More than six thousand women
from Vía Campesina and the Landless Workers' Movement (MST)
participated in protests across Brazil on March 9. The direct actions
were in celebration of International
Women's Day, and against the government's continued support of multinational
agribusiness in the country.The
protests took place in more than eight Brazilian states. In Bras�lia,
800 women marched on the Ministry of Agriculture. In the state of
Rio Grande do Sul, another 700 occupied a plantation owned
by the Votorantim paper pulp corporation. In Espírito Santo,
nearly 1,300 women gathered at an export port of the paper pulp
company, Aracruz. And in S�o Paulo, close to
600 women occupied the Cosan plantation, which holds the largest
agro-ethanol factory in the world.
The sweep of actions across
the country comes less than two months after the MST's 25th anniversary.
"When the MST began, our pinciple enemy was the large landowners,"
says Ana Hanauer, -pokesperson for the MST in Brazil's southernmost
state, Rio Grande do Sul. "Now our principle enemies are the
multinational [agribusiness] corporations, which are taking over
land that should be used for agrarian reform."
The international financial
crisis has hit Brazil's industrial agricultural sector hard, causing
over 100,000 lost jobs last December alone. The Brazilian government
has earmarked $20 billion dollars in investments for the sector
over the next three years. But representatives of V�a
Campesina complain that the funds and land should be used to promote
agrarian reform and small-scale farming, not
to bailout big business.
Members of the MST in southern
Brazil are particularly upset over government loans that enabled
the Votorantim paper pulp company to buy up a significant stake
of its failing rival, Aracruz Celulose. The
addition of Aracruz gives Votorantim a total of more than one million
hectares of land, with what the company says is a productive capacity
of 5.8 million tons of pulp a year.
The MST says that mono-cropping
eucalyptus for pulp has led to the destruction of natural habitat,
resulting in a loss of topsoil, and desertification. The environmental
destruction is one reason 700
women occupied Votorantim's "Ana Paula" plantation in
Rio Grande do Sul.The
MST grew out of a struggle for land in this southern state in the
late 1970s and early 1980s. Over the last three decades the movement
has grown and developed in 24 of Brazil's 26 states, acquiring 35
million acres of land on which nearly 400,000 MST families are currently
settled.Rio Grande do
Sul has remained a frequent site of MST protests, largely due to
the group's long history in the region and the fact that the state
still has many large plantations in the hands of an elite few. The
movement scored a big victory in the state last
December, when it managed to settle 700 families on land that landowners
had defended violently for centuries.One
day into the Votorantim plantation occupation, the National Guard
arrived to break up the protest. Authorities arrested hundreds of
woman from Vía Campesina and the MST. The activists were
held without food, while troops destroyed their impromptu encampment.Authorities
registered the women's personal information, leading to fears the
government could use the information in the future to
persecute the activists or their families. A spokesperson for the
MST in Rio Grande do Sul says the arrests are part of an intensifying
campaign of repression directed by state governor Yeda Crusius of
the
centrist PSDB party. In fact, the criminalization of the movement
reached new heights last June when Rio Grande do Sul's Justice Department
called for the movement's "disbanding" throughout the
state, labeling it a "threat to national security." The
repression continues.
The Crusius government is now
pushing to close the world-famous itinerant schools on MST encampments
throughout the state. The state National Guard has been quick to
use intimidation, arrest, and repression against the MST and other
local social movements. A state police helicopter kept watch over
the MST's 25-year anniversary celebration in January, and the Rio
Grande do Sul military brigade
erected a checkpoint where they searched and registered the names
of individuals entering and leaving the MST settlement where the
event was taking place.
The women arrested
at the "Ana Paula" plantation occupation were released later
the same evening. The following day, they carried out a defiant march
in the nearby city of Bagï", where they distributed
fliers about the negative effects of monocultured eucalyptus, the
paper pulp companies, and Brazil's agroindustry.Michael
Fox is a South America-based freelance journalist, radio reporter,
and documentary filmmaker. He co-directed the recently released documentary,
Beyond Elections: Redefining Democracy in the Americas . For more
articles, reports or videos you can visit his
blog, Blending the Line
