He was 54 years old, married, and on August 25th he was murdered by gunmen hired by a local landowner, according to what has been reported so far. This is the sixth murder in Para since May, 2011, due to conflicts over land.

The peasant leader had denounced a few months ago that he had received death threats by Vicente Correa, the owner of the California field, located in a rural area of the Jacundá municipality, where Valdemar was leader of an occupation in 2010 which was then evicted by the police.

The crime is now under investigation by the Office of Agrarian Conflicts of Marabá, although nothing has been found yet. According to an article published by the Pastoral Land Commission of Para, the California field is located 15 km from Jacunda, and his owner had hired gunmen in the past few months to prevent the land from being occupied.

Despite this clear evidence, there are high chances that the murder will continue unpunished. For instance, there are still no people responsible for the murders of Jose Claudio and Maria do Espirito Santo, that took place in May also in Para, in spite of the fact that there was enough evidence to conduct a thorough investigation.

An in the violent Para, the absence of punishment for the intellectual and material authors of the crimes ends up being a green light for more murders. “We are very concerned and we fear we will be the next to die”, said Charles Trocate, the leader of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) to Carta Capital, with reference to Valdemar’s death.

According to the landless leader, in this area of Brazil, which is one of the most violent in the country, a social class believes they have the right to exert violence against another through “physical elimination”.

Photo: www.mst.org.br