Queen denies funding of invasions in troubled CPI session

The coordinator of the National Fight Front, José Rainha, denied this morning, during his testimony at the MST’s CPI, that anyone is financing land invasions in the country. Asked by several parliamentarians about who pays or maintains the Front, which according to him operates in 11 Brazilian states and in the Federal District, he said that the FNL lives on donations and solidarity, and does not have a cashier to register the movement.

Rainha’s claim is dubious. Critics claim that it is necessary to employ a large volume of financial resources to mobilize, organize, provide transportation and food for land invaders.

The session had moments of tension between government and opposition parliamentarians and was marked by arguments at many times, with the offer of even a hamburger and medicine to left-wing deputies in an exchange of ironies between deputies.

Rainha also admitted that it maintains “diplomatic relations” with several parliamentarians, sympathetic to the cause of agrarian reform, and denied that the front raffles or interferes in the distribution of lots in settlements as a result of the invasions.

Rainha’s testimony, which is accompanied by lawyers and protected by habeas corpus so as not to deal with a case involving an investigation being processed in court, preferred to remain silent on several occasions when he was asked about extortion attempts in invaded areas in Pontal do Paranapanema.

On several occasions José Rainha said that he is not a “criminal”, when asked by several deputies how many times he has been arrested, or the total number of inquiries he currently responds to.

Rainha also said that she “does not know” that some settlements charge for basic food baskets to feed the people who live in the places, and that she does not have a fixed income in the National Fight Front, in addition to stating that she is exempt from Income Tax, which led to a request that his statement be forwarded to the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry.