November 28, 2001

Rural landless worker families (MST) and the movement of small farmers (MPA) united on November 28 for a National Day of Struggle to demand that the federal government renegotiate the debts of the two groups. At the moment, more than 7,000 landless workers are camped in front of banks in the states of Ceará, Santa Catarina, Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Sul, Sergipe, Bahia, Paraná, São Paulo and Mato Grosso do Sul. While the government extended the term of payments of rural debts of large producers to at least 25 years of the $R32 billion that is owed to the public coffers , small farmers and landless workers have been unsuccessful in having their debts renegotiated to 7 years of payments. The intention of the National Day of Struggle is to pressure the National Monetary Council to include renegotiation of the debts and the agenda of the social movements in their meetings.

Source: Web Sites of PT (Worker's Party), Nov. 28 and MST (Landless Movement), Nov. 28, 2001