Sir, - By coincidence, they arrived together here in the backwoods of Brazil: the Leargas documentary on the struggle of the landless in Brazil, and the Brazilian Ambassador's comments on this programme in The Irish Times (Letters, April 1st). We enjoyed the former. We understand the latter.
Mr Bettencourt insinuates that RTE smeared the image of Brazil. We felt proud of the Brazil we saw in the Leargas programme: a beautiful country, full of mountains, forests, waterfalls and with one of the most exciting cities in the world, Rio de Janeiro. But we felt especially proud of the people. For generations the majority of them have been denied, and still are denied, the right to a decent way of life: a bit of land, a home, a road, a bridge. But now they are beginning to understand why this is so, and stand together and struggle for their lives and homes and land.
We don't envy the ambassador's task: to try to explain away why there is so much injustice, violence and government inefficiency in dealing with land reform in a country so vast, so rich and with a "GNP coming to a trillion dollars" in two years' time. He states that over 200,000 families have been settled on the land. Many serious analysts here question these figures. Nobody questions the fact that over 200,000 families are forced off the land every year to end up in the squalor of the shanty-towns in the bigger cities, where, on top of all the other problems, unemployment has never been so high as last month.
In the few weeks since Leargas made its programme the courts have handed over to the state all the land on which 130 families (yes, the ones we saw on the programme) have been living for three generations. A Japanese-financed co-operative plans to plant 105,000 hectares of soya beans for export. Part of the GNP. But where will the 130 families who have lived on and worked on this land go?
Leargas asked searching questions. We all hope and wait for the answers to be delivered as soon as possible. There has been far too much suffering, violence and death over land in Brazil. - Yours, etc., Fr James Duggan, CSsR, Fr Brian Holmes, CSsR,
Redemptorist House,
Guarai,
Tocantins,
Brazil.