MST Occupations and Demonstrations

By Maurício Hashizume

MST occupies an area of 1,000 hectares on the border of Ceará and Paraíba

April 7, 2011

By Marcelo Matos
Fortaleza, Ceará
Da Página do MST

About 80 families organized by the MST encampments in Ceará and Paraíba, occupied the Gravatá farm, which has 1,000 hectares in the municipality of Mauriti.

In the early hours of Wednesday, about 200 police officers took a violent action and raided the camp Antônio Irmão in Itaquiraí, Mato Grosso do Sul (MS).

The police had no warrant, but invaded the camp and entered the homes of the encampment, searched families and seized material for working in the fields.

The camp has 670 families, including 'brasiguaios' who were expelled from their lands by large landowners in Paraguay and Brazil and who live on the border of both countries.

Four hundred landless families occupied, early on Monday (March 21), the Fazenda Palermo, in the city of São Borja, Rio Grande do Sul. The landless require that the state government finalize the expropriation of the area to settle 54 camped families. They also demand that the federal and state governments immediately settle all of the thousand landless families camped in the state.

The women of Via Campesina held a National Day of Women’s Struggle in light of March 8 - International Women’s Day – to denounce the extreme gravity of the situation in the Brazilian countryside.

By Maria Aparecida

In continuation of the National Day of Struggle of Women, in São Paulo, about 600 women that paralyzed the highway Cônego Domênico Rangoni, have occupied on the afternoon of Thursday (March 3), the headquarters of the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) in São Paulo.

By Bianca Costa

On the morning of March 8, 2006, 1,800 women from Via Campesina carried out a major action against the monoculture of eucalyptus in Rio Grande do Sul.

By Maria Aparecida

 Earlier on Thursday (March 3), about 600 women from Via Campesina and other social movements have closed part of Highway Cônego Domênico Rangoni, also known as Piaçaguera-Guaruja, which gives access to the industrial complex of Cubatão on the coast of São Paulo.

Over 1,000 women from the social movements of Ceará, the MST, the Movement of People's Councils and the Center of Popular Movements, made two marches to denounce the negative impacts to human health and the environment with excessive use of pesticides in Brazil and impact.

In Fortaleza, more than 600 women marched towards the Palace of the Abolition of the State Government. In Santa Quitéria, 500 women protest against the installation of mine Itataia¹.

Fabiana Frayssinet

RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 3 (IPS) - Thousands of women farmers in Brazil demonstrated this week against the use of toxic weedkillers and pesticides on crops and in favour of agricultural techniques that protect their families' health.