News and Updates: all
Dear Friends of the MST,
Thank you to everyone who made the effort to mail a letter in support of the Via Campesina’s occupation of Syngenta Seeds’ experimental test site in Santa Teresa do Oeste, Paraná, Brazil, to Governor Roberto Requião. The Via Campesina, an international movement of peasant social movements, and Terra de Direitos...
Two Brazilian activists fighting for the rights of landless farmers were shot dead in front of dozens of witnesses at their protest camp, Christian Aid has learned.
Josias de Barros Ferreira and Samuel Matias Barbosa were leading members of the Christian Aid partner, Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) which fights for...
“It was not me that was arrested. My arrest was an attempt to criminalize all the social movements that fight for Agrarian Reform in Pernambuco
[08/28/2006] MST occupies latifúndio in Minas Gerais
Yesterday morning, close to 150 MST families occupied the Monte Cristo Farm, located in the municipality of Salto da Divisa, Minas Gerais (MG). The estate, stretching roughly 2,400 hectares, had already been audited by the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA...
[08/28/2006] Superior Justice Tribunal (STJ) decides in favor of Jaime Amorim
A short while ago, the Superior Justice Tribunal (STJ) announced its decision to revoke the preventative imprisonment of Jaime Amorim, of the MST’s National Coordinating Body, detained since last Monday. The decision by Minister Nilson Naves comes in response...
[08/23/06] Civil society mobilizes against impunity and the criminalization of social movements in Pernambuco
The Pastoral Land Commission of Pernambuco (CPT-PE) is calling all members of civil society into action, demanding an end to the increasing criminalization of the social movements and the impunity that reigns in cases of violence...
[08/22/06] URGENT ACTION: MST files habeas corpus, asks for international support
NOTE: Brazil's Superior Justice Tribunal decided in favor of habeas corpus for Jaime Amorim, releaseing him from prison on Monday, August 28th. Thanks to everyone who demonstrated their solidarity in this important fight!
Brief Summary –
Jaime...
[08/16/06] "Monoculture is a prison, it always was". Eduardo Galeano writes to MST, Via Campesina
ALAI AMLATNA 16/08/2006, Montevideo.
-Our countries are modernizing.
Now the official discourse demands honoring the debt (though it was dishonorable), attracting investments (though these are beneath our dignity), and enter the...
Dear Friends of the MST,
We want to ask for your solidarity. On August 20, the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) will deliver the final report about the 18,000 hectares of indigenous lands in the north of Espirito Santo, today owned by Aracruz Cellulose. The area originally belonged to the Tupiniquim and Guarani peoples but in 1967,...
[08/16/06] The Right to Land: MST inaugurates settlement in Cajamar, São Paulo
By: Ana Maria Straube
Over the past four years, 40 families of the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) have fought and struggled for the expropriation of 120 hectares of land in the region of Cajamar, state of São Paulo. The land, which belonged to the...