In Brazil, Peasants Claim Farmland

[marmar]

from OnTheCommons.org:




In Brazil, Peasants Claim Farmland
The Landless Workers Movement has given 350,000 families a new livelihood since 1988

By Kevin Karner


Like in so many other Latin American countries, Brazil’s national history is rooted in colonialism, exploitation and class warfare. After emerging in 1985 from a 20-year dictatorship, the newly democratic Brazil was faced with the social upheaval caused by structural adjustment policies attached to loans made from the World Bank.

Because of land acquisition by foreign companies and industrial agriculture production associated with the “green revolution” much of the agricultural working class was driven into the cities seeking work, where they found low wages and high unemployment. The effects of this situation still lingers today in Brazil’s many favelas, or urban slums. Accordingly, Brazil suffers some of the most egregious wealth and land ownership disparity in the western hemisphere; three percent of the population owns two-thirds of Brazil’s farmable land.

The Brazilian constitution, drafted in 1988, stipulates that “property shall fulfill a social function” and that the government can “expropriate for the purpose of agrarian reform, rural property that is not performing its social function.” This is one of the strongest officials policies in the world stating that land is a commons should benefit everyone. Historically, this mandate of “expropriation” has been carried by the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra, or the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), an organization that represents one of the most successful social movements in Latin American history.

The methods of land redistribution are disarmingly simple: MST identifies a plot of unproductive land, organizes a makeshift camp on the land with groups sometimes numbering in the thousands. Then they wait until the legal owner of the land makes the first move. If this sounds like an risky, it is—thousands of squatters have been brutalized or killed at the hands of state or private military forces. If the camp is broken up, then MST comes back in larger numbers, often drawing upon a reserve of members from coalition organizations such as the Pastoral Land Commission or the Movement of Small Farmers. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://onthecommons.org/brazil-peasants-claim-farmland

[Judi Lynn]

1. This is a long, brutal story in Latin America, isn't it? The U.S. has done everything possible

to keep the entrenched Eurpoean-descended, exploitive powers in place, with exceptions for Cuba, which it tried to take over, and Mexico, whose land it stole, etc.

This seems a dangerous way to go, keeping the early steps in retrieving the property for humanitarian use left up to the local governments and states which almost always find in favor of the local land barons who grabbed it in the first place, but it did say the final authority is the federal government which does seek to enforce the constitution which "stipulates that “property shall fulfill a social function.”

A lot of people get killed continually in Brazil over land the murderous, greedy ranchers, loggers, etc. want for personal gain, but in the end, hopefully before they kill everyone in their road, the law should win.

Thank you, marmar. Recommending.