A chara, - The Ambassador of Brazil, Carlos Bettencourt Bueno (April 1st), says the recent Leargas documentary did not add anything new "to a serious problem being tackled by the Brazilian government and its agencies."
While I appreciate the Brazilian government has made efforts to tackle this huge problem, its resettlement programme goes nowhere near balancing the numbers who leave or are forced off the land every year.
Leargas viewers will have seen the local union organiser, Moises, trying to get legal title to the land for people, using "the legal processes of a democratic society" the Ambassador refers to. This is an uphill struggle between small peasant farmers who have lived on the land for generations and large landowners who often have the forces of law and corrupt local politicians on their side. Against such forces the government's efforts can make little impact - particularly in remote areas in the state of Tocantins.
Many people who saw the programme thought that the Brazil we portrayed was very beautiful and the people engaging and friendly. I could engage in a debate with the ambassador about the effectiveness of his government's efforts or indeed about the image of Brazil we portrayed in our programme. I was drafting a letter on that basis when I heard the shattering news that 130 families we filmed in northern Tocantins have been told they are about to be evicted so that soya can be planted on their lands.
These are real people, not statistics. They have lived on these lands for generations, farmed there, reared their families there. What is to become of Pedro, his children and his 87-year-old mother who was born on their farm in Rio Centro? Who will explain to her that a Japanese-financed co-operative wants to have soya planted and they have to be gone by May? Here are people who welcomed us into their homes, as did many others in the area, cooked for us, shared their meagre resources with us and appreciated the fact that a foreign television crew had an interest in their story.
Was it one-sided to tell of how people live in fear of ruthless ranchers and foreign-backed investors who would throw people off their farms in order to plant miles and miles of soya? Was it sensationalist to show how violence and death are common ingredients of the land struggle in Brazil? If, as the ambassador asserts, there are great efforts being made by the government to help the peasants, I await with hope his news on the fate of these people. - Is mise,
Mairead Ni Nuadhain
Series producer, Leargas, RTE, Dublin 4.