Small-farmer Protest in the Greater Carajás Programme

In recent years Brazilian Amazonia has been the subject of many journalistic articles and conferences. The representatives of large capital and of the Brazilian State have prioritised the modernisation of this ‘backward’ region; large and ambitious projects include extensive highways, hydroelectric schemes, iron-ore, bauxite and gold mining, ports and industrial plant. Indigenous names are cited in newspaper and magazine associated with huge construction works, bulldozers, mechanical diggers, sophisticated turbines, cranes, floating factories: Carajás, Tucuruí, Oriximiná, Itaquí, Jarí. Modern buildings on ancient foundations, the future born from the past! From the crushing of the ‘primitive’ indian’s past, from the ‘backward’ peasant, the ‘illiterate’ small farmer. The voice of the indian, the suffering of the peasant, the protest of the coloniser has been reported, at best, together with news about crime and rape. In practice it has been disseminated almost clandestinely and surreptitiously from one end of the country to the other, via the proliferation of community news-sheets, pamphlets and popular ballads so common amongst the poor, or through the short-lived underground press.