Parque Oeste massacre

The Parque Oeste massacre was the killing of two landless farmers who were occupying abandoned territory. They were shot by military police on February 16, 2005, in the Goias state, Brazil.

Background

On the beginning of 2005, 3000-4000 families occupying a "Sonho Real" (Real Dream) area in the Parque Oeste Industrial in Goiânia.

In the time of the political election, the Governor Marconi Perillo to the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) and the elected mayor Iris Rezende (PMDB) promised publicly would be able to stay and ever evicted from the area. From the February 6–15 instead the military police started a recovery action called "Operação Inquietação" (Operation Restlessness). They surrounded the area with vehicles, prevented people from entering and leaving, and cut off the electricity supply. With the sirens on, the sound of gunfire, the explosion of bombs with moral effect, pepper spray and tear gas, the military police promoted terror among the residents of the Occupation and caused psychological trauma in the childrens.^[1]

The massacre

After this military action, on the February 16, the military police from the Goias state realized a very siege called "Operação Triunfo" (Operation Triumph) when in an 1 hour and 45 minutes about 14000 people were violent and brutally evicted from their homes without respect and dignity of the human being. In the struggle were killed two roofless, Wagner da Silva Moreira (21) and Pedro Nascimento da Silva (24), shot in the breast and stomach, respectively, 40 wounded (1 paraplegic, Marcelo Henrique) and 800 arrested.^[2][3]

Aftermath

Approximately 2500 people spent the night in the Catedral de Goiânia then were housed in the Ginásios de Esportes at the Novo Horizonte and Capuava neighborhood for three months and in the Acampamento do Grajaú more than three years as very war refugees. During this period, several people, mainly children and the elderly, died as a result of the subhuman conditions of life, adding a total of more than 20 deaths until the delivery of the first houses in the Real Conquista, at the meantime several people were reported missing, and suspected unidentified fatalities were raised.^[4]

In 2014, after nine years of a judicial dispute over the federalisation of investigations, the "Parque Oeste Industrial case" was filed in the state court, and it was considered that "there was no excess by the police" who acted in the eviction.^[5]

References