News
By Chris Tilly, Marie Kennedy, and Tarso Luís Ramos The Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) of Brazil, which has mobilized more than a million Brazilians to occupy and farm large landholdings, was cautiously optimistic when Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva of the Workers Party won the presidency in 2002. “We campaign for Lula,” remarked MST organizer...
The end of year is time to take stock of activities over the year now, assess the progress and the difficulties and begin planning for the coming next year. 2009 will be remembered in history as the year of the great capitalist crisis that hit financial markets around the world. A crisis that began in the U.S., but has swept many countries...
Since the creation of the National Technical Commission (CTNBio) in 2005, biotech multinationals have benefited with consecutive approvals without exception of all of the petitions to release transgenic varieties in Brazil. Between 2005 and the end of 2009, CTNBio will give full reign to the commercial planting of two different varieties of...
On November 25th, the National Forum for Agrarian Reform and Land Justice attended a hearing in Brasília with the Federal Government, where it presented an overview of where land reform currently stands, and criticized an offensive by landowners. During the meeting, attending organizations - among them the MST, Contag, CNBB, MPA, and MAB -...
The Military Police took action on the Buriti homelands Brasil do Fato, December 2, 2009 Today, 19 November, a group of landowners accompanied by armed security guards evicted without a court order the Terena (indigenous) community of 300 who had taken over part of the Buriti land in the municipality of Sidrolândia in Mato Grosso do Sul. A...
Plots of the ruling class - sectors of the judiciary, the Congress, the national court of accounts, prosecutors and the media - are crafting another offensive against the MST and the workers. We can see that offensive in the creation of another CPI to investigate the movement, the third installed in the last four years. This offensive is also...
To transform the unequal and unjust structures of our society was always one of the objectives of the Movimento Sem Terra, in order to build a sovereign nation and win a dignified life for the workers. It is for that reason that we have dedicated our energies to bringing about an effective agrarian reform that would democratize access to land...
Regarding the latest reports that have reverberated in the media, the MST national directorate would like to make the following public announcement. 1. Our struggle is for the democratization of property, which is constantly becoming more and more concentrated in our country. The 2006 census, disclosed this past week, revealed that Brazil has...
We would like to thank everyone who has shown their solidarity with our movement and contributed towards the denunciations against the attack on democracy, promoted by the reactionary sectors of the country. The announcement of the dismissal of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry against the MST is a sign of the isolation of rural parties,...
Just the fact that we carried out another campaign—demanding the fulfillment of a list of demands presented to the Lula government in 2005 including the demand that the productivity indexes be brought up to date as the Federal Constitution requires— was enough to generate a reaction. The most conservative sectors of Congress and of society, led...