The São Paulo Court of Justice on November 23 authorized the eviction of 450 families living in the Marielle Vive (‘Marielle Lives’) Camp of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST), in Valinhos municipality, São Paulo state, Brazil.
For more than two years, around 700 families from the MST have been transforming the idle setting of the old Eldorado Ranch into land producing healthy, agro-ecological foods. The Marielle Vive camp was created on April 14, 2018, a month after the murder of Rio de Janeiro socialist city councilwoman Marielle Franco, and her driver Anderson Gomes.
The Court order comes in the wake of a repossession suit filed by El Dorado Empreendimentos Imobiliários Farm, which holds the property records of the area. The Marielle Camp is surrounded by luxurious blocks and has been under the gaze of real-estate speculators for some time now.
In response to the eviction order, noted scholar Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad have extended their solidarity to the residents of the Camp and released a statement. The same has been published below:
Four hundred and fifty families are at risk of being evicted from the Marielle Vive Camp by local authorities in Valinhos (Brazil). This camp is named after the socialist Marielle Franco leader murdered in March 2018. The residents of the camp – organized by the Landless Workers Movement (MST) – have transformed the abandoned land of a real estate speculator known as El Dorado into a genuine community with housing for the residents, a school, a community kitchen, and with agro-ecological farms. They have done all this over the past three years with minimal resources apart from their own ingenuity, their love, and the assistance from the MST. The local judiciary had offered the residents protection till 3 December 2021. After it expires, the residents live under the threat of expulsion.
The residents of the camp have a hashtag that tells you how they feel – #NatalSemDespejo or Christmas Without Eviction.
We join them, but then say further: No Eviction, Ever.