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BRAZIL:
Landless Farmers, Indigenous
Peoples Unite in Fight for Land
Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, (IPS) -
Landless campesinos and
indigenous people promise to
shake up Brazil throughout the
rest of April and the first
weeks of May, with a tent city
in the capital, occupations of
unproductive land throughout the
country, and a march on the
capital.
In addition to their common
struggle for land, these two
sectors are united in this
massive annual mobilisation by
the celebration of highly
symbolic dates.
Apr. 17 is the International Day
of Peasant Struggle, in
remembrance of the 1996 massacre
of 19 campesinos (peasant
farmers) in Eldorado de Carajás,
in northern Brazil, while Apr.
19 is Indigenous Peoples Day in
Brazil.
For Brazil's Landless Workers
Movement (MST), April has become
the month to step up
"occupations" of idle plots of
land, in addition to other acts
of protest.
This year, however, the annual
march traditionally staged by
the MST in April has been put
off until May. The march will
set out May 1 from Goiania,
capital of the central Brazilian
state of Goiás, after a massive
rally to commemorate May Day,
the international workers day.
From there, an estimated 10,000
participants will cover over 200
kilometres to arrive in Brasilia
on May 17.
Jaime Amorim, an MST national
coordinator, told IPS that the
march was postponed due to the
large number of occupations
planned in numerous states
throughout April, and because of
the death of Pope John Paul II.
Amorim works primarily in the
northeastern state of Pernambuco,
where the MST is most active. A
total of 18 occupations will be
carried out there this month,
while there are 163 MST camps in
the state, home to 23,000
landless families, he said.
Combined with those run by other
campesino organisations active
in the state, the total number
of camps is over 200, holding
some 28,000 families.
The problem of landlessness has
been building for years, Amorim
said, because the governmental
National Institute of
Colonisation and Agrarian Reform
(INCRA) has proven incapable of
keeping up the pace of effective
land reform.
INCRA has grown increasingly
ineffective as an institution,
he argued, and has been unable
in the past years to meet its
own targets for the creation of
new settlements.
While Amorim admitted that there
has been a certain sense of
frustration after the high hopes
created by the 2003 inauguration
of leftist President Luiz Inácio
Lula da Silva, a long-time
supporter of agrarian reform, he
stressed that "our enemy is the
latifundio (large landed
estate), not the government."
Pernambuco has a long and bloody
history in the struggle for
agrarian reform, he noted.
Moreover, the current decline in
sugar cane cultivation and scant
employment offered by irrigation
projects have led to even higher
levels of rural unemployment.
Tensions are also on the rise,
as large landholders with
private militias threaten to
clear out the landless workers'
camps "with bullets," Amorim
added.
In his opinion, the march on
Brasilia will be "a historical
milestone." The goal is
essentially political, he
stressed, as it is aimed at
promoting awareness in Brazilian
society of the role that
agrarian reform can play in
fostering development,
particularly in the poorer
regions of the country's
hinterland.
This is not simply a question of
a social programme that hands
out land to the poor, he
maintained, but rather a
strategic development plan that
will generate employment, boost
food production, and strengthen
the domestic market.
INCRA's ongoing inability to
fulfil its mission was made more
acute this year by budget cuts
of two billion reals (770
million dollars). Campesino
organisations responded by
stepping up their protests.
Brazil's current economic
policy, based on fiscal
adjustments and continued high
interest rates to keep inflation
down, to the detriment of public
spending, represents an
immediate obstacle to land
reform efforts, explained
another MST national leader,
Joao Pedro Stédile.
The Brazilian state, which has
traditionally benefited the
wealthy and large-scale,
monoculture-based agriculture,
is a permanent obstacle, he
added.
Brazil's indigenous peoples are
also waging a struggle for land
rights, but in many cases, they
are fighting for their very
survival, both physical and
cultural.
The urgent need for the
government to live up to
promises to officially demarcate
indigenous territories has been
highlighted this year by the
deaths of dozens of children as
a direct or indirect result of
malnutrition in Guaraní-Kaiowá
indigenous ethnic communities in
the midwestern state of Mato
Grosso do Sul.
Disillusionment with the Lula
administration has turned
bitter, with a manifesto issued
on Mar. 31 by the Indigenous
Rights Defence Forum (FDDI),
made up of seven organisations,
describing the government as
"anti-Indian", in view of its
failure to fulfil promises to
officially recognise new
reserves.
During the first two years of
the current administration, only
13 indigenous territories were
demarcated, which is less than
the annual average during the
previous government of Fernando
Henrique Cardoso (1995-2003),
the manifesto underlines.
To protest this situation and
demand a government policy that
guarantees land, health care and
bilingual education for Brazil's
aboriginal peoples, the
indigenous movement will be
setting up a tent city in
Brasilia from Apr. 23 to May 3,
according to Maria Miquelina,
executive secretary of the
Coordinator of Indigenous
Organisations of the Brazilian
Amazon.
Indigenous leaders will meet
with federal lawmakers to urge
them to oppose legislation
currently under discussion that
would represent a major setback
in the fight for native rights
by reducing the territory
allocated to them, Miquelina
told IPS.
A proposed constitutional
amendment would prohibit the
conversion of more than half of
the territory of a single state
into indigenous lands and
environmental conservation
areas.
This would have a particular
impact on the states in Brazil's
Amazon region, which are home to
the majority of the country's
indigenous population and
forests, she explained.
"We will also be evaluating the
indigenous policy of the current
government, which has made a lot
of very nice speeches, but has
failed to translate them into
practice," added Miquelina.
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