Development & Aid, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

BRAZIL: MST Marches for Land Rights, Against Impunity of Murders

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 16 2003 (IPS) - Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement (Movimento dos Sem Terra) has launched a campaign "against large landed estates" and the impunity of a spate of rural murders, using tactics like land takeovers and marches of 100 to 1,000 people along the country’s roadways, heading to the state capitals.

The mobilisations are to culminate in rallies in the capitals of 22 of Brazil’s 26 states Thursday, designated World Day of Farmers’ Struggle by the international organisation Vía Campesina in memory of the victims of a police crackdown on rural workers in northern Brazil seven years ago.

On Apr. 17, 1996, some 1,000 peasant farmers marched along a highway towards Belém, capital of the northern state of Pará, to demand title to the land they had settled. But they were met in Eldorado de Carajás by police and gunfire, which claimed the lives of 19 people.

Of the 155 police who took part in the massacre, only two – commanders of the operation – were found guilty by the courts in May 2002. But they have appealed the ruling and remain free as they await the higher court trial.

"We want to annul that lawsuit and move this type of crime to a federal court, in Brasilia, for trial," José Luiz Patrola, MST coordinator in Rio de Janeiro, told IPS.

Human rights activists share that viewpoint, saying that much of the impunity surrounding crimes occurring in rural areas to the pressures that wealthy landowners wield over the state courts, where judges and juries are easily influenced by local strongmen.

"The landed elite will continue unscathed and committing crimes, like assassinations and forcing people to work in conditions of slavery" if they are not brought before federal courts, which are far from the pressures of the local reality, says Patrola.

Also on Thursday, the Pastoral Commission for Land (CPT), with ties to the Brazilian Catholic church, will release its 2002 annual report, which confirms that violence continues to be a serious problem in the country’s rural areas.

Last year, 43 assassinations related to land disputes were reported. It was the highest number since 1996, when the Eldorado de Carajás massacre took place, said Antonio Canuto, one of the CPT national coordinators, giving IPS a preview of the report.

Canuto said that level of violence has persisted so far this year, as in the first quarter 10 assassinations of peasant farmers and the movement’s leaders have been reported, one more than in the same period of 2002.

In addition to those murders is the latest assassination occurred Saturday night in Tamandaré, a town in the northeastern state of Pernambuco.

Cícero Cándido da Silva, an MST activist, was shot to death just a month and a half after the leader of a rural settlement in the same municipality was killed.

The increase in attacks against peasant farmers in recent years, says Canuto, is the product of a law that "criminalizes" takeovers of large rural estates by the landless, punishing them while preventing unproductive lands from being expropriated by the government for agrarian reform.

With the new law behind them, "the large landowners felt encouraged even to hire ‘jagunços’ (gunmen) to kill. That is my hypothesis," said the CPT leader.

Taking over fallow lands, or areas whose titles are in legal dispute, is a tactic the MST has traditionally used to force expropriation and designation of the land for agrarian reform. The movement rejects the term "invasion", opting instead for "occupation".

In the past two weeks, in the context of the campaign against large landowners in the run-up to World Day of Farmers’ Struggle, the MST occupied 14 rural properties in the state of Pernambuco, establishing settlements with a total of 3,780 families.

Another two ranches 50 km from Brasilia were occupied on Apr. 9, for a total of 10,000 hectares under landless farmer control. The MST justified the action there saying the lands were public areas that were illegally claimed by a businessman.

Members of the movement occupied rural properties in other states in northeast and southern Brazil, with the encampments of tents covered with black plastic tarps – typical of MST – multiplying.

Leaders of the movement point out that during this national mobilisation there have been no reports of repression by the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, of the leftist Workers’ Party (PT), who took office Jan. 1.

The struggle for agrarian reform "is no longer a police matter," the principal MST leaders, like Joao Pedro Stédile and Gilmar Mauro, have said.

The MST, for its part, extended a gesture to the PT during last year’s election campaign, toning down its protest and land occupations. The stance was interpreted as a "truce" to not hurt Lula’s electoral chances.

The MST has long been an ally of the PT, although it has always maintained its independence. As such, observers had expected the truce to last at least six months, but this week’s mobilisations undercut their predictions.

Stédile and other peasant leaders have criticised the Lula government’s economic measures, which they consider to be following the neoliberal line of agreements with the International Monetary Fund.

But there is hope among the MST membership that this government will promote programmes that favour the poor and pursue agrarian reform. They also are enthusiastic about Lula’s "Zero Hunger" plan, which is to provide food to the marginalized population while also benefiting family farm operations.

But such support does not mean deactivating the ongoing actions of the landless movement, say MST leaders, who argue that agrarian reform will only come about through organisation and pressure from society.

The landless movement is demanding that the settlements of families on the occupied properties be legally recognised and that basic foodstuffs be provided for their survival. For the longer term, technical assistance and lines of credit are also needed.

The marchers who began their treks last week, beginning at points throughout the country, have travelled hundreds of kilometres, carrying red flags, on their way to the various state capitals.