Struggle for Land in Pernambuco: Tensions Between the Social and the Environmental (1986–1993)

Abstract

This research approaches the post-dictatorship land conflicts at the Pitanga sugar mill, in Pernambuco Sugarcane Zone. In February 1986 and August 1987, two occupations occurred at that property belonging to the Paulista Textile Company (Companhia de Tecidos Paulista – CTP), detainer of the Casas Pernambucanas retail store chain. Tensions and negotiations dragged on for 8 years permeated by occupants’ actions with the support of rural unions, their Federation (FETAPE) and the church. The struggle of the called “pitangueiros” grasped the capital Recife, promoting the intensification of the dispute for land and the ongoing re-democratization on reassuring civil and political rights. It marked the radicalization of the land reform and it constituted a sociability and mobilization space for social organizations and political parties in the context of the relative political opening. The second occupation, in 1987, emphasized another diverging point and threatened to put in check all the expropriation and creation of settlements: the existence of extensive areas of Atlantic Forest in the location, split by springs and watercourses. The occurrence of this new movement contributed to refresh the argument prone to preservation and to rise the tension and violence of the police and CTP private security forces already existent in the region.