Brazil: Peasants Occupy the INCRA Headquarters to Demand Land Expropriation
Featured image: Peasants participating in the march in Maceió. Source: AND
On April 15th, approximately 400 peasants from popular movements of the struggle for land marched through downtown Maceió and occupied the headquarters of the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), A Nova Democracia (AND) reports.
The march aimed to demand the long-promised agrarian reform promised by successive opportunistic governments of the old State of Brazil, as well as to denounce the repression faced by the land rights movement by latifundium. National Struggle Front (FNL), the Land and Labor Movement (MTL), the Landless Liberation Movement (MLST), the Popular Struggle Movement (MPL), the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), the Via do Trabalho Movement (MVT), Terra Livre (TL), and the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) were present at the march.
The march, taking place in the month of April and carried out throughout the country, marks 30 years since the Eldorado dos Carajás Massacre, one of the greatest crimes committed by the old State in Brazilian history. At the S-curve of highway PA-150, in southern Pará, 21 landless peasants were murdered by military police during a protest by the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) demanding the expropriation of land for agrarian reform (a 40,000-hectare estate where 3,500 families lived). Approximately 1,500 people were surprised by a troop of 164 police officers who fired at point-blank range, hitting peasants in the back and neck.
On the 16th, peasants also held a demonstration in front of the Alagoas Court of Justice to demand swift action from the judiciary in the processes concerning the lands of the former Laginha Sugar Mill, as well as other areas undergoing regularization in the state of Alagoas. AND explains that “The history of the Laginha Sugar Mill is full of controversies, including allegations of slave labor, land conflicts, and labor irregularities.”
The full report can be read here:
