THE CHICO MENDES SETTLEMENT IN THE STATE OF PARANÁ AND THE SOCIAL FUNCTION OF PUBLIC LANDS

Abstract

This article questions the role of the Brazilian State in the allocation of public lands in the borderland strip, as it violates the social function of property. The expanded analysis of the case of the Chico Mendes Settlement – which is the object of legal actions for the dispute of possession and ownership of public lands between the Union, the state of Paraná, landowners, and the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) – reveals the permanence of the Brazilian State's political project to support large-scale agro-exporting properties at the expense of the demand for land by small farmers, squatters, parcel owners, and landless workers without access to land. The political, administrative, and judicial strategies used by the government show the permanent renewal of this project. The social function of the land, recommended in the 1964 Land Statute Law no. 4,504 (ET) and approved as a principle by the 1988 Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil (CF/88), has private property as its preferred addressee. The silence around the application of this principle in relation to public lands allows for a variety of interpretations and uses of these lands, according to the convenience of the State. There is, therefore, a wide maneuvering margin in the process of allocation of public lands, whether vacant or patrimonial, which hinders its concession to Agrarian Reform (RA) recipients and contributes to the formation or strengthening of latifundia. The analysis of this specific land property issue also introduces a debate about the link between the social function of the land, its applicability to public lands, the actions of the State in carrying out agrarian reform, and the struggles for land of social movements in the countryside.