Worldwide Peasant Struggles

Montevideo, Latin America, (1940 -2015)

Today we don't have the physical presence of our comrade Eduardo Galeano anymore. Uruguayan from birth, Caribbean and Latin-American by lifestyle choice and by political militancy.

Groups and individuals showed their support and solidarity to João Pedro Stédile after he received death threats

Art  by Pavel Eguez, the great muralist from Ecuador,  in solidarity with Stedile.

European Committees of Friends of the MST met from October 24 to 26, 2014 in Mondoñedo, Galicia, Spain. Representatives from FMST Committees of Germany, Portugal, Norway, Sweden, Belgium and Galicia, Basque Country and Catalonia in Spain met for their bi-annual meeting. Sending their regards, but unable to attend, were the committees from Italy and Finland.

Ana Chã, a member of the MST’s Culture Collective, gave two presentations on the role of culture in social movements, particularly the MST. On August 11, 2014, in the Bay Area, she addressed cultural workers at Occupy the Farm in Albany, CA. Read more and view photos.

In New York City, on August 13, 2014,  Ana gave a presentation on thesame topic with an emphasis on mística to a gathering at a collective space in lower Manhattan. Read more and view photos.

On August 8, 2014, the Uri-Eichen Gallery in Chicago’s Mexican neighborhood of Pilsen hosted artwork and presentations on the MST and the rise of new democracy in Canoas, Brazil. MST posters, original oil paintings by Aliene de Souza Howell and products of worker’s cooperatives were all displayed in the gallery. Read more and view photos.

By Maura Silva

Translated by Omid Afzalalghom

A new Israeli military offensive has already resulted in hundreds of arrests and deaths in occupied Palestine. Across the West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem, and other Palestinian territories occupied in 1948, we witness further violence and violations of human rights and international humanitarian rights by the Israeli government.

In one of many protests on Thursday April 17, around 500 MST workers  from the Brazilian Federal District (state to which Brasilia, nation's capital, belongs to) and its surroundings blocked sections of the BR 020 highway, between the Planaltina (DF) and Formosa (GO) municipalities, at the height of kilometer 43 and the BR 070 highway, in direction towards Águas Lindas de Goiás. 

The 1st Continental Assembly of the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA) met between May 16-May 20. It brought together more than 200 delegates from 22 Latin American countries representing diverse social movements.

We have not had such vigorous street mobilizations since the campaign for “Rights Now” in the '80s.  The protests which exploded with the youth indignation were just the tip of the iceberg of the profound social and economic problems that persist in our society.  On one hand, the big cities have become a living hell, where workers pay high costs for low quality public transport.  Besides that, they spend two or three hours a day traveling, a pure waste of time.

Those who managed to buy an automobile, financed by international finance capital, are realizing that they paid dearly for the ability not to be able to move.  The auto assembly companies and the associated banks have never before sent so much money abroad.

Seventeen years have passed since that fateful April 17. On that day in 1996, a march of rural workers organized by the MST was blockaded and attacked by military police in the city of Eldorado dos Carajás, Pará state. 19 people were killed on the spot and 2 others died days afterwards. The day of the Eldorado dos Carajás massacre has officially become the National Day of Struggle for Land Reform.