Rural Landless Workers Movement
of Brazil
The movement gains momentum
by James Petras
Z magazine, March 2000
Over the past 30 years, Brazilian governments-both military
and civilian-have proclaimed the need for "agrarian reform"
but have resisted implementing an effective policy. INCRA (National
Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform) the federal government
agency in charge of land distribution has pursued a policy of
settling landless families in distant frontier lands, usually
distant from markets, in infertile, malaria-infested land. During
its 30 years of existence, INCRA has settled less than 7 percent
of the landless rural families, 331,276 out of 4 million and the
majority of the settlements were initiated by MST (the rural landless
workers movement) organized occupations, which were later legalized
by INCRA.
Most Federal and State agricultural resources have been allocated
to subsidize and promote agro-business and large export-oriented
farmers. The promotion and financing of large agro-export farmers
has been dubbed "agricultural modernization" by both
the military and the current Cardoso regime. Agricultural "modernization"
has been a key component of the Cardoso regime's neoliberal strategy
and has led to massive displacement of small farmers and rural
workers from the countryside as well as the growing militancy
of rural workers and increasing influence of the MST. As a result,
the countryside has been the hardest hit sector of the economy
and the center of opposition.
Cardoso's restructuring of the economy has met with only sporadic
and ineffective opposition among urban trade unions (like the
CUT) and the parliamentary opposition (Workers Party, Communist
Party of Brazil, etc.). On the other hand, in the countryside,
major confrontations have taken place Large-scale struggles have
been an ongoing reality Cardoso's political offensive, featuring
the massive privatization of lucrative mines, telecommunications
energy (and other key industries), his deregulation o financial
markets, the liberalization of trade and capital flows has severely
eroded the economic base a nationalist populist constituencies
composed of local producers and industrial workers. Cardoso's
urban offensive is based on a coalition of overseas bankers and
industrialists, local big agro-business, landlord, financial,
and manufacturing interests. large-scale, long-term transformations
envisioned by Cardoso and their negative socio-economic consequences
for rural and urban workers, small farmers, and local producers
were perceived early on by the leadership of the MST.
The MST response to Cardoso's offensive was to launch its
own offensive in the countryside in early 1995. The MST organized
an escalating campaign of land occupations, involving an increasing
number of families, throughout Cardoso's tenure of office.
The response of the Cardoso regime to the MST offensive shifted
over time. In the beginning, his administration tried to ignore
the Movement, minimize its significance, labeling it a "historical
anachronism." Subsequent to a historical 100,000-person demonstration
in Brasilia convoked by the MST in 1996, Cardoso shifted tactics,
opening negotiations and attempting to co-opt the . Movement by
offering to set a quota on land recipients in exchange for demobilizing
the Movement. By demobilizing the Movement, Cardoso hoped to get
the upper hand in carrying out his strategic policy of creating
a high tech export agricultural sector based on large-scale, agro-industrial
complexes linking local big landowners with overseas, mostly U.S.
agro-industrial exporters.
The MST entered negotiations but insisted that under no conditions
would they agree to stop occupations of unproductive lands, as
the number of farm workers without land-almost four million families-could
not have their basic needs met via the limited quotas fixed by
the Cardoso regime. The MST offensive went into high gear in 1996,
with a record number of land occupations and families. The Movement's
land occupation strategy combined legal-constitutional tactics,
extra parliamentary action with an inclusive style of coalition
politics that brought together church organizations, human rights
groups, urban trade unions, parliamentary parties, local civic
groups, and municipal officials. The MST relied on Constitutional
clauses calling for the State to expropriate uncultivated land
and redistribute land to the landless rural labor force and to
finance the new rural settlements. Within this legal constitutional
framework, the MST was able to build broad coalitions that supported
their peaceful, well-organized land occupations. With majoritarian
support of public opinion in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and other
major cities, the MST was able to neutralize repression by the
central government. However, at the State and local level, Cardoso's
allies among state governors, local officials, and landlords organized
violent repression and judicial processes to destroy the growing
appeal of the MST. The landlords organized in the UDR (Uniao Democratico
Ruralista: Rural Democratic Union) and through their influence
among state governors and local officials launched a violent right-wing
counter-offensive, with the political and propagandistic support
of the Cardoso regime. This culminated in April 1996 with the
infamous Massacre of Eldorado de Carajas (in the State of Para)
where 19 landless workers were massacred by the Military Police
ordered by the state governor to repress a peaceful protest march
of landless workers. Altogether, over 163 rural workers have been
assassinated in the first 4 years of the Cardoso regime.
The massacre at El Dorado intended to intimidate the movement
had the opposite effect; public opinion turned overwhelmingly
in favor of the Landless Workers Movement and the MST responded
by launching a new wave of land occupations throughout the country.
The Cardoso regime forced on the defensive and politically isolated,
attempted to take advantage of the new land settlements by claiming
credit for them. This government ploy failed however, and families
occupying land doubled. While the government was successful in
selling off strategic sectors of the economy, deregulating the
financial markets and lowering trade barriers, the countryside
became increasingly restive. The lowering of tariff barriers meant
cheap food imports; the dismantling of state subsidies and support
for credit and technical assistance undermined local small producers.
During the first four years of the Cardoso regime, over 400,000
small farmers went bankrupt and were driven off the land or converted
into landless laborers or employees of the big agro-industrial
export enterprises which were the centerpiece of Cardoso's so-called
"agricultural modernization export strategy."
In 1996, small farmers following the example of the MST began
to mobilize and organize, particularly in the South of Brazil.
By 1997, a new mass organization emerged, the Movement of Small
Farmers (MPA). The MPA began to borrow the direct action tactics
of the MST, blocking roads, occupying government offices, and
engaging in large-scale demonstrations in state capitols. In August
1999 over 15,000 heavily indebted large, medium, and small farmers
demonstrated in Brasilia demanding forgiveness of 40 percent to
60 percent of their debts. Cardoso offered to forgive 10 percent
to 20 percent of the farm debts-particularly of the large farm
owners. Under pressure, the Cardoso regime combined concessions
to the MPA-easing credit and offering partial debt forgiveness-while
at the same time reducing the Federal budget allocations for family
farmers to meet IMF-WB fiscal targets. As a result, two weeks
later, farmers and farm workers joined trade unions and leftist
political parties in a huge 100,000-person protest in Brasilia
denouncing Cardoso's austerity budget.
Faced with State intransigence the MST turned toward building
politico-social coalitions with urban movements and intellectuals,
through a national political campaign, the Consulta Popular, a
program of alternative development that combines nationalist,
protectionist, and state-directed industrial programs with agrarian
reform and mass participation in the political process. The "new
turn" of the MST-its attempt to break out of a strictly "rural
framework"-led to new urban initiatives, organizing favela
residents in some of the major cities, including Sao Paulo, Rio,
and elsewhere. The urban organizing led, in some cases, to the
occupation of landed estates near some of the major cities, like
the Nuevo Canudos settlement, less than one hour from Sao Paulo,
which included unemployed construction and metal workers. The
Cardoso regime and the State Governor dispatched military police
to dislodge the urban squatters, arguing that the land in Nuevo
Canudos was "cultivated." In reality being within one
hour of Sao Paulo it was valuable land for urban speculative purposes.
The desperate situation of the urban land settlers led some to
hijack two trucks carrying pasta and beef, which in turn led to
a police raid on the settlement and arrest of several activists.
By the beginning of 1999, the Federal Government and its political
allies in the state governments decided to abolish the existing
constitutionally mandated state financing of land expropriations.
The Cardoso regime introduced a World Bank scheme to create what
it dubbed as a "market agrarian reform." The Federal
Government shifted funds from the Agrarian Reform Institute (INCRA)
to a "Land Bank." INCRA's overall budget was reduced
by 53 percent, from 1.9 billion reales to 1 billion; INCRA's funding
for land expropriation was reduced from 600 million reales to
200 million reales; INCRA's special line of low interest credit
to newly formed co-ops was ended. The drastic cut in INCRA's budget
meant that peasant land squatters would not have any funding to
farm the uncultivated land that they occupied. Instead the government
proposed to buy land from the landlords and sell it to individual
farmers who then would be obligated to secure credits to finance
production. The result would be a heavily indebted small farmer
class facing unequal competition with cheap food imports. The
result would be almost certain bankruptcy and the buy back of
the family farmers' land by commercial farmers or land speculators.
The economic non-viability of the "market agrarian reform"
is fairly obvious. The Federal Government's purpose however, is
political-to eliminate the possibility that the MST's land occupations
would lead to successful productive cooperatives (as they have
been in most instances around the country). The second purpose
of Cardoso's strategy is to entice landless workers with the offer
of land settlement and access to credit, thus dividing the movement
and creating strata of pro-regime supporters among small farmers.
The early experiences of "market agrarian reform" however
are not promising. Heavily indebted farm owners of all sizes and
lines of production have launched a series of major demonstrations
demanding debt forgiveness, in the face of the massive devaluation
and the decline in income and demand.
Cardoso's cutbacks in funding are evidenced in the growing
number of landless families who have occupied uncultivated land
and whose claim for expropriation has not been attended. During
the first four months of 1999 22,000 families organized by the
MST and the Confederacion Nacional de Trabalhadores na Agricultura
(CONTAG) occupied over 155 large estates. By mid-1999, there were
over 72,000 families-over 350,000 farm people-"encamped"
on land waiting for Federal action. Some of the families were
living in camps up to four years. By withholding Federal funds,
the Cardoso regime hopes to discourage the land occupiers and
to undermine the support of the MST. The government's usual answer
for the unemployed and destitute farm workers-that they should
migrate to the cities-rings hollow with 20 percent unemployment
rates in most large urban centers. Cardoso's defense of the rural
elite and negative policy toward potential productive landless
workers has heightened tensions in the cities, which concentrate
the new wave of displaced rural producers. Another reason why
the MST is increasingly involved in urban organizing.
In response to the government's attack on the Constitution
and the effective dismantling of agrarian reform budgets and institutions,
the MST has increasingly turned to the political sphere. The thinking
here is that what the landless workers are winning in terms of
popular support and land occupations, they are losing in terms
of state financing of newly established land settlements. The
national leadership of the MST is broadening its efforts in two
directions: it has signaled an increasing tendency to become directly
involved in electoral politics; it has increased its efforts to
form national political coalitions to directly challenge the government.
While these strategic shifts occur at the national level,
and the Federal government intensifies its effort to seize the
political initiative from the MST on the local and state level,
Cardoso's right-wing allies have intensified their attacks on
the MST. In the states of Parana, Para, Sao Paulo, scores of MST
activists and landless workers have been tortured, beaten, and
jailed on spurious charges. In contrast, notorious military officials
publicly videotaped murdering peaceful peasant protesters have
been exonerated, as was the case with the military officials who
ordered the massacre of Eldorado de Carajas.
The powerful links between landlords and the judiciary is
demonstrated by the fact that between 1985-99 of the 1,158 rural
activists assassinated, only 56 people were brought to trial and
only 10 were convicted. As the economic crises deepened throughout
1999 and unemployment soared, Cardoso's popularity plummeted and
he was left largely dependent on the support of the IMF-WB and
overseas investors.
The IMF-WB pressure to slash public spending and to reduce
the deficit has heightened social polarization, and few productive
sectors of the national economy seem willing to sustain the regime.
Faced with the regime's dismantling of the Agrarian Reform Institute
(INCRA) the MST moved to broaden its alliance in the countryside,
working with small and medium-size farmers and their organizations
in common struggles against the Government's credit and price
policies. The MST's increased turn toward political action and
social alliances runs parallel to its continuing policy of direct
action.
Several factors weigh heavily in shaping the new turn in MST
policies. First, the highly politicized nature of the judicial
system evidenced in the gross violation of normal judicial process
by the judge in the trial of the military officials accused of
assassinating the 19 landless workers in Para. Irrespective of
the powerful evidence presented and of the jury's initial guilty
finding, the judge's intervention calling into question the sufficiency
of the evidence presented, and rejection of key eyewitnesses demonstrated
that without direct political influence it was impossible to secure
justice in the courts against the organized and politically influential
landlords.
The second factor shaping the political turn of the MST was
the dismantling of the Agrarian Reform Institute and the practical
elimination of funding for new land settlements by squatters.
The MST's land occupation strategy depended heavily on securing
INCRA legal recognition, formal expropriation, and funding to
successfully launch production in the settlements of the land
squatters. Without INCRA funding, the land occupations organized
by the MST would be in severe financial straits, particularly
in securing seeds, fertilizers, farm tools and basic living arrangements.
The Cardoso regime, by cutting resources to INCRA and shifting
resources to the Land Bank, in clear violation of his constitutional
mandate, established a new political agenda that could not be
combated by direct action-or at least social action at the local
or state level. Only political action aimed directly at shaping
national political power is capable of restoring funding for the
land settlements established through land occupations. Only national
political organizations are capable of countering the "privatized"
land reform and Land Bank promoted by the World Bank and implemented
by the Cardoso regime.
The third factor influencing the new turn in the MST's policy
of broad social alliances, was the deepening economic crises and
the extension and radicalization of demands of social sectors
which were previously quiescent or immobilized. Such is the case
with small and middle-sized farm owners, nationalist sectors of
domestic industry, increasingly restive public employees, and
the growing mass of unemployed former private sector industrial
workers. The MST-launched Popular Consultation is directed at
opening the door to a "national convergence" among geographically
and socially distinct social classes, within and outside of the
agrarian sector.
The fourth factor influencing the shift to national coalition
politics is precisely the devastating effects of Federal agricultural
policy. The free market politics, cheap imports, and relative
decline in prices relative to credit and input costs has led to
a massive exodus from the countryside of close to 5.5 million
people between 1986-96. The rural census of 1986 estimated the
rural population as 23.4 million people. By 1996 the rural population
had declined to 18 million.
Land concentration and landlessness in the Brazilian countryside
has continued to accelerate. In 1970, farming estates of over
1,000 hectares representing .7 of the total farms owned 40 percent
of the land; in 1996, 1 percent of the landowners owning farms
of over 1,000 hectares owned 45 percent of the land. Over four
million farm workers are without land. The decline in rural population,
and their flight to the periphery of towns and cities is a major
potential constituency for MST organizers, particularly those
who retain rural ties. The MST has attempted to organize unemployed
rural migrants for land occupations in the adjoining countryside
with mixed results. One of the most difficult problems is that
most of the land closest to the cities is at least partially cultivated,
a pretext the government uses to violently dislodge families occupying
land. Within the narrowing political limits of what is defined
as non-cultivatable land, the MST has perceived the need to engage
in politics in order to broaden the basis for land expropriation.
While the MST has turned toward greater involvement in national
politics and coalition building at the national level, it has
continued to organize and occupy uncultivated estates in the countryside.
In the first 6 months of 1999, the MST organized 147 occupations
involving over 23,000 families thus keeping the pressure on the
Government, in defiance of its "market agrarian reform."
The MST is following a two-pronged strategy of continuing grassroots
organizing in the countryside and political alliances at the national
level. The key to the success of the rural-urban alliance is the
extension and consolidation of a powerful rural movement that
serves both as a point of support for the MST in its national
negotiations as well as a catalyst for the urban movements and
parties to deepen their own involvement in grassroots organizing.
The MST's successful mobilizations and effective transformations
of landless workers demonstrate that a well-organized, politically
conscious, and democratically structured movement can successfully
challenge the World Bank-IMF-neoliberal agenda. The success of
combining legal and direct action tactics in the context of building
public support and social allies with civil institutions has allowed
the MST to become the central focus of opposition to the Cardoso
regime. The retreat of the traditional Left parties and trade
unions is less a product of structural changes in the economy
and more the result of their internal political and organizational
deficiencies.
The "objective conditions" in Brazil have been ripe
for mass political action. Nowhere is this more evident than in
the countryside, where declining incomes, liberalized trade policies,
and increasing interest rates have devastated producers, small
farmers, and forced landless workers from the countryside. The
growth of landless workers, the decline of small farmer agriculture,
and the expansion of large landed estates have provided a propitious
terrain for the MST to expand its influence and heighten its appeal.
Its well-organized and successful land occupations and subsequent
organization of viable and productive agricultural cooperatives
has attracted favorable public attention, evidenced in opinion
polls in the major cities.
The failure of the Cardoso regime to come to terms with the
MST has led it down the road of closer links with right-wing parties
and landlord organizations. Its commitment to the neoliberal agenda
has led it to dismantle the previous legal, political framework,
which provided a modicum of reform in the countryside. The escalation
of the counter-reform efforts of the Cardoso regime have in turn
provoked a radical turn in the MST's strategy-from a social to
a socio-political movement; from a primarily "rural sector"
organization toward a coalition partner of major urban movements
and parties.
As J. Yves Martin argues, Cardoso's strategy of marketization
is accompanied by the militarization of the countryside in a mutually
complementary and highly conflictual escalation of political confrontation.
This was graphically represented in the pages of the Financial
Times: side by side were these two articles, one entitled "Brazil
Eases Captial Curbs to Lure Foreign Investment, the other entitled
"Three (Police Officials) Cleared of Brazilian Killing."
Cardoso's policies of appealing to foreign capital is closely
linked to his policy of state cutbacks and controlling labor,
which in turn entails greater repression, which inevitably entails
greater impunity for the repressive officials. Cardoso the "modernizer"
has become deeply enmeshed in the web of traditional oligarchic
politics: foreign giveaways, landlord alliances, regressive social
policies, and military repression.
The weakening and decline of the Cardoso regime offers great
opportunities for the MST to politically capitalize on the new
situation. The fundamental problem is the weak and fragmented
nature of the urban movements and parties with which it seeks
to unify forces. What is clear is that the MST has recognized
the limits of "movement politics" at the local level,
even as it has up to now scored impressive successes. The question
is whether it can be as successful in organizing a national political
force in the murky waters of urban parliamentary and trade union
clientelistic politics.
James Petras teaches sociology at SUNY, Binghamton is a specialist
on Latin America.
South America watch