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Terra nas Nossas Mãos

The Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem-Terra (MST, the Landless Workers Movement) is the largest social movement in Latin America. It emerged as a response to social and economic disparities in Brazil, where less than three percent of the population owns two-thirds of the arable land. Unfortunately, much of this land is not even used productively.

Sixty percent of the country's farmland lies idle. In an attempt to address this inequity, the Brazilian Constitution states that land ought to serve a social purpose. In the face of government inaction, hundreds of thousands of landless workers have demanded that Brazilian constitutional law be upheld and that unproductive land be redistributed to those who would cultivate it for the benefit of a wider community.

In 1985, with support from the Catholic Church, hundreds of families used lawful tactics to take over a fallow plantation in the south of Brazil, successfully establishing a cooperative in that area. Two years later the Brazilian government gave these families title to the land. Many others have followed suit, since peaceful, legal land occupations have proven to be the most effective, if not the only way to call the attention to these landless families' economic needs. Since 1985, much progress has been made in the rural workers' struggle to acquire their own land. Two hundred and fifty thousand families have won titles to more than fifteen million acres. Yet this number is meager relative to the 4.8 million families who live in poverty while they await widespread Agrarian Reform to be implemented.

MST's history is rife with struggle and loss. More than 1500 landless workers have been killed in the last 15 years and reactionary violence against them shows no sign of abating. Landless workers and MST leaders are continually subject to attacks from large estate owners, hired-gunmen, and in the case of Eldorado dos Carajas, from military police. The massacre at Eldorado dos Carajas, in the northern state of Para, demonstrates that while the government affirms the citizens' rightful claims to the land, these same officials may not protect the underprivileged as they exercise these legal rights.

Watch the Rights Alert and read more about MST's ongoing struggle for justice and the right to land in Brazil