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IN THESE TIMES News » February 4, 2009 This Land Is Their Land The Landless Workers Movement claims a big victory in southern Brazil. By Michael Fox Members of the Landless Workers Movement (MST in Portuguese) marched to occupy the Southall farm in São Gabriel in southern Brazil on April 14, 2008. Share SÃO GABRIEL, BRAZIL—The three-day,...
Changing times for Brazil's landless By Gary Duffy BBC News, Sao Paulo state A small hut with a red flag flying above it marks the start of the Elizabeth Texeira camp in the heart of the countryside in Sao Paulo state. Among fields of sugar cane, 120 landless rural families have taken over an area of state-owned land as part of a campaign...
In 1984, our country was going through an intense period of social struggles. A context of popular struggles for the end of the military dictatorship, with widespread mobilizations. After being suffocated for so long, the peasant movement once again started to challenge the latifúndio and use land occupations as a form of concrete and...
João Pedro Stedile In January 1984, there was a process of re-ascension of mass movements in Brazil. The working class was reorganizing, accumulating organic forces. Underground parties, such as the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB), the Communist Party of Brazil, etc., were in the streets. We had achieved a partial amnesty, but the majority of...
By Helena De Moura CNN (CNN) -- A lengthy investigation into the erratic behavior of a Brazilian accused of ordering the murder of a 73-year-old American nun led to his recent arrest, a Brazilian prosecutor in the state of Para told CNN. Regivaldo Pereira Galvao was recently seen at what authorities say is the site of the 2005 slaying of...
In 2008, we wrote yet another chapter about the struggle between the two disputing projects in Brazilian agriculture. On one side, small and mid-sized agriculture that produces food for the Brazilian family table. On the other, the big national and transnational corporations and finance capital that produce soy, eucalyptus, sugar cane, and...
We of the MST along with the central unions, student organizations, peoples’ movements, and groups from civil society, are putting together a document with concerns around the country’s current social and economic picture and proposals to overcome the worldwide economic crisis. We demand that the country change the macroeconomic policy of...
By: Isabella Kenfield For Global Alternatives As Brazil's economy booms from rising agricultural commodity prices worldwide, conflicts over land in the Amazon--where the agricultural frontier is rapidly expanding--are also on the rise. At times, the region appears to be ungovernable for the administration of President Luis Inácio "Lula" da...
Agrofuels, like ethanol, are part of an agricultural model that does not produce food, but on the contrary, increases environmental damage through deforestation, burning sugarcane, and other social consequences like the use of slave labor on the plantations.
Instead, big groups of foreigners and agribusinesses, who receive voluminous aid...
Maputo, the capital of Mozambique was the site of the 5th International Conference of La Via Campesina. More than 600 men and women peasants and small farmers from 60 countries met from October 16 to the 23rd to discuss the situation in agriculture, emphasizing that the solution to the problem of hunger is Food Sovereignty. In contrast to the...