The Friends of the MST presents two articles on Augusto Boal. The first is an excerpt from an interview from June, 2007 by Amy Goodman, but only recently aired on Democracy Now. The second is a memoriam from the MST.

Isabella Kenfield | May 26, 2009
Americas Program, Center for International Policy (CIP) americas.irc-online.org

On April 18, seven members of the Brazilian Landless Workers' Movement (MST) were shot by private security guards on a farm in the Amazon that belongs to Agropecuária Santa Bárbara Xinguara S/A, a company controlled by international banker Daniel Dantas. A billionaire with former ties to Citigroup, Dantas is Brazil's largest producer of cattle, and presently embroiled in a major financial and political scandal that reaches into the U.S. courts and financial system.

The concentration of land in Brazil continues to be among the highest in the world. In the past few years, the agro-exporter model, based in agribusiness, not only compounded this concentration, but also aggravated the economic and social problems generated by it. For the sake of the monocultural farming of sugar cane for combustion, eucalyptus for paper, and soy for animal feed in Europe, agribusinesses reduces space for planting food, deforests the Amazon and pushes people into degrading work.

by Michelle Amaral da Silva - last modified 2009-04-16 11:50

Mobilizations throughout Brazil in memory of the 19 landless workers killed 13 years ago in the Massacre of Eldorado de Carajás are planned for the coming weeks.

By Silvia Adoui
From São Paulo, Brazil, NP Radioagencia
Week of April 14

The Fazenda Puntumujú, in the extreme south of Bahia, was occupied by the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST). Around 1.5 thousand families came, the morning of Wednesday, June 8, at the ranch belonging to the transnational company Veracel Cellulose, arguing that the monoculture of eucalyptus practiced by the company was illegal on the State land in the region. According to the MST, such land should be allocated for land reform.

By Luíse Desiree
From São Paulo, the Radioagência NP
April 7, 2009

The Justice Court of Pará nullified, on Tuesday (04/07/09), the trial that acquitted the rancher Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura. He is accused by prosecutors of the state of being one of the principals in the murder of missionary Dorothy Stang. The high court judges ordered the immediate arrest of the farmer until the new trial, which will still be marked.