Note | After the agreement on Brumadinho between Vale and the State government of Minas Gerais, MAB will appeal to the Federal Supreme Court

This Thursday morning, February 04, at the Court of Justice of Minas Gerais (TJMG) the global agreement between the mining company Vale and the state of Minas Gerais was signed; concerning the crime of the dam rupture in Brumadinho, which this month completed two years.

Governor Romeu Zema (from Partido Novo), in a lying manner, stated that “all parties involved participated” and that this was ” participation as rarely seen in Minas Gerais”.

Since October 2020, the agreement has been built without any participation of the affected parties, representatives or commissions at the negotiation table. Only in one of the meetings, the affected people were invited to be present in the room and only as listeners, without the right to speak, representing a false idea of participation in the agreement. Those affected did not accept it.

This is an agreement of those “from above”, involving the criminal and who should be overseen, prevented and punished for the crime.

In addition to the lack of participation, the agreement followed several unconstitutional practices: classifying as secret the resolutions of the agreement and violating the practices of publicity and transparency of the process.

At the end of the negotiations, those affected were surprised with the transfer of the legal proceedings, which were being processed in the 1st instance in the 2nd Vara of the Public Treasury and Autarchic Institutions of the municipality of Belo Horizonte, led by Judge Elton Pupo Nogueira, to the 2nd instance, the Judicial Centre for Conflict Resolution and citizenship (CEJUSC) of the TJMG. A conduct which represents a legal aberration.

What was signed this Thursday between the institutions of justice, the state of Minas Gerais and the mining company Vale S.A. is an agreement to carry out works for the state government, with only a small parcel of benefits for those affected in the Paraopeba river basin, who are the victims and suffer to this day the consequences of the crime.

Therefore, the Movement of People Affected by Dams highlights that the agreement that would guarantee the economic, social and environmental reparation of the collective moral damages and the economic damages caused to the State, caused by the rupture of Vale’s dam, Córrego do Feijão mine, was not carried out.

This is, in short, a great deal between the criminal mining company and the liberal government of Zema, which seeks, together, the publication of billionaire profits, with the make-up of reparation, but which in practice represents electoral propaganda and an indicator of good conduct for the increase of the international shares of the mining company.

It is clear in the accounts presented that the state reached its objectives of receiving almost 27 billion, in exchange for only 9 billion for those affected, discounting even the emergency payment already made in these two years, which is an absurdity.

This clearly shows the intention of prohibiting the participation of those affected in the negotiation processes, because they were the ones who were harmed by this negotiation, which represents a clear violation of the basic rights of the population of the Paraopeba River, which remained after the crime.

It is unacceptable that the collective reparation for the damages caused by the biggest labor crime in the history of the country is directed to works in the capital, Belo Horizonte, and not to those who were buried or who even today, two years after the crime, are still without access to drinking water, a basic human right.

We also emphasize that the damages caused along the Paraopeba river basin are innumerable, from the moral, psychological and health damages of the people, to the lack of water, economic income and leisure.

The allocation of part of this money for the continuity of emergency aid for a period of four years is a conquest, fruit of the many struggles of those affected, but it is completely punctual and insufficient for the reparation of the lives of those affected.

For the just reparation, it will be necessary another construction, different from this agreement signed between the criminal and the state, where it will be defined, in fact, a plan of reparation with wide participation, with capacity of decision of the affected people.

We will continue to fight for the agreement to be annulled. The MAB will now continue to study to appeal to the STF seeking the annulment of what is a great attack against the people affected by dams in Minas Gerais.