Brazil: attack against MST proves urgency of peasant self-defense

We hereby share an unofficial translation of an article published by A Nova Democracia. Yesterday we reported on the murder mentioned in this article.

The coward execution of the peasant leader Valdir do Nascimento (Valdirzão) and the peasants Gleison Barbosa de Carvalho and Denis Carvalho, between yesterday and today, in a typical operation of Bolsonarist paramilitary hordes, proves that the struggle for land has entered a new dynamic.

The by paramilitary hordes assaulted settlement was consolidated in the city of Tremembé. This did not serve as a deterrent. The paramilitaries entered ready to execute as many as necessary: according to reports, all the shots were headshots, and after killing the two peasants and injuring others (one of them who died in the hospital), they still carried out searches in the surrounding area to eliminate witnesses. The area has been the target of land speculation for some time.

To assume that the current government can offer security to the peasant masses is, at best, naive and, at worst, a political crime. This government only remains in the Palácio do Planalto because it is supported by the leadership of the National Congress, all of them linked to local and regional big landlord oligarchies and properly gathered into the Agrarian Parliamentarian Front. Formally, it encompasses a total of 340 parliamentarians, 290 deputies and 50 senators. This means that, officially, the politically articulated latifundium controls 56.5% of the Chamber of Deputies and 61.7% of the Senate. They control the legislative power: by using it the latifundium controls this government, which not only accepts its strict control, but also offers itself to it, arguing that, if this would not be the case, it would be impossible to govern. And so it governs, but it governs entirely for them and only as long as it is convenient for the reaction. The economy, centered on agribusiness by political choice of this government and all previous ones since the late 90’s, also reinforces the strength of big landlords in political Power, and by increasing the flow of capital to the agrarian sector, that only increases the price of land and encourage the latifundium to expel the masses from their lands in increasingly violent ways.

It is not due to lack of attention that the government did nothing, and will not do anything, for the failed agrarian reform. The government has closed its ranks with “agribusiness” and, with it, comes the paramilitary hordes, it’s the complete package. In this way, we return to the obvious: assuming that the government can offer security to the peasant masses is, ultimately, a political crime.

In October 2024, the League of Poor Peasants (LCP) released a statement in which they highlighted that “in 2023, in a public declaration we alerted the peasants across the country and call on them to defend their right to land with arms in their hands”. At the time, the movement was speaking about the occasion of the Battle of Barro Branco, in Jaqueira, Pernambuco, when peasants supported by the LCP and organized in armed self-defense expelled more than 50 paramilitaries from the “Invasão Zero” Movement, resulting in the state president of this band and other goons being injured.

Either the peasants, indigenous people and Quilombolas organize their self-defense and advance with the Agrarian Revolution to destroy latifundium, or they will be exterminated by Bolsonarist paramilitary bands at the service of the “agribusiness” latifundium.

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