News and Updates: General
Dear friend of the MST,
Forty-eight year old Almerinda Marques says that he has begun to understand the world. Vilma Pereira da Silva, 50 years old, says that she now has the opportunity to do what she couldn’t do before: study. Both are landless workers. Both live in encampments, one in Minas Gerais and the other in Paraná. Both...
Esteemed Friends of the MST,
The year 2007 is coming to an end and we would therefore like to communicate to you a political assessment of our struggle. We would like to provide accounts of what we are doing in our trenches, which is the struggle for Agrarian Reform. We would like to share with our companions who are active in other...
by Juan Reardon NACLA News
Brazil lags far behind her left-leaning neighbors in government initiatives that bring privatized national resources back into the public domain. In recent months, however, Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) and other groups have launched mass actions that demand similar moves toward national resource...
Dear Friends of the MST,
We express complete solidarity with the protest of Bishop Luiz Flávio Cappio, who has been fasting for more than 10 days against the proposed transposition of the São Francisco River. The Bishop is truly a committed and courageous Brazilian. We want to publicize the letter that La Via Campesina sent out this week...
Dear friends of the MST,
Today is the 40th anniversary of the death of the revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara. In countries around the world and especially in Latin America, activists from the left and social movements are carrying out events to commemorate the man who has been transformed into one of the greatest symbols of struggle for...
Dear Friends of the MST,
This week we in the MST are again embarking on a campaign for Agrarian Reform. We are carrying out occupations and marches in various states that are aimed at pressuring the state governments and the federal government to immediately carry out agrarian reform, which for some time has been bogged down in our...
Since 1985, Brazilian families have in large numbers taken to the MST’s call for “bottom-up” agrarian reform. What started as a coalition of 400 families has swelled into a 1.5 million-member force that desires to shift the policy of individual land ownership to a more equitable system “based on cooperative relations among direct workers.” ......
Dear Friends of the MST,
We have below the text of Silvia Ribeiro, researcher from the Mexican ETC group, who studies the impact of the introduction of transgenic seeds into rural cultures and the dominion of the world seed market.
World Bank Against Biosecurity
By Silvia Ribeiro
The basic role of...
We live in a dominant economic system that for centuries has engaged in the unlimited exploitation of all ecosystems and their natural resources. This strategy has generated economic growth and, for some countries, what has been called "development," and has privileged the consumption and well-being of a small fraction of humanity. And,...