[04/16/2007] Reuters Reports: Brazil Landless Storm Building to Pressure Government

BRASILIA, April 16 (Reuters) - Hundreds of rural workers occupied the Brazilian government's land-reform headquarters in the capital Brasilia on Monday, demanding faster settlement of small farmers and peasants.

The protesters stormed the building of the National Agrarian Reform Institute at dawn. After shutting the doors to staff, they took mattresses and cooking equipment into the building. There are no reports of injuries.

Three activist groups demand that the government accelerate the expropriation of unproductive farms and grant land to squatters throughout the country.

"The movement demands the federal government meet its obligation to settle 150,000 families living under plastic sheets throughout the country in the name of the struggle for agrarian reform," the Landless Rural Workers' Movement, or MST, said in a statement.

The MST routinely occupies large plantations to lobby the government to grant plots of land and financial aid to poor family farmers.

During the latest campaign, which began two weeks ago and is known as "Red April," thousands of landless peasants occupied farms, torched sugar cane, and staged rallies in several states.

Left-leaning President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met with land reform groups on Friday and pledged to consider their demands to ease the criteria for land expropriation.
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Article originally available @ http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N16292983.htm