WASHINGTON, Conn., Jan. 12 (UPI) -- The inequality between rich and poor is most evident in Latin America, especially in Brazil, the world's 10th-largest economy.
One percent of Brazilian property owners have deeds to 47 percent of the land; of this, 40 percent is unfarmed. Less than 3 percent of the population owns two-thirds of Brazil's arable land. The struggle for social justice has pitted the poor and religious groups against the wealthy landowners for decades, with the government caught in the middle.
Landless movements to redress the balance were formed in Brazil over two decades ago, and it remains to be seen if Brazil's new populist president, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva can use his popularity to lessen the growing tensions. Legislation had been in place for nearly 20 years to transfer vacant land to the landless; previous governments, however, have either ignored the legislation or moved at a snail's pace. There are worrying indications that activists are losing patience and becoming radicalized.
Lula's task is immense: seeking a middle ground without alienating the wealthy landowners and driving away critical foreign investment in the process. The growing regionalism of the landless movements and their apparent increasing radicalization indicate that Lula will have to move forcefully, and soon. There are indications that Lula's honeymoon with the landless movement is ending.
The Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, known as MST, is Latin America's most effective pressure group for the landless. MST's national coordinator Gilmar Mauro is disappointed in Lula's policies so far, commenting in an interview on the MST Web site, "The assessment is negative; we are very clear on that. The government advanced a little on the issue of settlements, on the creation of mechanisms for disappropriation and so forth."
The MST was founded in Brazil in 1984 after groups of farmers and indigenous people, whom had been displaced from their lands, merged their organizations. The MST's case was enshrined in law by the new Brazilian constitution adopted in 1988, which mandated the government the responsibility to "expropriate, on social grounds, for the purposes of agrarian reform, rural property which is not fulfilling its social function."
MST was quick to take advantage of its new constitutional muscle; the following year MST organized its first large-scale land invasion when over 2,000 families invaded and occupied a vacant farm in Rio Grande do Sul state and set up a cooperative, setting a pattern that the organization would follow over the next 12 years. The squatters received title to the land two years later.
Over the next decade, both sides jockeyed for position. In 1997, following several occupations that resulted in violent clashes with landowners and police, the MST returned to large-scale operations in order to increase the security of the participating peasants. The MST became particularly active in the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Mato Grosso do Sul and, more recently, Parana and Sao Paulo, the industrial heartland of the country.
The relative inaction of the government inevitably furthered radical elements within the landless movement. Anxiety in Brazilia increased in late 1998 when authorities discovered that at least one heavily armed cell within the MST had recently been formed. Even worse, the movement was spreading to urban areas and mobilizing across the border in Argentina.
In an unnerving parallel to Sendero Luminoso's earlier campaign in neighboring Peru, on Sept. 13, 1998, a bomb in Parana destroyed an electric power transmission tower and a second bomb was found on another tower. Authorities concluded that those involved probably had MST connections. The bombing convinced authorities that the MST in the late 1990s posed a potential threat to Brazilian stability. As the organization formed links with similar Argentinean organizations, Brazil worried about its negative impact on relations with Argentina.
Most unsettling for the authorities was the worry that the MST might transform itself from a social movement to a guerrilla organization. Landowners are certain who is behind the unrest. Uniao Democratica Ruralista member and landowner, Luis Antonio Nabhan Garcia, denies stories of UDR members employing armed militias to protect their land, claiming instead: "If there are armed militias, it is on the side of the MST. They call themselves a revolutionary force, and are connected to the Fuerzas Armadas Revolutionarias de Colombia (FARC), the guerrilla group in Colombia."
While such reports are not credited by most, the prospect of a two-decade-old movement with hundreds of thousands of supporters becoming radicalized because of a slow pace of reform is fraught with danger for all of Latin America. The tide of violence in the countryside is rising; MST registered 44 deaths in rural areas over land issues in 2003, while 17 MST activists were imprisoned during the same period. Over the last decade, more than 1,000 people have been killed as a result of land conflicts in Brazil. Only 53 of the killings have been brought to trial.
The movement has accomplished some notable successes; currently more than 250,000 families have won deeds to over 15 million acres after MST land takeovers. Despite these successes, MST notes that there are currently 71,472 families in encampments throughout Brazil awaiting government recognition.
MST has grandiose ambitions; under the National Agrarian Reform Plan, first promulgated under President Jose Sarney's regime in 1985, 1 million families all over the country were to be settled. Governments, however, repeatedly dragged their feet in implementing the directive. Following full implementation of the plan, MST envisages improving conditions in the rural areas and generating more than 3 million jobs.
Lula's cruel dilemma is to have to deliver on promises made by previous administrations rather than being able to forge a new consensus. Among his more impatient constituents are almost 2.5 million landless peasant families and 60,000 families living in makeshift encampments along the roadsides waiting for plots on which to live and farm. Lula must somehow satisfy the competing social pressures while safeguarding the country's cautious fiscal recovery from the 1998 recession.
The United States, despite its historical blind towards Latin America, can play an important role. President George W. Bush while at the Summit of the Americas in Monterrey can discuss debt forgiveness and increased market access with Lula, giving his economy a much-needed boost and freeing up resources to cope with social programs. Increased stability in Brazil is in everyone's interest. President John F. Kennedy once observed about the Alliance for Progress, "Those who make peaceful evolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable."
It is in the interest of both the United States and all of Latin America to help President Lula deliver on a significant portion of MST's dreams.
