Brazil: 138 peasant families occupy a latifundium. Peasants struggle against a mining monopoly
Featured image: peasants occupy a latifundium in the state of São Paulo. Source: A Nova Democracia (AND).
138 peasant families occupied lands of the latifundium near to the municipality of Mirante do Paranapanema, State of São Paulo on this 7th of September. This is the 13th time the peasants occupy the latifundium since 1995, as a protest against the old State, because it is not handing over the lands to them. The latifundium has around 1,400 hectares of unproductive lands and it should given back in order to be used according to the “agrarian reform”, but those lands have been grabbed by the big landlord Kazuyoshi Kurata. AND denounces that this situation is similar of what occurs in many other lands of Paranapanema, where close to 150,000 hectares grabbed by the big landlords must be given back, an amount equivalent to the seize of the city of São Paulo.
Peasant occupation of lands. Source: AND
The peasants of Aurizona, in the State of Maranhão, have also continued their struggle against the Canadian mining monopoly Equinox Gold. This monopoly is intensifying its crimes against the Brazilian peasantry and has been invading their lands, uprooting the crops and vegetation and carrying out excavation in their lands. Moreover the peasants denounce that the monopoly has been harassing the families of the peasants who worked in the company. The monopoly has been using drones to surveil the homes of the families to attempt to intimidate them.
The repressive forces of the old Brazilian State and in particular the military police, are serving the interests of this kind of monopolies and have threatened in numerous occasions the peasants who protest.
All of this has been in vain and the peasants have not stopped their struggle but they have keep it active. The Aurizona peasants closed the entrance to Vila Aurizona on 9th, 10th and 11th of September and protested along with the Committee of Solidarity and Struggle for the Land (COMSOLUTE). Moreover those peasants and their struggle have the support of AND which is usually reporting on what occurs in this area and on their struggle – AND made an outstanding and extensive report on May –, as well as they have the solidarity from the students of the area.
Source: A Nova Democracia
Moreover, AND reports that COMSOLUTE along with the Student Collective Sons of the People will organize an event in November under the name of “Peasants, Indigenous people and Quilombolas: a struggle for the land in Maranhão in the past and today”, in which the Aurizona peasants will be present at the Federal University of Maranhão to denounce what is happening in the area.
