Roundup of Recent Occupations - National Campaign for Agrarian Reform

Thursday, April 7, 2011

OccupationMST occupies an area of 1,000 hectares on the border of Ceará and Paraíba

April 7, 2011

By Marcelo Matos
Fortaleza, Ceará
Da Página do MST

About 80 families organized by the MST encampments in Ceará and Paraíba, occupied the Gravatá farm, which has 1,000 hectares in the municipality of Mauriti.

On this farm, located on the border of Ceará and Paraíba, crosses the channel for transposition of the São Francisco river.

According Jeferson Ferreira, coordinator of the MST in the region, the families acted to resolve the situation of the encampments.

"We want INCRA to expedite the expropriation of land in the region, because land reform is stopped," charged the leader.

The occupation is part of the National Campaign for Agrarian Reform of the MST, which requires the government to draw up an emergency plan for settling 100,000 families, to be completed later this year.

Furthermore, the MST claims that the government present by mid-year a plan of the settlement targets by 2014.

The MST requires that the government to maintain essential programs for development of settlements, such as lines of credit, day care and sanitation, to empower workers to cultivate the land.

To ensure that education reaches the settlers, the MST seeks a program to combat illiteracy, building schools and training policies for teachers in rural areas.

The National Campaign for Agrarian Reform recalls the massacre of Eldorado dos Carajás, Pará, on 17 April 1996, when 19 landless workers were killed by military police. 

 

More than 6,000 families participate in occupations in Bahia

April 6, 2011

By Ana Maria Amorim
Salvador, Bahia

De Página do MST

Since the beginning of the month, there were at least 32 land occupations in Bahia, involving about 6,500 families.

The actions are part of the National Campaign for Agrarian Reform of the MST, which requires the government to devise a plan for emergency settlement 100,000 families, to be held later this year. In Bahia alone there are over 20,000 families in encampments.

Furthermore, the MST claims that the government present by mid-year plan targets settlements by 2014.

The conditions to carry out agrarian reform should be guaranteed.

The MST requires that the government to maintain essential programs for development of settlements, such as lines of credit, day care and sanitation, to empower workers to cultivate the land.

To ensure that education reaches the settlers, the MST seeks a program to combat illiteracy, building schools and training policies for teachers in rural areas.

The National Campaign for Agrarian Reform recalls the massacre of Eldorado dos Carajás, Pará, on 17 April 1996, when nineteen landless workers were killed by military police.
 

MST occupies a farm in Bahia belonging to the perpetrator of the massacre of Felisburgo

April 5, 2011

By Ana Maria Amorim
Salvador, Bahia
Da Página do MST

On the morning of Tuesday (April 5, 2011), the MST has occupied another farm in the state of Bahia, which numbers more than 30 occupations in the National Campaign for Agrarian Reform.

The property Rapatau, in Itajuípe, in the southern part of the state, belongs to Adriano Chafik, defendant confessed to the massacre Felisburgo (MG), when five workers were killed at his command in November 2004. About 100 families are camped in the area.

In addition to killing five workers, with shots at close range, Chafik and his gunmen also wounded twenty others landless, including a child of 12 years. The assailants also set fire to the tents of the MST.

On Chafik's farm, the police found the guns used in the crime, according to the report of the ballistic test. The invoices for the purchase of weapons were also on the property. The defendant and his thugs, however, responded with freedom for the crime.

The  Felisburgo farm, in the Jequitinhonha Valley (MG), was expropriated for agrarian reform in August 2009, but the killers remain free. According to the MST coordinator in southern Bahia, Isaias Sena, the occupation of the Chafik farm claims not only the expropriation of the land of the entrepreneur, but also denounced the impunity of the crimes done in the countryside.