The year is ending and again we have the feeling of accomplishment for all the struggles, activities, and alliances that we’ve built and engaged in with all the various sectors of the working class. In another difficult year we had to carry out great struggles against agribusiness that continues its offensive against our lands, natural resources, and public investments.
Obituary: it died on the night of Tuesday, 12/6/11, the victim of being run-over multiple times by Congress. The body will spend the summer in the morgue, as some propose its dismemberment before the ceremony in the Planalto. Cruelty can only be avoided if deputies and senators forged in the struggle for democratization take advantage of the recess to ponder three questions.
La Via Campesina (a sister organization of MST) presents a political platform to the federal government of Brazil which includes emergency measures, medium term measures, and strategies for the development and strengthening of family-based and peasant agriculture. The proposals are listed below.
Emergency Measures
The report amending the Forest Code, presented by congressman Aldo Rebelo (Communist Party of Brazil [PCdoB]) and approved by the House of Representatives Special Commission benefits the large landholders of Agribusiness.
By Rafael Soriano
The Chamber of Deputies decided today that Brazil should not be the country of the future. By 410 votes to only 63, federal deputies approved changes to the Brazilian Forest Code that are set to compromise the country's biodiversity as well as the sustainability of Brazilian agriculture. “Brazil woke up this morning with news of the murder of one of the Amazon Rainforest's strongest advocates,” announced Paulo Adario, director of Greenpeace's Amazon Campaign.
With the vote on reform of Brazil's Forest Code set for this Tuesday (24), fifteen hundred activists from civil society organizations marched this morning on the Ministries Esplanade in Brasília. “We are opposed to changes that will affect familial and peasant farming.
by Cliff Welch
[Ed. Note: This article is from NACLA Report on the Americas, March/April 2011 and is part of a special issue on Lula’s legacy.]
Until Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s victorious 2002 campaign for president, Brazil’s Workers’ Party (PT) had consistently supported a radical definition of agrarian reform. Seen as a crucial tool for building socialism, agrarian reform would weaken the ruling class fragment that secured its power by controlling large swaths of Brazilian territory and help pave the way for the victory of a PT-controlled government. In the years before he was elected president, Lula went out of his way to participate in land occupations, marches, and forums organized by the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) and other peasant groups. He visited jailed leaders like José Rainha
By Vanessa Ramos
An additional survey from the National Household Sample Survey (PNAD) suggests that food insecurity is higher in rural than in urban areas.
While 6.2% and 4.6% of households in urban areas had moderate or severe levels of food insecurity, respectively, in rural areas the figures were 8.6% and 7%.
