Political Lines Reaffirmed at the Fifth National Congress of the MST - 2007

July 8, 2009

LETTER FROM THE 5TH CONGRESS OF THE MST

We, 17,500 workers and landless rural workers from 24 states of Brazil, 181 international delegates representing 21 peasant organizations from 31 countries and  friends of several movements and organizations, met in Brasilia from 11 to 15 June 2007 the 5th National Congress of the MST, to discuss and analyze the problems in our society and find alternative solutions.

We pledge to continue helping in organizing the people, to fight for their rights and against inequality and social injustice. Therefore, we assumed the following commitments:

1.         Network with all social sectors and their forms of organization to build a popular project to confront neo-liberalism, imperialism and the structural causes of the problems that affect Brazilian people.

2.         Defend our rights against any policy that tries to remove rights already won.

3.         Struggle against privatizations of public inheritance, the transposition of Rio São Francisco and the re-nationalization of public companies that were privatized.

4.         Fighting for all landed estates/plantations to be expropriated with priority to those owned by foreign capital and banks.

5.         Fight against the logging and burning of native forests to plantation expansion. Require strong action from governments to restrain such criminal practices against the environment. To combat the use of pesticides and large-scale monoculture of soy, sugar cane, eucalyptus, etc.

6.         Fight against transnational corporations that want to control seeds, production and the Brazilian agricultural trade such as Monsanto, Syngenta, Cargill, Bunge, ADM, Nestlé, Basf, Bayer, Aracruz, Stora Enso, among others. Prevent further exploiting our nature, our workforce and our country.

7.         Demanding an immediate end to slave labor, the super-exploitation of labor and punishment of the perpetrators. All plantations that use any form of slave labor should be expropriated without any compensation, as stated in the Project of Constitutional Amendment already approved in the first round in the House of Representatives.

8.         Fight against all forms of violence in the countryside, as well as the criminalization of social movements. Demand punishment of the killers - hired and the executors - of all those fighting for Agrarian Reform, which go unpunished or with processes stuck in the Judiciary.

9.         Fighting for a maximum size of land ownership. The demarcation of all Indian lands and Afro-Descendents. The land is a natural asset that should be devoted to the interests of the people.

10.       Fighting for the production of agro-fuels is under the control of farmers and rural workers, as part of mixed farming, preserving the environment and seeking the energetic sovereignty of each region.

11.       Defending native and Creole seeds. Struggle against GMO seeds. Promote the practices of agro-ecology and farming techniques in equilibrium with the environment. Settlements and rural communities must give priority to produce foods without agro-chemicals for the domestic market.

12.       Defend all springs, fountains and water reservoirs. Water is a good of nature and belongs to humanity. It can’t be the private property of any company.

13.       Preserve forests and promote the planting of native trees and fruit in all settlement areas and rural communities, contributing to environmental preservation and the fight against global warming.

14.       To fight for the working class to have access to primary school, middle school and public university, free and with quality.

15.       Develop different types of campaigns and programs to eliminate illiteracy in rural areas and cities, with transformative pedagogical guidelines.

16.       Struggle for each settlement or community in the countryside to have their own popular media, such as free community radio stations. Struggle for the democratization of all media in society contributing to create political awareness and appreciation of popular culture.

17.       Strengthen the link of social movements in the countryside in Via Campesina Brazil, in all states and regions. Build with all Social Movements and Popular Assemblies in counties, regions and states.

18.       Contribute to the construction of all possible mechanisms of integration in Latin America, through ALBA - Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of the Americas. Exercise international solidarity with the people who suffer the aggressions of the empire, especially now with the people in Cuba, Haiti, Iraq and Palestine.

We call on the Brazilian people to organize and struggle for a just and egalitarian society, which is only possible with the mobilization of all the people. The great changes are always the work of organized people. And we from the MST commit to never give up and always fight.

Agrarian Reform: for Social Justice and Popular Sovereignty!