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- THEY'RE SHOOTING AT CHILDREN!
- COME OVER HERE, COME OVER HERE!
COME OVER HERE!
- OH! DON'T BURST IT!
- WATCH OUT FOR GAS!
- WE ARE HERE, GUYS!
- HEY, YOU COWARD!
- THERE ARE CHILDREN HERE, THERE ARE CHILDREN HERE!
THERE ARE CHILDREN HERE!
- OH, NO!
- NO ONE HERE IS FIGHTING!
- FILM THAT, FILM THAT, FILM THAT!
FILM IT!
Pinheirinho Community
São José dos Campos São Paulo - Brazil february 2012
- Do you know where's the Pinheirinho?
- Where it was?
- Pinheirinho's street....
Pinheirinho's street, number...
My house was number twenty... twenty two.
- Oh, sweetheart, I'm from the North.
I was born in the North.
I was born february 11, 1944.
I've been here for 28 years.
- Why did you came?
- Because raising my children over there would be worse.
- I lived in Minas and then moved to Porto Alegre.
I've been in Minas for 15 years,
living in Minas.
I got married there...
raised fourteen children.
And now I'm here, married again,
for about two years,
but I'm battered.
I came here from Recife,
I lived in a rented place with my son.
It was there where I've got my piece of land,
built my house,
with much sweat.
Me and my son, my husband, working.
Each of our cents,
from working extra hours,
13th salaries, those things.
It was all to buy bricks,
tiles, cement...
To build us a home.
And when it was finally built,
when we thought our dream of a house
had come true,
then one came and ended it all.
- When I saw it like that...
everything destroyed...
It was a deep sadness in my life.
I never thought there was someone
capable of doing
such a huge cruelty.
- We were waiting
for those fifteen days to pass,
and those were the fifteen days to solve everything, right?
Before the fifteen days, they've done that.
I got up at five in the morning,
watered the garden,
'cause my house was surrounded with plants.
Made coffee, drank coffee.
Then I went to turn off the lights.
When I got outdoors,
the helicopters were already in the skies,
throwing gas bombs.
It was despairing, sweetheart.
The greatest despair.
That never gets out of my head.
-"It is full of cops there."
"Everything was taken over."
Then I said: Be whatever God wants,
I'll make coffee and I'll take it
and take my medicine,
to have the strength and courage to face that.
- I had so much hate
I looked at the cop,
I looked straight to his face,
"If I had a gun right now
I would kill all of you.
What you're doing is not fair.
Neither you or the mayor or the judge."
Putting everyone against the wall,
everybody left.
We shouldn't even look back.
Like this: hey, close the door,
two cops arrived... three.
Close the door,
and don't look back, go away,
and don't even look back.
I looked at the cop's gun,
and told him: "shoot me".
"You can shoot me."
"Everything is over, anyway."
An he began to cry.
- The cop?
- The cop began to cry.
- The land, for thirty years,
before we've occupied it,
had nothing on top of it.
It had no use at all.
It was a land which had only what?
Garbage and other stuff.
And the families occupied it,
not because we wanted to
be better than the others.
It was because we had nowhere to live.
I was commenting the other day...
Even the dogs,
when we take them off their places,
they have a place to go.
They have a shelter,
they have this, they have that.
And we, who are human,
people thrown away to the street,
with no rights.
I don't have...
a son here,
neither a daughter.
I'm alone.
Just me and God.
And people taking care of me.
I deserve care,
like a child.
The old ones have no value anymore.
- After this thing that happened,
my family, for now on,
will have no boundaries with me anymore.
Unless I
go visit them in their houses,
take some coffee, do something.
But like it was over there, no.
- Everyone lived near each other?
- Everyone was broken apart.
All broken apart.
Each one had to follow their way,
wanting it or not,
Now I'm gonna tell you,
I'm from the Pinheirinho.
They've put my house down,
now I look for a little place
to live with my family.
Stay forever in peace.
Stay with happiness, bro.
Look at here too.
I walk by it everyday,
a grip in the heart.
Things are crazy here,
that's why I sing the song.
- Oh my, I was happy,
I think I didn't know it.
And sometimes I'm sit,
but I think I'm there,
I am not here.
- Oh, the daily rate here is groovy.
Yeah, I can't complain about it.
I'm used to being harassed anyway.
I've been like...
five days without eating,
only eating junk food out in the street.
- It's very weird the food - How is it?
It's not a good, good food.
The meat is like a shoe sole.
Those old, hard meats,
hard to chew,
like those old, repulsive flours.
Really bad.
The daily life here is awful.
It's awful.
No one can sleep at night
with the noises.
Kids crying,
asking to go back home,
but with no home.
And here, if you receive the paycheck,
you have to leave immediately.
If you don't have an address,
you stay in the street.
My paycheck and my daughter's have arrived,
but I went and talked to the social assistant.
"You can leave it right inside there,
'cause while I don't get a house for me,
with a fixed address,
we're not going to leave."
We will stay in the street?
- But I don't want it not even for rent!
I'll go to a place where I don't have an oven,
don't have a gas cylinder,
don't have vessels,
don't have shelves,
don't have anything.
I don't have a chair to sit.
I'll take a mattress and move to a house?
Think about it.
- After much struggle
and complaining a lot,
they came to give us that
"rent assistance".
But for how long, right?
Our houses they're promising and promising,
but will there be any?
Will it happen?
When will it happen?
Everyone who lived inside there
will get their houses?
That's an uncertainty
with which we live constantly.
- On one side,
the city government is trying to organize that.
It's because it's a lot of people,
the problem is it's a lot of people.
In a place where there is too many people confined,
you start to get a lot of problems.
Like filthiness...
Right? Sometimes the toilets get...
unusable.
The place begins...
to get really filthy.
So, I mean,
it's hard to organize that.
So, they've decided to put
some really strong rules,
to try and organize it.
I don't blame the city government much for, I don't know...
turning the place into a concentration camp.
I blame the city government
for not thinking about that earlier.
They didn't think about that earlier,
and now they want to make rules,
to try and stanch a wound
that they've created.
- A war, it was a war
at my house's backyard, in my city.
And we are used to
seeing this on television,
in Bosnia, in Afghanistan.
but it was shocking that this happened...
in my city.
- It's a problem from the district indeed,
the same way as the Crackland.
But it was what happened in the Crackland,
they didn't try to get rid of the Mickey,
they've tried to get rid of the park.
So they've spread the folks.
What I think it was wrong from the city government
was not having a planning
to remove the population from there.
So, I think like this,
I think violence creates more violence.
They've done it the wrong way,
instead of organizing themselves,
mobilizing themselves,
and doing it in a peaceful way.
They could have achieved much more.
Now, for instance,
the case went to Genebra...
you see?
Which I think
it's pretty ugly for Brasil,
not being able to solve
a district, local problem.
- They've called me immediately,
sent messages...
"okay, look, the police is here,
etc, whatever."
And it began...
That was an information
which was quick, right?
So, before the police went in,
I was already here.
I've already got the news,
I was here already.
So I already came with my camera,
and said, "man,
I'm not going to stay sitting here,
in my house's sofa,
seeing this cruelty happen.
- I made a movie...
based on...
on testimonials
and based on the panic
I've felt there.
What people need...
and what keeps the social control
is the fear of death.
People feel comfortable,
because the State, first of all:
uses the State's violence monopoly
to justify their arbitrariness.
So people stay cool
with the massacres they witness.
If the State oppresses six thousand...
kills six thousand,
in a community
of six to nine thousand people
in São Paulo's countryside,
We keep sleeping calmly over here.
Because...
that doesn't scare us,
you know?
It doesn't stand against us.
What I can do
to get them scared
and to create a reflection
is showing
that there is a guys who will stay...
I've stayed eleven days without eating.
- I saw, like, a person,
in front of the Rede Globo,
in a hunger strike,
in protest,
against what happened in Pinheirinho.
It was then I've decided...
to take a bus, and...
come here
and to join the hunger strike
along with him.
To give strength to his protest,
to show that he was not alone,
but that in Brazil and in the world
there are people suffering
with what happened
and they want an answer.
- Good thing is you see that
many people are doing that.
There are many.
Every week there's some movement,
some action,
some party raising donations
for the people in Pinheirinho.
I mean
this city has never done that for anyone.
There's no such thing here,
there wasn't such a thing.
Here is everyone for themselves...
the richest is the one who... anyway...
is the lucky guy.
If you're not rich,
bad for you,
you have to get there.
And no,
now people are caring about it,
they've come to themselves a little
and went: "man, we...
are wrong, right?
we need to help each other."
- That feeling of mobilization is like that.
when you see it: "***,
what is it that this guy is doing?"
"Oh, look at that!"
Like, what have I done?
I am no one,
I don't have any structure of nothing surrounding me.
I took a camera,
went there, and used the internet.
- Seeing this is sad, right?
It's painful to see this,
but, this...
what comforts me is that this
has become...
This is no longer
an irregular occupation
and It began to become
a feeling in the people from the city.
Not the city,
the country, the world.
- The State cannot defend itself...
anymore, or...
or blame a movement of "civil disobedience",
when we have
a Pinheirinho on our faces...
You know? Governor Alckmin
has made a favor
to the democratization of this country.
Because he will pay for that.
He will and he will take
a lot of people with him.
Because that won't stay unpunished.
It won't, it won't, it won't.
I won't!
- Geraldo Alckmin,
he will have to give
an answer to history.
If the politicians...
who want to extirpate poverty
think they'll be able to
erase this story,
this case of the Pinheirinho massacre,
they won't be able to.
Because there are persons
in love with that people,
all over Brasil and the world,
who will not let things stay as they are.
- The idea of the circle of women
was to have a space
for them to express and relieve themselves.
They were... destroyed.
At first they couldn't even tell it,
they couldn't even speak.
They had difficulty speaking,
because they felt anger.
So, when it got out, it got out...
there was much crying...
It was a space where we
ended up creating friendship boundaries.
Some ladies had doubts,
they went to sleep at night...
This I know, because I
became friends with many of them,
who told me...
That they went to sleep at night
and sometimes had doubts.
If they were criminals or not.
So it was a space
of education for citizenship,
that there are laws in this country,
and that they...
have a fair cause
and a noble cause.
- The association was born
so we could talk about it.
We have always been
hardworking women, yes.
And, only here,
we have the power to
tell that to society,
That we are hardworking women,
family mothers,
our children do study,
and they work as well.
We can walk with our own legs,
we are women,
we have attitude,
we are housewives,
we have children, husbands.
We see what's missing for our husbands,
the clothing, the bath,
the lunch... everything.
So, we need to have attitude.
If we put our heads down, we get sick
and we don't see reality afterwards.
We need to show outside here
that we are people.
Through this association
is that I'm seeing that there is...
a strength.
We get inspired.
Every sunday we are here,
and we see each other's faces.
And we are here,
asking God to move things forward.
- We suggested it at first
and it was a little seed
that went on maturating...
until they created work cooperatives.
So, today,
the association was founded last sunday,
which was august 5, 2012
and they have a beautiful work plan...
and they are very excited with that dream.
- Creating a cooperative
to bring work
to the mothers of Pinheirinho, right?
So they could work,
earn their money, right?
Because it got hard
after we've left Pinheirinho.
It got hard to get a job.
Because we've got away, and stuff.
Many of them left their jobs,
they couldn't go back.
So the association,
the cooperative,
is for them to come back, right?
So they can work again,
and have their income back.
- Now we must run after our houses,
within the law,
with tenderness,
with love.
And take to those authorities
that we can and must have
this right to be heard.
And hear us.
- THEY'RE SHOOTING AT CHILDREN!
- THEY'RE SHOOTING AT CHILDREN!
- COME OVER HERE, COME OVER HERE!
- COME OVER HERE!
- OH, DON'T BURST IT!
- WATCH OUT FOR GAS!
- The Pinheirinho's Massacre
in twenty years
will still be the Pinheirinho's Massacre.
O Globo can say whatever it wants to.
You know?
At that time the news media lied
and people believed it.
In nine to ten years everyone knew the truth.
Nowadays we don't need ten years.
- There is evidence...
that Naji Nahas, the owner
of the alleged land of Naji Nahas,
of which he is owner,
but there is evidence that he
has acquired that land illegally.
Where is the Justice in these moments?
You see?
That land doesn't belong to him,
that land belongs tho the Union.
That land...
you take it and put
hundreds of families on the street
in favor of a person
who has already been arrested in the 80's
for breaking the stock exchange
in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro
and recently arrested
on the Satiagraha operation
against crimes...
for financial crimes
and there is evidence that the land doesn't belong to him.
And all of the State's apparatus
opresses a person,
causes suffering,
harasses a poor population,
which, for being poor,
in those people's opinion,
certainly need to be extirpated from the world...
The social reality exists,
the social problems
they are in front os us.
- Those people who are there
their interest is...
"Well, I can't have this thing
in front of my industrial condo."
You see?
So, "doing business...
in front of a favela", right?
"How so?"
"I'm in a rich city."
A city which is... right?
"Technological."
A city which is...
"The Brazilian California."
So...
it ends up like that, right?
Today, not having favelas is a good rate...
"Wow, there are no favelas in that city!"
But at what cost it doesn't have favelas?
- A long time ago,
everyone was opressed
Right?
Pinheirinho was very good.
Very good.
But, with our removal,
everyone got lost.
Many people are oppressed,
still with that pain,
that can last for many, many years.
That pain will never go away.
It'll remain within us.
- We didn't steal anything.
We've built things.
On the contrary,
They've destroyed our sweat.
- The dream is not over.
The dream goes on.
But we have to...
chase it, right?
And make it come true.
It' only up to us.
- I believe in God
that I'll have my house.
I still have faith.
All of those who were in Pinheirinho,
are still going to...
show the society out there:
"Look, they've managed
to get their houses,
and they're paying accordingly."
So, that I'll still show.
And say it like this:
"We won!"
I just wanted...
to have in life...
a yard of green grass...
to plant and to sow.
To have a little white house...
with a balcony,
with a yard and a window...
to see the sun rise.
To have a little white house...
with a balcony,
with a yard and a window...
to see the sun rise.
The Pinheirinho's Massacre
happened in january 22, 2012
About eight thousand people were
violently removed from where they've lived
for eight years.
The action was authorized by São Paulo's governor,
Geraldo Alckmin, and São José dos Campos' mayor,
Eduardo Cury.
Ignoring Federal Justice decision, which had
temporarily suspended the reintegration.
São Paulo's Justice Tribunal considered that
the Public Defense had no legitimacy to
defend the dwellers of Pinheirinho, because due to
"the expressed constitutional disposition, the Defense
has legitimacy only to defend those in need."
The president of Brazil, Dilma Roussef,
has not made any declarations about the case.
The "Pinheirenses" are still waiting
for their promised houses.