Brazil: Mãe Bernadete Camp celebrates first year since the retaking of the land
As A Nova Democracia reported, on August 25th, the peasant families of the Mãe Bernadette Revolutionary Area vigorously celebrated one year of the retaking of the land with a large celebration of the People’s Court and a political event that brought together more than 300 people including peasants, leaders, democratic organizations, supporters of the struggle for land, families and friends of the brave camp, lead by the League of the Poor Peasants (LCP) of North of Minas and South of Bahia.
The People’s Court, part of the Lagoa dos Portácios Farm land taken back by the peasants, divided 72 lots for squatters and collective areas. The People’s Court took place within resistance and defense of the sacred right to land, where squatter families had already lived since their ancestors, but whose rights have never been recognized. They organized themselves, raised their voices, their sickles, their right to self-defense and their struggle has served as an example and inspiration for thousands of landless families in the region’s peasant communities, who dream of their own piece of land to live and work with dignity.
Many families have already built shacks and are producing on their plots and preparing the land for the rainy season and planting crops. Several kilometers of local roads have already been opened by collective work by peasants and the entrances to many lots already have brackets (a type of entrance made in the fences to give access to the lots and allow carts, cars and other vehicles to pass through). During the first works, some saboteurs, such as agents from Faroeste (“security company” hired by Calsete) tried to lock these passages, but the peasants reopened them.
Camp Mãe Bernadete resisted two mega eviction operations by the Military Police and returned to the land, denied the slander, faced persecution from the big landlords, the legal structures to criminalize the families and rebuilt the shacks burned by the goons, hired by Calsete.
As stated by a representative of the League of Poor Peasants of the North of Minas and South of Bahia, “the struggle and resistance of the squatters for these lands already has countless feats and the festivity of the People’s Court represents an important milestone that celebrates the victories, systematizes the lessons and collective learning, which aligns friends and demarcates who the class enemies of poor peasants are, preparing for the next period.”
In this second semester, the peasants announce the expansion of their fields, the seizure of all the land on the Lagoa dos Portácios Farm and the defense of the People’s Court, while they prepare to face a new retaking, as there is an injunction against the families, issued by district judge Arthur Neves.
The party started singing the peasant’s hymn, Conquistar a Terra, and continued with several speeches, among them one of a member of the League of the Poor Peasants: “Yes, we are victorious! It’s not because the battle is over, it’s not because the jaguar is dead, we are victorious because we have sustained this fight day after day!”
During the celebration, the case of repression on another party was commented. During the Pega do Boi no Mato party, where big landlords prepared an offensive to try to expel the peasants from the land and making a criminalization campaign against them. However, due to the great people’s organization, this campaign was crushed.
Lastly, a delivery of Certificates of Ownership was done, when the peasants received and accredited of the ownership of the land. One peasant added: “We call on all friends and supporters to mobilize, understanding that the seriousness of the political situation in our country reveals that the extreme right is more emboldened than before against the poor struggling for land, who count on the assiduous work of opportunists from who will point their hard fingers at those who really fight, will say that our documents are ‘not worth it’, joining in with the big landlords. During the elections they will try to give the appearance of normality, while an environment of great crisis and instability reigns. We must more than ever be firm and certain of the victory of the people, for their just cause and because it is a new force that grows and gains experience with each battle, while the cause of the latifundium and its allies is decrepit, backward and unjust and its problems are insoluble.”
