of the corporate-military dictatorship.
[i] PhD from the Postgraduate Program in Social Sciences in Development, Agriculture, and Society at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (CPDA/UFRRJ) and researcher affiliated with the NMSPP. Currently serving as a substitute professor in the Department of Social Sciences at the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO). Email: gabrielsoubastos@gmail.com.
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The Collective of Agrarian Scholar-Activists from the Global South (CASAS) is a community of Scholar-Activists working in critical agrarian studies.