Resisting for the Land

On April 26, the Brazilian Parliament have instigated a subversive attack against the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST).

This measure by the reactionary faction of the Congress of Brazil came as a retaliatory measure against this year’s National Commemoration of Struggles in Defense of Agrarian Reform; a day of activity the MST organizes to “reaffirm the centrality of the struggle for land in Brazil and the importance of implementing an Agrarian Reform project to develop the countryside, produce healthy food, and combat hunger.”

The measure seeks to falsely scrutinize the MST movement as an illegitimate or “corrupt” organization – the Brazilian Congress has approved the establishment of a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI) to investigate “the activities,” “the real purpose,” and “the means of funding” of the MST. In coordination with this attack, the mainstream media has instigated a slander campaign against the MST’s day of remembrance and the rest of the month of community activity as “Red April”. Last month, MST would mobilize occupations of abandoned areas of the countryside as way to bring community intervention in converting these territories into productive areas of agriculture and housing. About 33 land occupations were carried out despite the media campaign to repress them.

This attack is not a new occurrence for the MST, but again it another reminder that the current state of Brazil seeks to subvert and halt the project, a movement that has defended rural campesinos and families from being evicted off their land and has sought to build prelogical and local land production programs that seek to transform the social relations and material conditions of the impoverished rural community.