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9 April 1998 Edition

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Brazil's war of the landless

By Dara MacNeil

Towards the end of March, a right-wing Catholic sect called on Brazil's landowners to begin ``armed reaction'' to the campaign for land organised by the country's poor.

The campaign for land, which centres on the occupation of large estates and unused land, is organised by the Movement of the Landless (Movimiento de los Sin Tierra - MST).

Tradition, Family & Property (TFP) issued their call in a 64 page booklet, of which 10,000 copies were printed and distributed nationwide.

The booklet recommended a series of measures that large landowners could implement in order to protect their vast estates from the poor: barbed wire, hired guns and the threat of violence would be enough to ward off even the most determined of the landless, Tradition, Family & Property said.

This ``right to resist'' was made imperative given the authorities' failure to control the activities of the millions in Brazil without land, it added.

The Catholic ultra-rightists characterised Movimiento de los Sin Tierra as a ``subversive'' organisation.

In many respects, they are correct. MST's stated aim is to procure land for Brazil's many millions of landless poor. In doing so, they are subverting a social order which has inequality at its heart.

Land distribution in Brazil is among the worst - if not the worst - in Latin America. An estimated 1% of the population owns some 46% of the country's arable land. Carved up into large estates, the land is frequently underused, or not used at all by its owners.

In 1997, MST occupied a huge, unused estate that had been given to the General Motors corporation as a `gift' by the Brazilian government. Such was the size of the estate that it was valued at $258 million dollars.

Ironically, police sent to evict the squatters refused to do so, as they themselves were on strike at the time.

The previous year, however, the security forces killed 70 unarmed civilians while evicting 500 families from land they had occupied.

Within days of the call to arms being issued by Tradition, Family & Property, Brazil's landed establishment had responded.

On 30 March, landowners announced the formation of the National Association of Rural Producers, a quaint euphemistic title for the most entrenched section of Brazil's tiny, wealthy elite.

The association also announced their intention to establish armed militias in those areas most threatened by the poor. Initial recruitment of at least 500 gunmen was organised. One of the association's leaders also spelled out the agenda of the new grouping: they would teach the Movimiento de los Sin Tierra a lesson ``they would not forget for the rest of their lives.''

The Brazilian government, which is quick to meet MST occupations with violence, failed to respond to this overt threat of bloodshed. This despite the fact that MST occupations are peaceful exercises carried out by unarmed civilians. The MST tactic is to rely on the sheer weight of numbers without land to force official action on the issue. Its current campaign involves some 58,000 families - at least a quarter of a million people.

The MST said government failure to respond to such an explicit threat of violence merely confirmed official ``paralysis'' and the lack of resolve on the land issue.

Indeed, the authorities already had ample proof of the landlords' willingness to carry out their threat. Days before the latter announced the formation of their paramilitary bands, two MST leaders were murdered during the attempted occupation of a large estate in Para, northern Brazil.

By apparent way of response, the MST organised a massive campaign of occupations in Para, with more than 20,000 landless occupying a number of large estates in the region. More than anything, the series of occupations demonstrated the MST's determination not to bow to, or be intimidated by hired killers.

Last month, a Catholic church commission published a study which showed slavery was a flourishing industry in Brazil. More than 80% of the cases cited by their report occurred in the same northern territory of Para.

The chief culprits were said to be large landowners, who lured the landless and urban poor to their estates with promises of high wages. Once there, the workers were told they owed the landlord money for travel and accommodation. The debt was paid off by working for nothing.

Shortly after the MST launched its occupations in Para, evidence of official complicity in the murder of the two MST leaders was uncovered.

Public pressure and the threat of a bloody conflict between landed and landless had finally forced the authorities to respond.

Troops were dispatched to Para, ostensibly to ``restore calm.'' However, the troops were also charged with ending the MST's occupations in the area.

Simultaneously, eleven police officers were arrested and charged with the murder of the two MST leaders. Apparently, the officers had been indulging in a bit of moonlighting - working after hours for the local, landed mafia.

Indeed, nine of the eleven officers were also accused of participating in the infamous massacre of El Dorado de Carajas, in the territory of Para.

The massacre occurred almost exactly two years ago, on 17 April 1996. On that occasion, nineteen unarmed landless protesters were murdered.

It appears remarkable that after two years, the authorities had finally unearthed enough evidence to charge the nine officers. Remarkably coincidental also that it occurred just as national and international attention was focused on the country, and the badlands of Para.

Equally remarkable is that even with the presence of armed troops in the area, the landowners have begun to move against the MST occupations.

Most recently, some 80 armed members of the National Association of Rural Producers expelled 1000 families from the estate they had been occupying.

The property in question - belonging to one individual - is some 17,000 hectares in size. That's 42,000 acres.

Meanwhile the MST has announced it has every intention of carrying on its campaign of occupations. They also pointed out that the landowners' armed campaign has now taken on the characteristics of low-intensity warfare.

This war of attrition is intended, obviously, to discourage MST activists and landless families from future protests. However, according to MST spokesman Gilmar Mauro, the campaign will continue: as long as there are millions of Brazilians without even a place to live and a tiny minority of landlords in control of gigantic, unproductive estates.

That much is certain.

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