By Diego González | June 11, 2009

Along with the United States and Argentina, Brazil is now one of the strongest bastions of agribusiness on a global level. The world’s tenth largest economy, Brazil is now the nation which suffers the greatest inequality, on a subcontinent which, in its turn, experiences the greatest wealth gap. Just 1.6% of Brazilian landholders control 46.78% of the nation’s privately owned land. According to the NGO Council of Information on Biotechnologies, Brazil was responsible for 12% of the world’s genetically modified crops in 2007.

The struggle for land has more victims in the Brazilian countryside. This time, five workers were killed. The murders happened on the night of last Monday (July 6th), the Garrote settlement, located in the district of Santo Domingo in Brejo da Madre de Deus (PE). The national coordination of the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem-Terra (MST) did not discard the hypothesis that the crimes were motivated in retaliation to the struggle for agrarian reform.

The trial of the colonel of the Military Police of Pará who commanded the massacre of Eldorado de Carajás, Mário Pantoja de Oliveira, has been postponed once again. The postponement was granted by the Minister of STJ Laurita Vaz. In 2002, Pantoja was sentenced to 228 years imprisonment by jury trial in Belem. The crime was committed in 1996 and left 19 workers dead.

“If we silence ourselves, the stones will cry out” (Pedro Tierra)

The Fifth Session of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) will rule this week on the appeal presented by Colonel Mario Colares Pantoja, one of the commanders of the Massacre at Eldorado dos Carajas, which asks to overturn the verdict by which he was condemned to 228 years in prison. In the session on Tuesday, Minister Laurita will analyze the request made by the Colonel's defense and the verdict may be overturned.

We are mobilized all over Brazil to defend the education of the countryside, an achievement of the social movements that fight for Land Reform in our country.
Our challenge is big. We learn through the struggle that Land Reform goes beyond the simple conquest of the land/earth, and necessarily becomes a serious educational policy. Our country figures among the worst in the world in this sense. Statistics from the Latin American Campaign for the Right to Education show that there are 35 million illiterate people in the Latin American nations. More than a third are Brazilian. And only 0.2% are Cuban. This demonstrates that investing in the schooling of a people is political will, it is determination for sovereignty, it is the will to construct a dignified history.

Dear Friends of the MST,

Including the 2009 May/June bimonthly, the Sem Terra Review has published 50 editions. For this reason, we would like to thank each and every reader for their support of the MST. This publication is an achievement, not only in the struggle for agrarian reform and for rural landless workers, but for the working class. For over 12 years we have challenged society to become aware of our struggles and successes. Each of these 50 editions are a confrontation with our country's monopoly control of information.