The leader of Brazil's landless movement, known by its initials MST, offers his views of the World Social Forum, which gets under way this week in Porto Alegre. The upcoming Third World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, will take place in a world marked by growing militarisation, a military-economic offensive by the US, and servility on the part of the international organisations. The consequences of this for all humanity are tragic, writes Joao Pedro Stedile, leader of the Movement of the Landless (MST) and Via Campesina-Brazil and Member of the organising committee of the World Social Forum.

In this article for IPS, Stedile writes that the objectives of the US and its business class are clear: to maintain their imperial power at any cost. They want to find a way out of the capitalist crisis, shifting its costs onto the peoples of the Third World,and monopolize access to energy sources and restore profit levels.

The US also wants to push through a Free Trade Area of the Americas, with which they could obtain comparative advantages that would help them emerge faster from the current crisis and be better positioned to face their competitors in Europe and Asia.

Fortunately the people are waking up. A powerful and unified continent-wide movement against the FTAA is gathering strength. Recent elections in the region have gone decidedly against liberalism and US proposals. This was the case in Ecuador, Brazil,and Bolivia and will be so in Argentina and Uruguay this year.

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