{xtypo_info}MST Statement{/xtypo_info)
The agrarian reform must be a public
and governmental program that should apply the principles of the
constitution to fight the concentration of land property. Through the
expropriation and indemnification of the owners it organizes
settlements, distribute land to the worker's families and, by doing
so, democratize the access to the land, which is a natural good and
must be at the service of the whole population, and not only of a
minority.
The state must also guarantee the
democratic access, with equal rights to all its citizens, to
employment, dwelling, education and health. In the last years,
nothing, or very little, has been done to make a real agrarian reform come true.
The governments, in fact, have been
giving priority to the agribusiness as a model for agriculture, which
is based on the big and "modern" properties that use a lot of
poison, generate few jobs and produce to export. It´s a model that
receives huge investments in the form of credit by the public banks
and the BNDES (National Bank for the Social Development) and that
don't pay almost anything in taxes, thanks to the Kandir law.
The state must also guarantee the
democratic access, with equal rights to all its citizens, to
employment, dwelling, education and health. In the last years,
nothing, or very little, has been done to make a real agrarian reform come true.
The governments, in fact, have been
giving priority to the agribusiness as a model for agriculture, which
is based on the big and "modern" properties that use a lot of
poison, generate few jobs and produce to export. It´s a model that
receives huge investments in the form of credit by the public banks
and the BNDES (National Bank for the Social Development) and that
don't pay almost anything in taxes, thanks to the Kandir law.
This is a benefit that no worker,
farmer, sales man or industrial has in the country: a lot of money,
little taxes and no social engagement or responsability with the
development of the country. A benefit given only to the big national
and international enterprises.
And to the poor peasants that decide to
organize themselves, the government adopts only social compensations,
like the "bolsa família" (basic income program for the
poorer people) and the settlement in projects of colonization in
Amazon forest, far from everything. Or it allocates families in empty
lots in old settlements.
That's why the concentration of land
property has been increasing during the last 12 years. And now with
an aggravating, the foreign capital, from the big transnational
corporations, is also buying a lot of land! They want to settle huge
areas of eucalypt, soy and sugar cane monocultures, to get profits
and match only their own interests. They left us only the
environmental destruction, the unemployment and the poverty!
For all these reasons, more than 140
thousand families of Brazilian workers are organized and fighting,
but are forced to raise their children under black plastic canvas, in
camps along the roads, thanks to the omission of the governments.
Have you ever imagined how is it possible to stay only waiting,
inert, listening to land promises, living in black plastic canvas
slums, unable to produce for two, three, five, eight years?
That's why, tired of waiting, we are
mobilizing ourselves in the whole country. We are protesting to
accelerate the agrarian reform.
And we are doing this on the period of
April 17th because in this day, in 1996, the Military Police of the
state of Pará, under the orders of the governor of that state,
Almir Gabriel (PSDB) and of the former president Fernando Henrique
Cardoso, had made a massacre on a camp in the town of Eldorado dos
Carajás, where 19 landless peasants were instantly killed,
other two died a few weeks later, 69 were mutilated and hundreds were
wounded. After all these years, no one was arrested or punished.
Everything remains unpunished. As we all know, here in Brazil the
judicial power works only to protect the assets of the rich, and the
rights of the poor are always postponed.
In honor of the martyrs of Carajás,
Via Campesina Internacional has enacted the day of April 17^th the
day of international peasant struggle all over the world. And here in
Brazil, thanks to the former senator Marina Silva, the national
congress approved and the former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso
sanctioned a law that establishes the 17th of April as the national
day of agrarian reform struggle!
<hr>
*What do we defend and expect the
federal government to fulfill with the help of the state governments?
*
1. We want the government to make the
expropriation of unproductive farms quicker, giving priority to some
regions in each state, preferably next to the consumer centers, to
make the access to the market and the development of food production
easier.
2. We want the government to give
priority to the expropriation of farms owned by foreign companies
that came here to implement their monocultures (of eucalypt, soy and
sugar cane) that are dangerous for the environment, with the
intensive use of poisonous fertilizers and expelling the Brazilian
workers from their rural environment
3. The government must update the edict
of regulation that measures the productivity rate of the farms, which
is still based on data of 1975. It must also mobilize its
parliamentary base, which is the majority of the congress, to make
come true the project already approved by the senate that orders the
expropriation of farms that still use slave work. There are many
properties in this situation and they are a shame to all the
Brazilian people.
4. We expect the government to make a
real effort, along with all the public organs involved, to settle
down in a few months all the 140 thousand families that have been
living in provisional camps for a very long time, waiting and living
under black plastic canvas.
5. We demand the organization of a new
model of settlement, which could mix a new rural credit, special for
the settled families, with the food production and the installation
of cooperative like agricultural industries. The families, then,
would be able to get a higher income from its work and jobs would be
created for the youth that lives on the rural environment
6. The Conab (National Supplying
Company) must be valorized, its economical resources should be
increased and all peasant family, no matter if settled or formed by
little farmers, should have the guarantee that all its food
production will be bought.
7. A national reforesting program must
be adopted in the agrarian reform areas and in the peasant
communities, with governmental subsidies, so that each family would
be stimulated to plant at least two 20.000 square meters of native
and fruitful trees in each area. By doing that we would contribute
for the preservation of nature, avoiding the global heating, provoked
by the predating monoculture of the agribusiness.
8. The government must develop a big
educational program in the rural areas, that should start with a
national campaign for the eradication of illiteracy and improve the
offer of courses and vacancies in courses specifically for the rural
youth. The resources for the Pronera (National Program for Agrarian
Reform Education) must be amplified, allowing the young peasants to
study in the brazilian universities through agreements and an alternating
regime in the superior courses.
9. A new institutional format must be
created to make the technical assistance and the pubic rural
extension in the settlements viable. To make it possible is necessary
that we have a public organ responsible for technical assistance and
the training of the farmers.
10. The Incra (National Institute of
Colonization and Agrarian Reform) must be directly bound to the
Presidency of the Republic and form, with the Conab and the organ
responsible for the technical assistance, a new institutional format
to accelerate and make the agrarian reform possible.
With these measures, we could expect
the agrarian reform to actually become more than a project
AGRARIAN REFORM: For social justice and
popular sovereignty!
APRIL, 17 2007
—————————————————————————————————————-
LETTER TO PRESIDENT LULA
Exmo.sr.
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
M.D. Presidente da República
Palácio do Planalto.
Brasília
Honourable Mister President,
We are glad to come to your presence in
order to present you personally many suggestions of concrete measures
that your government should adopt, in case it chooses to take the
political decision of making a real agrarian reform in our country.
Agrarian reform which is understood by our movement and by all the
brazilian society as a governmental politic that could truly
democratize the land property, allowing the end of the exploitation
of millions of rural workers, historically excluded from all the
social development process, setting them free to build the future of
their families working for themselves. Understood also as a measure
to stimulate income distribution that would allow the inclusion of
millions of now marginalized people in the consumer market,
stimuating also the creation of jobs in the city and in the country,
and the development of the internal market. By doing the agrarian
reform the state should also guarantee the access to education, in
all levels, and stimulate the use of environment friendly
agricultural techniques to produce healthy food.
To accomplish those goals, we present
the following proposals that can be adopted by your government.
I – Regarding the access to the land
1. The government should update the
National Plan for Agrarian Reform and build realistic mechanisms to
implement a massive program of agrarian reform that would benefit one
million families of landless
rural workers
2. A real governmental effort to
collect and expropriate all the land needed to settle down
immediately all the families that are living in provisional camps,
the majority of which in sub-human conditions for many years
3. Give priority to regional programs
of expropriations, concentrating the acquisition of the areas in
specific regions in each state, next to the consumer centers,
creating regional reformed areas of peasant agriculture
4. Expropriation of all farms that are
property of foreign companies situated in national border areas,
according to the law
5. The government should mobilize its
parliamentary base to approve immediately the law to expropriate the
farms in which slave work is found
6. The government should update the
productivity rates, change the internal rules to accelerate the
processes of expropriation and apply the "ritos sumários",
according many recommendations included in the II National Plan for
Agrarian Reform and made by specialized consultants
7. Immediately designate to the
agrarian reform all the farms pledged in public banks or involved
with debts related to taxes and labor rights
8. Removal of all the authoritarian and
bureaucratic legislation that open the possibility of legal
controversies that prevent the agrarian reform
9. The government should make an
emergency plan, articulated with the Human Rights Secretary and the
"Ouvidoria Agrária", to allow the federal government act
together with the judicial power and the state polices, in order to
punish all the cases of rural violence, that has been responsible for
the death of hundreds of rural workers, and the majority of the cases
still remain unpunished and the legal processes stopped
II – Proposals for the settlements
1. We need a new model of settlements
that could allow a larger number of families to be settled down in
the same area, no matter the size of the individual area. These
settlements should be massive, organized next to the cities, in
fertile lands, combined with "agrovilas" and agro industries,
which could guarantee other kinds of work and income for the women
and the young people.
2. We need a permanent program, with
concrete measures to stimulate the agricultural cooperation of the
governmental organs
3. A program of instalation of
agroindustries in the settlements with public investment, coordinated
by the CONAB (National Supplying Company), and granted to
cooperatives administrated by the individuals who were settled down
in that area. With this we would elevate the aggregated value of the
products and improve the income of the rural workers
4. We need a new kind of rural credit
for the agrarian reform. The "Pronaf" (National Program for the
Familiar Agriculture) in its current form is not able to reach the
settled families, and only a minority have had access to it (see
detailed proposal attached)
5. The Conab must be reinforced as a
public company responsible for buying the food products produced in
the settlements and areas of familiar agriculture
6. Adoption of a wide dwelling program
in the settlements, establishing an agreement between the "Caixa
Econômica Federal" (public bank) and the Incra (National
Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform), to guarantee the
building of all the houses that are missing in the old settlements,
that sum more than a hundred thousand. Also guarantee the resources
for each year's settlements. The inclusion in these new program the
building of social structure improvements, such as child "cirandas",
spots courts, communitarian houses, laundries and all the collective
installations needed.
7. A national reforesting program
should be adopted in the agrarian reform lots and peasant's
communities, with areas of until 20.000 square meters pre family each
year, with native and fruitful trees. The state governments and the
Incra could give the little plants and technical assistance and the
federal government would give support paying the monthly workmanship
giving them a green card, in the "Caixa Econômica Federal",
that could substitute the "bolsa-família" program for
those who have land, and the payment should preferably be made to
women and young people.
8. A special program to finance the
installation of agricultural industries should be adopted, with
resources subsidized by the public banks.
9. A program of agricultural machines
and tractors industries should be adopted for the little agriculture
and the agrarian reform areas. The present industrial structure,
based only in big sized machines doesn't
match the needs of the agrarian reform.
There are industrial projects and business proposals, but with a lack
of rural credit specifically directed to it, in proper conditions. We
advise that a tripartite commission (government, companies and
agrarian reform entities) should be created to present proposals for
all the necessary measures.
III. Education in the agrarian reform
areas
1. Make the Pronera (National Program
of Agrarian Reform Education) stronger and bigger, as a priority
program, allocating the necessary resources for the existing demand
of courses that are presented each year by the movements in
partnership with the universities and/or other educational
institutions. Today, those resources are limited and there is a
serious problem of discontinuity
2. Make the institutional space of the
Country Education stronger within the MEC (Ministry of Education),
giving it more resources, servants and articulated actions within the
group of secretaries in the Ministry and among related Ministries.
3. Implement a national literacy
campaign for young and adults in the rural environment in partnership
with entities and social movements that act on the rural area. The
goal is that by the end of the mandate the illiteracy should be
reduced to zero. Adjust the "Brasil Alfabetizado" program in
order that it could deal with the specificity of the rural areas and
include the continued formation of the educators.
4. Implement a program of installation
of medium level technical schools in every area of the agrarian
reform that has a demand for it. An immediate possibility is to
include the settlements as priority areas for the expansion of the
federal net of technical schools, specially to implement the UNED's
(Decentralized Teaching Unities) of CEFET's, according to a
proposal presented to the SETEC/MEC by the MST in
November of 2006.
5. Implement a wide formation program
of techniques in environment friendly agriculture, in all the
Brazilian states.
6. The MEC (Ministry of Education)
should come up with a way (maybe with other ministries, like Agrarian
Development and Science and Technology), along with the educational
secretaries of the states governments to guarantee the creation of
medium level basic education public schools in the agrarian reform
areas, including the building of schools in the settlements,
improvement of the infra-structure and the hiring of specific
professionals of education.
7. We sum up to the national campaign
for the inclusion in the Brazilian law the "ensino médio"
(high school education) as an obligatory level, assumed as a part of
the basic scholar education and, therefore, with the establishment of
goals for it to be universalized through the public and free offer.
IV. Administrative measures
1. We defend that the Incra should be
directly bound to the Presidency of the Republic
2. We defend that public examinations
should be held immediately in order to hire more than 3 thousand
public servants, as the already published edict has foreseen, which
indicated the necessity of 4.500
servants, but only 1.500 were hired
3. The Conab (National Supplying
Company) should be linked to the Incra as a support company for the
agrarian reform
4. A public institute must be created,
in the fastest and most adequate administrative form to take care of
the settled farmer's training, and the implementation of the
technical assistance and rural extension as a public service, because
the present model has already collapsed.
Mister president, we would like to
manifest ourselves also, as social movement and representatives of a
part of our people that live in the rural areas, about other aspects
of the governmental politics. We defend
the necessity of a new economical
politic that would give priority for the development with income
distribution. Income distribution means preserve the rights of the
working class, valorize the wages in general and specially the
minimum wage, distribute land and have a massive program of job
generation for the youth.
We defend the necessity of a politic
that democratizes the mass media, interrupting the closure and
repression of communitarian radios, the governmental support to make
them viable and the implementation of a public and open television
network, in partnership with the organizations of the civil society.
We are discontented with the form that
the Biosecurity law is being applied, where always are pursued the
interests of the transnational companies that want to dominate our
agriculture, with transgenic seeds. We demand that the government
inspect the fulfillment of the law that order that the transgenic
products must be labeled, and they are being sold in the supermarkets
without any control or inspection.
Convinced of your commitment with the
improvement of the life conditions of the rural working people, we
expect your determination for the effective implementation of these
measures.
