Brazil?s battleground

Poverty in the countryside is causing both 4 million landless people as well as indigenous communities to claim their special rights. The Church, in defense of such groups, is urging for better land distribution.

With its profusion of flora, fauna and mineral resources, the perfect conditions for growing coffee, and the world?s largest rainforest, Brazil, Latin American?s largest country, might seem a tropical Eden.

But those who benefit from the land ? through land rights ? are a tiny percentage of the country?s population of over 175 million. Land surveys reveal that 20 per cent of the population own 90 per cent of the land, and the poorest 40 per cent of Brazilians own less than one per cent. One third of Brazilians live on less than a dollar a day.

In the face of such stark inequality, Brazil?s Catholic Church has, for several decades, campaigned for Brazil?s landless and indigenous communities.

?Though ethnically and culturally different, both groups are battling against latif?ndios (large landowners), in unjust economic conditions. Both groups are poor, and without money,? says Saulo Feitosa, vice-president of the indigenous missionary council (CIMI). ?Their history is one of a struggle to have their rights recognised? and reform to enforce such rights.

In recent months, both groups have pressured the government of Luiz In?cio ?Lula? da Silva. The Church has backed them up, criticising the government for failing to adequately address such issues in its first 15 months of government.

On 27 March, Jo?o Pedro Stedile, the national leader of Brazil?s MST, the Landless Workers? Movement, announced that his organisation would ?raise hell?. The radical movement, which demands access to the land to live on and farm, then launched an intensive campaign demanding agricultural reform by starting a wave of land seizures, which amounted to more than 100 across 17 states by the end of April, involving 29,000 families ? a scale of protest not seen for five years.

April has been a month of protest since 1996, when 19 rural workers who were protesting over land were massacred by police on 17 April in the Amazonian state of Par?. ?We protest to mark their deaths and continue what they were fighting for?, says Soraia Soriano, a MST coordinator in S?o Paulo state. This recent campaign has particularly highlighted a widely felt disappointment at Lula?s progress on agricultural reform. Lula has traditionally campaigned as an ally of the excluded and the poor and, most notably, the landless. Last year 14,000 landless families were settled; but the MST estimates there are over four million in total.

Within days of Stedile?s promise to ?raise hell?, the Government faced further protests, when the bodies of 29 miners were found in the so called ?Roosevelt? Indian reserve, a 5.2 million-acre area in Rond?nia state. Indians stand accused of killing these individuals for trespassing on protected land and illegally mining what is one of Latin America?s richest diamond sources.

Later in April, over 100 members of different indigenous tribes marched to the capital, Brasilia, demanding an audience with the President. They asked for guarantees to prevent further mining and encroachment by outsiders, and the official demarcation of reserves, including that of the Raposa/Serra do Sol in Roraima state, which has been pending for over a decade.

The Catholic Church has criticised the ruling left-wing Workers? Party on both these issues, saying its failure to resolve such issues has contributed to social conflict and poverty. Over the Easter weekend, the president of the Confederation of Brazilian Bishops (CNBB), Geraldo Majella Agnelo, proclaimed that agrarian reform was a matter of urgency. On 1 May the Brazilian Bishops? Confederation issued a statement saying that ?Brazil faces a serious economic and social crisis?.

Although it is opposed by numerous business groups and a strong rural lobby, the Church continues to defend the MST?s land seizures. Landowners see such moves as invasions of private property but under Brazil?s constitution, land that is unproductive and fails to fulfil its ?social function? can be appropriated by the Government for agrarian reform.

Though most occupations are of unproductive land, with longer-term aims of settlement and farming, the movement has also resorted to selective occupations of government buildings or company land, to exert political pressure and raise awareness. The occupation in April by approximately 2,000 families of land belonging to the multinational cellulose company, Veracel, and a similar move occupying the land of Klabin, the largest national paper producer, were examples of such tactics.

Bishop Lu?s Fl?vio Cappio of Bahia stoutly defends these strategies. ?Everything the MST has been doing is because the Government has failed to enforce reform as promised,? he says. ?If reform had happened, these protests wouldn?t.? Antonio Canuto of the Land Pastoral Commission (CPT), a group allied to the bishops? confederation that helps the rural poor, echoes this: ?Change happens if there is popular pressure; if not, it doesn?t.?

The Church has also been calling for a statute specifically to defend indigenous communities? rights and centralise decision making, and for the immediate demarcation of reserves. It wants a law regulating mining within reserves to allow mining rights only to indigenous communities, dismissing arguments that opening up access would bring more benefits by creating jobs.

The Catholic Church insists, however, on environmental protection. ?Nature shouldn?t be commercialised, or sold off,? says Cappio, adding that ?everyone should have access to this ? not just people but all living creatures ? humans, plants, animals?.

In the case of the Amazon, home to vast numbers of species and 20 per cent of the world?s fresh water, this line is particularly compelling. ?The Amazon is a priority for the Church because of its importance not just for Brazil but for the world,? says Cappio. The Church?s support of indigenous communities is not uncontested. In January, three members of the indigenous missionary council were taken hostage by opponents of the demarcation of an Indian reserve in Raposa/Serra do Sol, Roraima. They were led by rice producers whose paddy fields fall within the reserve and who could be expelled from the area.

The context in which this struggle is taking place is one of extreme poverty, and violence is often just below the surface. Ivo Cassol, the governor of Brazil?s Rond?nia state, recently urged the federal government to send in the army to restore peace in the Roosevelt reserve. The discovery of 800 slaves in Bahia last August was a telling illustration of the brutal conditions that persist in Brazil?s countryside. While 25,000 people are estimated to live in slave-like conditions in Brazil, those controlling such groups seem to do so with impunity.

In the face of such conditions, the politics of protest do show signs of bearing fruit. After repeated land seizures in April, the MST managed to secure a range of concessions from the Government. It promised to settle 400,000 landless families before the end of Lula?s first term in 2006, including 115,000 this year, and announced it would provide a further R$1.7bn (?320m) in assistance ? an increase of more than 100 per cent on the original budget. It also promised to halve the time it took to settle landless families from 14 to seven months, and increase available credit.

But indigenous communities are coming up against the interests of loggers, miners, land owners and politicians. While there are 4 million landless people, the indigenous can only be numbered in the thousands, and carry correspondingly less political weight. Nevertheless, neither the Catholic Church nor the various pressure groups involved has entirely lost faith in Lula. At the very least, they seem to think he may still respond to pressure. Days after the Brazilian bishops? national annual meeting ended, the CNBB issued a statement. ?Without action by its citizens no country will ever advance,? it said. The populist President may just want to pre-empt such action.

Clare Davidson is a freelance reporter based in S?o Paulo, Brazil.