Estado de São Paulo
April 7, 2002

Estado -- What is your evaluation of the invasion of the farm of the children of the president by members of the MST?

Bernardo Mançano Fernandes -- The federal government has used detachment as a counter-pressure to the actions of the landless [movement]. An example has been to treat each land occupation as a separate criminal act, [to be dealt with] by means of provisional remedies. The [Cardoso's] Córrego da Ponte ranch was always under observation of the intelligence service, the Federal Police and even by the Army because the government knew that the MST might try to occupy the ranch as a form of pressure to gain an upper hand in the [ongoing] negotiations [regarding land reform]. It is very difficult to accept as fact that the landless arrived on the ranch and [went unnoticed and so] did not encounter any obstacles from these forces until they arrived inside the house. [The government] is efficient and, perhaps, the direction of their efficiency is exactly to effect a result contrary to what the occupation intended.

Estado -- Economist João Peter Stédile of the national leadership committee of the MST, said to the press that the invasion was an error. He said that nobody controls the base of the MST, and nor does it desire this control. Do you agree with this view?

Mançano -- This is a fact. The MST's form of organization has relative autonomy, since its organization -- in the instances of decision -- goes from the [occupation] encampments to the National Leadership. Because the members of the National Leadership Committee, or the State or Regional Leadership Committees are in the encampments, because of this they are part and party to all the decisions with the coordinators of the actions. Because of this form of organization, it is not the National Leadership Committee that makes decisions regarding occupations, it is leaders in the camps who decide. The exception is the demonstrations on a national scale that are carried through on pre-determined dates. I think that the MST has to pay more attention to actions of this type, considering the capacity that the federal government has for counter-pressure. Córrego da Ponte must serve as a lesson for the MST, because the action that would have opened negotiations with the government, served to criminalize it. The landless need to create an antidote to this counter-tactic, they need to be more perspicacious, because they are facing government intelligence.

Estado -- What is the meaning of this episode in the history of the MST?

Mançano -- It is a political defeat for the landless. But we cannot analyze it [out of context] as an isolated fact. In the Encruzilhada do Natalino action, at the beginning of the 1980s, military major Curió also tried to isolate the landless. At the start of the 1990s, the Collor government, in the same manner, looked at ways to destroy the MST. Today we are evidence that they failed. And the MST is still there, fighting. In the future, new information will be able to appear, in ways that will give us more elements with which to analyze this episode.

Estado -- Already concerns have been voiced about "maneuvering the masses" [directed from] inside the movement. What is the real size of this problem, and how to manage it?

Mançano -- The organization of the groups of families in the fight for land requires intense work at our base. This condition is fundamental for the organization of the landless. I developed and tested a theory to analyze this process, which makes up the last chapter of my book The Formation of the MST in Brazil. I gave it the name "spacialization" of the fight for land. The accomplishment of this fundamental work -- before the occupation of land, during the encampments and in the settlements -- is the essential condition for the organization of the landless. It is the object of the landless families and groups to form a political identity, understanding that they are subject to the destiny that they make. The accomplishment of this process does not disqualify the fight because of the absence of a politician who consolidates the MST who is also answerable [to those outside the MST]. The fault of identity politics is that it characterizes mass movements as impossible to manage. It is necessary to move beyond the limits of this condition.

Estado -- And is this working?

Mançano -- This is arduous work and many times the combination of tasks hinders the accomplishment of base work, because the militants in the MST do not stay in reality, or because of the dynamics of the politics coming head-to-head, or because other institutions intervene, for example: the government, evangelical churches, populist mayors or councilmen. In all ways the MST has been concerned about the formation of its groups of families and develops courses in the encampments and settlements, as well as in its schools. But it has not been able to extend this work, nor can it extend it alone. It needs partners, but partners that recognize its principles.

Estado -- How do you view the criticisms of the representative Xico Graziano, saying that the MST carries out "rural banditry," among others things, because it has used up the supply of unproductive land?

Mançano -- They are critical because they do not have principles. In 1989, the Franciscan Brother Graziano Neto defended a doctoral thesis entitled "The Truth of the Land", in which he claimed that there was not enough land in São Paulo State to conduct agrarian reform. If this were the truth, the MST would not have made more than 80 settlements alone in the Pontal do Paranapanema, where 4,500 families are staying on more than 100,000 hectares. There are still more than 500,000 hectares of unaffiliated vacant lands. The federal government also claims to have more than have 30 million hectares of land. He errs, again, when he claims that the MST carries out "rural banditry". In fact, he does not have theoretical elements for a scientific analysis of the reality. Today, his is an isolated voice, but with much force in the media. But not even the Ministry of Agrarian Development listens to it.

Estado -- How do you analyze relations between the MST and the PT (Worker's Party, whose candidate for president, Lula, is a leader in pre-election polls) or the diverse sectors of the PT? Is it possible that there has been a disruption?

Mançano -- It depends on the route that the PT will take. If it continues being on the left, there will not be a disruption. In the other case, they do not have to be together, if the values that would unite them do no exist them.

Estado -- It is possible to make a projection of how the MST would act in an eventual government of Lula?

Mançano -- The MST will try to have relations with a possible Lula government, pressuring it to implement agrarian reform, so that it is a government directed toward development, with the democratization of wealth and the re-socialization of marginal and excluded populations. It is evident that the MST awaits a government that carries through a model of development of the agro-business sector in which the small producers are included.

Estado -- What are the principal problems of MST today and where is the organization headed in the future?

Mançano -- The main problems facing the MST are related to the increasing criminalization it is suffering. With the demise of the Lumiar program and its land assistance measures, the end of the Special Credit Program for Agrarian Reform (PROCERA), which the government substituted for the National Program in Support of Small Farmers (PRONAF) and with the speculative tactics of the Land Bank (project of the World Bank), most small farmers have been excluded from the market for land. It is necessary to understand that the MST is not a problem, it has a solution to the problems related to poverty. The MST is the peasant movement with the longest existence in the history of our country. This should result in the recognition that the solution [to the land problem] is not to destroy the peasant movements, but to find a solution to the agrarian question. With this understood, the future of the MST lies in the consolidation of its organization of workers who are going to continue to fight for themselves so that [their rights] are not constantly expropriated due to increasing inequalities.

Estado -- What are the major achievements of the MST up until today?

Mançano -- Without a doubt it is the fact that that it has become a national movement. And it has done this by means of occupying land. It has established itself in all regions of Brazil and has constituted itself as a multidimensional organization that addresses the fundamental conditions of citizenship, such as work, housing, education, health and culture.

Estado -- How would you define the long-term strategic objectives of the MST -- does agrarian reform play a part?

Mançano -- The fight against capitalism. This is evident, only a liberal demagogue would suggest that the MST could integrate itself into capitalism if the reason for misery is exactly the unequal development of this society. To believe that capitalism is the only possible society is suicide for the workers. It is necessary to dare to create surpassing forms. Today, the fight of the landless [workers] is an admirable form of resistance to [the capitalist] hegemony over thought.

Estado -- Does the strategic vision of the MST include armed struggle as a valid method?

Mançano -- Never, this would be another [form of] suicide. The pressure forms are valid and advance the fight. Unhappily the uninformed media tries to associate the MST with the armed organizations of other countries of Latin America. But this will not be the way that the MST will take, therefore the landless are conscious of the fact that armed confrontation is not a possibility for them. They are convinced of this, because of the violence they have suffered in their 20 years of existence. The subtle truculence of the current government proves that the way of their struggle is defined by resistance, and is long.

Estado -- The direction of the last congress of the MST was toward such actions as the adoption of needy juveniles and establishing relations with urban slums. What is the meaning of these actions?

Mançano -- One on hand, a humanist practice. These experiences also develop other actions such as the blood donations, and making sure that [promised] services that had contributed to the victory of a government are actually rendered at city halls, as, for example, in Itamaraju, Bahia. On the other hand, it is practical socio-polítics, therefore an important part of the landless [plan] is in the slum quarters. In this way, they also organize new groups of families to build new encampments.

Estado -- The icons of the MST are, for the most part, communist personalities or close to that, such as Ernest Che Guevara, Mao Tsé Tung and Lênin, among others. How do you analyzes this aspect?

Mançano -- As coherence. It would be strange if they had as references personalities who had not been concerned with changing the world. They have other people who are references, such as the Brazilians Florestan Fernandes, Milton Santos and Joshua de Castro. This also is a way to construct a political identity.

Estado -- How do you see the practices of violence and illegality that have occurred in some actions of the Movement?

Mançano -- It is necessary to keep the facts in context. What do you mean by illegality? To occupy grilada land? To fight against expropriation? What do you call the 'practice of violence'? To respond to the gunmen and to face large estate owners? History since Canudos and Eldorado of the Carajás has shown that the landless are victims.

Estado -- What kind of schools and education is the MST constructing in its bases - and with that objective?

Mançano -- The MST, through its education sector, is building an education experience named Educação Básica do Campo, Basic Education in the Field. The objective is that, in the settlements and encampment schools, contents are developed that contribute to the growth and the consolidation of the agricultural communities. This is a right that all social groups have. Without an education proposal directed toward the reality of the landless it is impossible to think about the sustainability of this organization. I have participated in the [education] sector since 1990. I remember that at that time our concern was to guarantee the curricula of the first through fourth grades in the settlement schools. Today, there are Middle Schools in many settlements. Also accords have been reached with universities for the creation of teacher's courses, also specialization and extension courses. These have already been developed, objectifying the formation of professors and technicians for the cooperatives. In this way, accords have been established with the University of Ijuí (RS), University of Brasilia, University of Campinas, Federal University of Espirito Santo, Federal University of Pará and the Federal University of the State of Mato Grosso. At the University of São Paulo, where I work, an accord has been reached to create the Center of Documentation of the MST. (L.M.C.)