On Wednesday (17), when Brazil remembered the 28th anniversary of the Eldorado do Carajás massacre, the Landless Workers' Movement (also known as MST) had 28 occupations of unproductive lands carried out across Brazil in the last week. The number already exceeds 2019, 2020 and 2021, according to a survey by the Pastoral Land Commission.
The occupations in ten Brazilian states and the Federal District involve around 20,000 families and are part of the traditional national day of struggle held by the MST in April. This year, the motto is "Occupy to feed Brazil".
The most recent camp was set up by 200 families on Wednesday (17) at Coqueirinho Farm, in the town of São Mateus, Espírito Santo state.
In a "letter to the Brazilian people" on "the milestone of April 17, 2024", the World Day of Struggle for Land, the MST explains their main demands and presents criticism of what they consider insufficient in the agrarian reform policies of the Lula government (Workers’ Party).
"We are fighting because 105,000 families are encamped. We demand that the federal government comply with article 184 of the Federal Constitution, expropriate unproductive estates and democratize access to land," says the MST letter, stressing that "settling is more than just distributing or regularizing land," adding that it also includes guaranteeing access to policies that "allow for the full development of people and communities in the countryside.”
The movement is also demanding basic infrastructure and technical assistance in the settlements, a new budget for public policies such as the Food Acquisition Program (PAA, in Portuguese), the formation of food stocks, price regulation and resources to "make viable the 42 courses already approved in the National Education Program for Agrarian Reform (Pronera, in Portuguese).”
"For those under a black tarpaulin, patience is the enemy of hunger and abandonment," the MST said in the letter. Last Monday (15), while dozens of large estates were taken over by landless people, the federal government launched the Terra da Gente program (“Our Land”, in a rough translation) in Brasilia, Brazil’s capital city.
At the event, President Lula and Brazil’s Agrarian Development Minister Paulo Teixeira announced 17 legal ways to obtain and make land available for agrarian reform, the so-called "land shelves".
Options include allocating federal land for agrarian reform, purchasing properties from banks and public companies and negotiating state debts with the federal government in exchange for land.
"The government bringing agrarian reform onto the agenda was an important step," says Ceres Hadich, from the MST’s national coordination, "but it will only be consolidated after intense struggles." The activities of April, which also involve actions such as marches, encampments, vigils at Incra (the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform) and food donations in 17 states, will last until Friday (19).
"Occupation is a necessary condition to show society that 1) there are people who need land, 2) there is unproductive land, and 3) victory only comes from fighting. Therefore, land occupation is also a communication tool," says Gilmar Mauro, part of MST's national coordination.
"If someone says there isn’t more land to expropriate, we show them 'look at this one that doesn't fulfill its social function. There’s this one with slave labor and this one here with environmental degradation or this vacant public land,'" he points out. "It's a powerful tool of struggle that, obviously, wasn't created in an office – it was created by the people," he says.
"So, carrying out these actions was and is fundamental. It was great, it was good. Almost all Brazilian states have joined it. And we're not finished: Red April continues," says Gilmar Mauro.
13 occupations in Pernambuco state alone
So far, Pernambuco is the state with the highest number of land occupations in this year’s Red April. According to the MST, from Sunday (14) until this Wednesday (17), there were 13 occupations with 5,301 families.
Land occupations on the rise
"The struggle continues and, of course, that's not all the mobilizations will be about. There will be new activities, new perspectives. Many more occupations may take place this year," said Gilmar Mauro.
Monitoring by the Pastoral Land Commission’s Dom Tomás Balduíno Documentation Center shows that, in the last 20 years, the number of land occupations carried out by popular movements in the countryside was the highest in 2004, with 511. After a subtle downward curve over the following decade, the lowest number of occupations was between 2019 and 2021, with no more than 50.
Looking specifically at MST’s occupations, the numbers follow the national trend, with the main drop recorded during the pandemic and the increase in violence in the countryside under the Bolsonaro government. Since 2021, however, the curve has been rising again.
"After that period, even if the current conditions are not easy, mobilizations resumed. This has been seen in this year’s Red April. It's not just because they want to, it's because the people have realized that it's necessary," says Gilmar Mauro, citing that, according to the Zero Hunger Institute, 20 million people are starving and 100 million are not properly nourished in Brazil.
"Although there is economic growth, it is extremely difficult for a large part of the Brazilian population to earn enough income to live on," the MST leader points out. "It's possible – I'm not trying to predict – that some of these working classes who live in small towns, who have links to agricultural production, will want to join the struggles for land. That’s possible. It smells like it," says Gilmar Mauro.
The occupations in Pernambuco include one on land belonging to the Farm Fruit company in Santa Maria da Boa Vista, another in the National Department for Works against Droughts (DNOCS, in Portuguese) in Serra Talhada and an occupation at the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation in Petrolina.
The latter was already occupied by MST twice last year. "In 2023, we left Embrapa [Brazilian Agricultural Research Company] with a commitment to settle all 1,316 families who were camping there. But that wasn't fulfilled, and now we're coming back to demand it," explained Jaime Amorim, from MST’s national coordination in Pernambuco.
New occupations were also carried out in the states of Sergipe, São Paulo, Goiás, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraná, Ceará, Rio de Janeiro, Espírito Santo, Bahia and in the Federal District.
Clashes and evictions
During this year’s Red April, two of the occupations the MST carried out were violently dismantled by police forces without a court order. One of them was located in Vila Boa de Goiás, on the outskirts of the Federal District; the other was in the city of Campinas, São Paulo state.
The Military Police of Ronaldo Caiado's government (Union Brazil) forcibly removed around 1,000 families who had occupied a bankrupt 8,000-hectare area of the Brazilian Bioenergy Company plant in Goiás.
The area is under embargo for environmental crimes, according to the Ministry of Environment. The MST says the occupation took place to put pressure on the expropriation of the plant, which was offered to the State as a way of paying off tax and labor debts of around BRL300 million (over US$ 57,3 million).
"They arrived with 15 police vehicles," describes Marco Baratto, the state leader of the MST in the Federal District. He and four other activists were arrested and later released. "There's no law here, it's lawless," he says. "But we're standing firm, families are mobilized," he adds.
The other eviction was carried out by the Municipal Civil Guard of Campinas against around 200 families in an unproductive area owned by the real estate company Zezito Empreendimentos Ltda.
The administration of Dário Saadi (Republicans Party), mayor of Campinas, deployed guards to carry out the eviction using bombs, rubber bullets and even a German shepherd. Saadi relied on Decree No. 16,920, which creates a "Group for the Control and Containment of Occupations, Clandestine Land Parcels and Environmental Damage". The provision, however, was not even respected. Among the requirements for the repossession process, for example, is the registration of the landless families occupying the area, which did not happen.
Brasil de Fato witnessed that, acting in the name of a decree whose function is, among other things, to "prevent environmental damage", the guards set fire to part of the land's degraded pasture with their bombs. They had to reposition themselves so they did not inhale the enormous amount of smoke they were producing.
On the road, in front of the entrance to the land, the families chanted slogans at the officers, who stood in defense of the property whose owner had not even called the public authorities. "You are the kids of landless parents, just like us. When this turns into a condo, none of you will be able to buy a house here. The reality is harsh," shouted one of the occupants.
On Wednesday night (16), another repossession took place in the state of São Paulo with the presentation of a court order and without violence. The 300 or so families left the Globo Suinã farm, in Agudos (São Paulo state), after two days of occupation with the Military Police intimidating them. Judge Mauricio Martines Chiado, of the 1st Judicial Court, granted the land repossession.
"In an assembly and by common agreement with the families, we decided to back down," Marcio Santos, from the MST's national coordination, explained. "We agreed that as soon as our demands aren’t addressed, we will resume the struggle and carry out new occupations," he said.
Edited by: Matheus Alves de Almeida
