Brazil's landless seize property, demand land reform
By Andy McInerney
When former trade union leader Luiz Inacio
"Lula" da Silva was elected president of Brazil in January
2003, landless peasants were key allies to Lula's Workers Party
victory. Expectations ran high that with a worker in the
highest governing position in Latin America's biggest, richest
and most populous country, the extreme poverty faced by
millions of Brazilians would finally be addressed.
Today, the Landless Movement (MST)--representing 4 million
of Brazil's poorest peasants--is mobilizing again. MST leaders
charge that Lula's government is moving too slow to address the
concerns of the landless. Across the vast country, peasants are
seizing property of what they call "unproductive estates," as
well as seizing government offices and blockading roads.
Ninety percent of Brazil's land is owned by 20 percent of
the population, while the poorest 40 percent of the population
own just 1 percent of the land. Some 50 million of the
country's 175 million people live in poverty.
Beginning in mid-March, peasants seized some 50 estates and
began farming the land themselves. Most notably, the peasants
seized the Veracel eucalyptus tree plantation in the
northeastern Bahia state. Veracel is half-owned by a
Swedish-Finnish paper company and is one of the largest private
investors lured to Brazil by Lula's government--so foreign
investors took note.
"No one can live on eucalyptus," an MST spokesperson told
the German Press Agency DPA. Peasants uprooted 10 acres of the
trees and planted vegetable gardens on the plots.
On April 6, thousands of peasants took over government
offices and blockaded roads in another northeastern state,
Pernambuco. Two more farms were seized in Sao Paulo state on
April 11. Dozens of MST activists have been killed in clashes
with police, government troops and rightist paramilitary gangs
armed by landowners in the past year alone.
The recent actions are part of a campaign to step up
pressure for land reform. During the first week of April, MST
leader Joao Pedro Stedile called for the movement to set Brazil
"ablaze" with protest, provoking panicky reports in the
newspapers of Brazil's elite and foreign investors.
Lula has responded cautiously, trapped between the interests
of those who elected him and the interests of the domestic and
international agribusiness concerns whose state he serves. In
an effort to pacify the peasant movement, his government set
aside $500,000 to purchase land for landless families and
pledged to provide land for 355,000 by 2006. The MST calls for
providing land for 1 million peasants over the next four
years.
"At the rate at which the government is working, our goal
will never be reached," UPI quoted MST regional leader
Claudiomir Viera saying on April 7. "We have to take over the
land."
Lula also cautioned the peasants not to step over the bounds
of legality--in this case, the property rights of Brazil's
powerful economic elite. "Agrarian reform in this country will
be carried out because of social justice and better
distribution of productive land so that our people have the
opportunity to work," he said. "But it won't be carried out by
force, neither by the workers nor those that oppose it."
Lula's government has generated enthusiasm across Latin
America, in part because he has resisted U.S. political and
economic plans on the continent and in part because he has
taken friendly stands toward socialist Cuba and the progressive
Venezuelan government. His biggest test, though, will be
whether his government can be a vehicle for the aspirations of
Brazil's poor peasants and working class.
Reprinted from the April 22, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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