Do meramente consultivo à incidência direta : inovações democráticas, repertórios de interação e a inserção de Povos e Comunidades Tradicionais (PCTs) no processo de reparação socioeconômica do desastre-crime da Vale S.A. em Brumadinho (2019-2024)

Abstract

The Vale S.A. disaster, which occurred on January 25, 2019, in Brumadinho - Minas Gerais, caused the death of 272 people and the release of around 12 million m³ of tailings from the dams that broke at the Córrego do Feijão Mine, owned by the mining company. Considered one of the biggest humanitarian, environmental and socio-economic disasters in Brazil and the world, it directly affected 26 municipalities along the Paraopeba River Basin, including dozens of Traditional Peoples and Communities (TPCs) affected throughout the territory. Such an impact generated an effervescence of social mobilization, which occurred both through self- organization and through the actions of institutional actors in the territory. In 2021, after several rounds of negotiations between the Government and Vale S.A., mediated by the Minas Gerais Court of Justice, a Judicial Agreement was signed to repair the diffuse and collective damage caused, with measures and actions in various areas. Given this context, the aim of this work was to identify and analyze the factors, elements and practices that contributed (or not) to the participatory processes defined by the Judicial Agreement as previous actions to the implementation of socio-economic reparation projects for the affected municipalities being carried out (or not) with respect for the rights and specificities of the TPCs affected by the disaster-crime. The work included ten semi-structured interviews with key players in the process, including representatives of the TPCs, the Public Institutions, the Independent Technical Consultancies and Vale S.A., as well as participant observation and a robust documentary and bibliographical study. The main results were that the first consultative process formulated - the Popular Consultation for the general population - carried out in digital format, with complementary access measures, was unable to guarantee the inclusion of the TPCs with respect for their rights and specificities, both because of entry restrictions incompatible with the lifestyles of some of the communities, and because of the difficulty of access to the internet and mobile phone signal - fundamental for participation in the defined method. Considering this, it was possible to verify that there was an emergence of contentious attitudes from traditional communities, which were combined with repertoires of socio-state interaction, based on the adoption of a proximity policy with actors from the Public Institutions of the Judicial Settlement. It was also analyzed that, due to various factors, institutional actors were open to absorbing the demands made and actively acted to address them. A combination of these elements led to the proposal, by members of the Pro-Brumadinho Committee, of a democratic innovation: the Popular Consultation for Traditional Peoples and Communities (PC-TPCs). In this scenario, it is understood that it was possible to reimagine the previous consultative process, adapting it to the demands, realities, rights (especially Free, Prior and Informed Consultation) and specificities of the TPCs, including the incorporation of additional stages, making it a participatory, deliberative process with direct influence from the communities. However, despite a major step forward in guaranteeing the fundamental rights of these communities in the reparation process, the experience also has important structural limits, with the central points being the limitation of the budget available for building the initiatives and the restriction of a single socio-economic reparation project per community.