All these groups have recently formed the social movements' co-ordinating council (CMS), which plans to unleash a series of actions in towns and the countryside to draw attention to its diverse demands, relating to a number of social problems afflicting Brazil.
Rainha's arrest
The MST is in particularly militant mood right now on account of the arrest last month of one of its most high-profile leaders, José Rainha. He was taken into custody following a farm invasion in the area of Pontal do Paranapanema, in the interior of the state of São Paulo, where thousands of sem-terra are camped out alongside a highway, protesting at the slow pace at which the government is executing agrarian reform. Once arrested, however, Rainha was found to be in illegal possession of arms, and for that crime has been sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison.
Rainha had not been long out of prison for similar offences carried out at the head of the MST in his region, and cynics might argue that a spell of `martyrdom for the cause', spent behind bars, only draws further attention to the MST's activities. Certainly, Rainha himself is milking the opportunity, addressing a hand-written letter to a meeting of MST members at the beginning of August, in which he compares his persecution by the government with that of the early Christians at the hands of the Roman Empire.
Safeguards
At the same time that it is imprisoning Rainha, the federal government is mulling legislation to guarantee that recovery of land from invaders like the MST be carried out with all the appropriate safeguards for human life, including advance warning that the police intend to take the land back. Recovery of invaded farms could only take place if temporary accommodation had already been designated for the invaders removed from them. The plan is criticised by farmers' and farmworkers' unions alike, the former because it would slow down the recovery process, the latter because it sees the designation of temporary accommodation as a palliative rather than a definitive solution to the plight of the landless.
Aside from passing such a law, however, the Lula government's main hope for defusing the situation in the countryside is a return to economic growth, and indeed, several ministers are promising a bevy of measures designed to stimulate recovery for a few weeks' time (see article on page 6)
The MST changes track
Meanwhile, the MST itself is showing signs of playing a new game, establishing cordial relations with local governments, particularly if they are at odds with the federal authorities in Brasília. In Presidente Epitácio, in the area of the Pontal do Paranapanema, the town's mayor, Adhemar Dassie, a member of the social democrat party (PSDB) that runs São Paulo state but is in opposition to Lula's governing coalition at the federal level, recently attended a meeting with the local MST leadership. He addressed a crowd of sem-terra, voicing criticism of the federal government but praising state governor Geraldo Alckmin for his stance on the invasions.
Shouldering the blame
The responsibility for maintaining law and order belongs, in the first instance, to state governments, but most governors belong to parties opposed to Lula's PT and have preferred to let invasions and encampments such as the one in Pontal do Paranapanema develop, only intervening when highways have been blocked.
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