FMST Reportback from World Social Forum

Dear Friends of the MST,

I was lucky enough to be at the Caracas segment of the 2006 polycentric
World Social Forum this January. As a member of the FMST, I want to relay
to you a bit about my experiences there with the MST and some related
movements.

The Caracas World Social Forum was different experience for everybody who
attended. There was schedule which lays out thematic workshops, cultural
activities, and political manifestations in four time slots a day but it’s
not really a reliable predictor of what actually might be happening at any
given time. Though this sounds frustrating, and it can be, it also means
that the meat of the forum happens in the interstices of scheduled time
mostly through personal connections. Most estimates peg the size of the
Forum as around 100,000 people. This includes representatives of social
movements, community organizations, churches, NGOs and governments plus
media, academics and political tourists. It’s difficult to detach this
forum from its setting, the capital of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
The Chavez government was extensively involved in hosting and organizing the
forum (although the forum is formally independent) and the interior policies
and international politics of the government were a constant point of
reference and debate in discussions. If any of you are interested the
Venezuelan situation please take a look at www.venezuelaanalysis.com .

I met with parts of the twenty strong MST delegation group in a Caracas
neighborhood called “23 de Enero‿. Veinte-Tres, as it’s called, is known as
one of the most organized Chavista neighborhoods in the city or the ‘heart
of the revolution.’ MST militantes chose to stay there to exchange
experiences with the mobilized urban populations. The MST has been
developing relationships with Venezuelan social movements and the Chavez
government since 2001. (It’s strongest link with the Venezuelan government
is through a partnership in the Escola Nacional de Agroecologia in the
south of Brazil.) Venezuelan landless are organized both inside the
government and out. CANEZ (Coordinadora Agraria Nacional Ezequial Zamora)
is a direct arm of the government, led by public servants whose goal is work
politically to push the land reform process forward in Venezuela. The MST
has cultivated a stronger relationship with FNEZ (Frente Nacional Ezequial
Zamora) which is an autonomous social movement of landless attempting to
create mass mobilization for land reform. I am told there are about 60
representatives of the MST on longer stays around Venezuela to exchange
experience with FNEZ groups.

Another important part of the MST’s delegation was focused creating linkages
within the Via Campesina. The international peasant movement is now enough
of an organizing force in the forum to merit its own space and tent. The
area became a gathering place for representatives of peasant movements from
around the world but largely the Americas (including a sole Missourian from
the National Family Farm Coalition). I’m including a picture of the Via
Campesina mistica or ceremonial space including flags and farm produce from
all over the Americas. Conversations in the Via Campesina tent were rich
and wide ranging. Many of them focused on specific campaigns that the Via
is organizing such as: the Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform.
(http://www.foodfirst.org/taxonomy/term/229). The campaign has three
objectives: Follow and strengthen rural movements; resist the World Bank
prescribed Market Led Agrarian Reform; provide solidarity between rural
movements for emergency assistance and denunciations.

The Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform is just one of the ways the Via
Campesina is working to coordinate rural social movements. I was impressed
by the apparent productivity of exchanges going on in the Via Campesina tent
between groups like the MST from all over Latin America. In one exchange a
Bolivian militante asked the MST representative why Lula didn’t achieve a
land reform. MST representative, Jaime Amorim answered neoliberalism
destroyed the Brazilian state and Lula’s basic failing was his incapacity to
strengthen it. Only then could the government make progress changing the
agrarian model in Brazil. Amorim added “Somos uma voz de alerto! Não mais
aceitamos este modelo agrícola!‿ (We are raising the alarm. We won’t accept
this agrarian model anymore!) The convergence under the Via Campesina tent
testifies to a new unity among campesino organizations not only about what
model to resist, but perhaps more importantly, what models to pursue.
Representatives shared experiences in production processes (agroecology,
permaculture) and theoretical frameworks (food sovereignty) that have
strengthened their ability to create change.

Please feel free to get in touch with me about anything I’ve written here
(clarajklong@gmail.com ). I’m planning to be in Venezuela until this
December so I wish all of you a creative and productive year.

Na luta,
Clara