News
Land & Impunity: The Trial of the Massacre
In the past 33 years, 772 rural workers have been murdered in the state of Pará. Only 27% of these cases ever went to trial and only 11% were judged. Not one culprit has been punished.
On April 17th, 1996, 19 members of Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) were shot and killed by...
By Silvia Ribeiro*
Curitiba, Brazil. The south of Brazil, confluence of the strongest social movements from Brazil and Latin America was, during March, the scene of a confrontation between the peasant movements and the transnational corporations, with the United Nations as a backdrop. Between March 5th and 31st, one after another, there...
Marina dos Santos, of the MST’s National Coordinating Body, discusses the Movement’s recent actions in this exclusive interview:
Q] In March, the MST conducted land occupations in 17 states. Why?
A] Though the mainstream media would like the public to think these occupations are the result of agitation by our national leadership,...
Strong opposition to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its exploitation of the Global South united urban and rural workers as they protested today in Parana’s capital city, Curitiba, forcing a change in the daily routine of one of Brazil’s larger state capitals.
In the early morning of March 29th, over 10,000 marchers from La Via...
"On the Front Line: Human Rights Defenders in Brazil" documents and denounces the Brazilian government's slowness, incompetence, and inefficiency in dealing with the issue. The 51 cases presented in the report are, unfortunately, only a handful of the many that threaten the defense of human rights in Brazil. However, they serve to more than...
Dear Friends of the MST,
The MST’s Human Rights Sector is asking for your urgent support and solidarity.
On November 20, 2004, 18 armed gunmen, commanded by the rancher Adriano Chafik, attacked the MST’s Terra Prometida (Promised Land) encampment. They shot and killed five rural workers, wounding another 12. This sad episode...
[03/22/06] URGENT ACTION NEEDED: Armed police in Rio Grande do Sul invade offices, attack women organizers and confiscate computers, organizing materials and other items
**SOLIDARITY LETTER INCLUDED**
Dear Friends of the MST,
The MST’s National Coordinating Body is asking for your urgent support and solidarity.
Women...
An international delegation of activists, defending biodiversity and genetic resources, held a solidarity rally today in support of the 600 rural workers currently occupying a test site owned and administered by the multinational corporation, Syngenta. The 600 workers, tied to the Via Campesina, occupied Syngenta’s experimental farm in Teresa...
On March 8, two thousand women from La Via Campesina Brazil occupied an area belonging to the Aracruz Cellulose Corporation in Barra do Ribeiro (RS). The date (International Women’s Day) and the place (close to where the Second International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development was taking place) was symbolically chosen to...
The proposal defended by the Brazilian government at the Third Meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (MOP3), has been called into question by social movements. During a debate initiated by the Global Civil Society Forum, Maria Rita Reis, of the organization Terra de Dirietos, expressed the collective discontent with...