News and Updates: MST Occupations and Demonstrations
We of the MST along with the central unions, student organizations, peoples’ movements, and groups from civil society, are putting together a document with concerns around the country’s current social and economic picture and proposals to overcome the worldwide economic crisis. We demand that the country change the macroeconomic policy of...
NEW YORK (Associated Press) - Some 300 protesters blocked a key iron ore export railway belonging to mining giant Vale as nationwide protests against multinational corporations continued Thursday for a third day. Companhia Vale do Rio Doce SA said in a statement that farm workers started blocking the railway line that carries 70 cargo trains...
The Associated Press Tuesday, June 10, 2008 SAO PAULO, Brazil: Thousands of landless rural workers invaded dams, railways, plantations and corporate headquarters in a wave of protests across eight Brazilian states on Tuesday. Rogerio Homm, a coordinator with the Via Campesina activist group, said the protests are aimed at large corporations...
Inter-Press Service (IPS) By Walter Sotomayor BRASILIA, Apr 17 (IPS) - An urgent call to speed up the land reform process in Latin America was issued Thursday by rural activists at the 30th FAO Regional Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean, who also sharply criticised agribusiness interests and large estates in the region.
"We...
RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) — Rural landless workers in Brazil stepped up their campaign for agricultural reform Thursday by holding several demonstrations and occupying a hydroelectric plant and freeway toll stations, their organization said. The protests were part of the Landless Farmworkers Movement's "Red April" operation to force the government...
Stora Enso's Brazilian Imbroglio by Maurna Desmond, Forbes.com Paper maker Stora Enso is catching heat from activists in Brazil who recently invaded its factory and blocked major roads. The Finnish-Swedish company wants to plant roots in South America, but the locals haven't been very welcoming. On Wednesday, Brazilian land rights group...
RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 14 (IPS) - The upper echelons of the Brazilian Catholic Church have decided to lend their support to Bishop Luiz Cappio, who is on hunger strike against the diversion of water from the Sao Francisco river, after the government confirmed it would go ahead with the project.
The authorities argue that the work is...
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...
On Nov. 29, shock troops from the Military Police of Sao Paulo state in Brazil invaded the Elizabeth Teixeira encampment of the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST) in the Tatu Forest Plot in Limeira municipality near Campinas. The police agents destroyed makeshift homes and violently evicted the 250 families living on the encampment, which...
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...