Peasants, Students and Workers Actions in Brazil
In the following article, we compile some articles published by A Nova Democracia on the situation in Brazil.
The campaign against the 6×1 scale is mobilized in several cities of the country
Actions have been reported in different parts of the country against the six-day working week.
On February 16 there were two demonstrations against the 6×1. In Brasília, 50 activists demonstrated with banners and slogans calling for the “General Strike of National Resistance” or the unity of the struggle “Our struggle unified, it is students together with workers” to demand that the working week is reduced to 40 hours. The demonstration began in the streets but continued through a shopping center, where they tried to repress them, but they did not succeed. The Base Collective – Honestino Guimarães (CB-HG) declares that “the rights of the people will not be conquered” by the “congress of opportunists”.
There was also another mobilization that same day in Caxias do Sul, where the Caxias do Sul Support Committee held its first brigade in the midst of the call.
Workers and students gathered in Dante Alighieri Square to distribute leaflets at the city center for the workers of the shops to show their support, and many of them returned the support.
In Curitiba, dozens of workers of different kinds (merchants, telemarketing workers or workers of the service sector) took to the streets together with unions and political parties demanding the reduction of the working day.
Students form the Teko Haw Village Support Committee
On February 15, different supporters came to the Teko Haw village to understand the main challenges of the village’s peasants in the Federal District. Representatives of the Base Collective – Honestino Guimarães (CB-HG), the Brazilian Executive Committee of Pedagogy Students and a correspondent of A Nova Democracia attended. Indigenous peasants have suffered a very acute stealing of land since 2011, when an “ecological neighborhood” was built on their lands and they have been stolen of even more for other urban projects, they have also suffered repression, being attacked by the Military Police of the District. However, the peasants resist in the camp to avoid the invasion of their lands.
Since 2015, indigenous peasants have been waiting for the demarcation of the land as Indigenous Land, which was promised that year, but according to the authorities, they are not carrying it out because there are no indigenous people in the region. However, several indigenous peasants (Fulniô, Kariri-Xocó, Tuxá and Tukano) live together here, including Guajajara, an indigenous people of which the Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sonia Guajajara, is part, but who have never shown their support and have been denying their rights. The deficiencies in the village are evident: the water and electricity were installed by the residents, and the government has never tried to fix it despite its danger, they have only attended to collect taxes. They also have problems with health, which is very deficient and has brought problems to the peasants, and with education, which despite having built a local school, the government does not authorize it or hire teachers who speak the language and forces children to go to a school outside the territory.
That is why the newly formed Teka Haw Village Support Committee (CAATH) has already started its support campaign by taking materials to deliver to the village.
Front for the Free Student Pass mobilizes midst the drivers’ strike
On February 19, the associations that formed the Front for the Free Student Pass demonstrated in São Luís, Maranhão midst the mobilizations of public transport drivers to get free transportation passes for students.
The drivers are demonstrating, according to the Sttrema union, because they did not reach an agreement with the bosses. During the strike, the bus barely worked in the city. At the event and later on social networks, the Front had shown its support for the strikers.
