New Brazil Bulletin #11

The Struggle for Land

On March 13, the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) held a day of action for the struggle for land. One of the actions featured peasants writing “crime” on the building of an electricity company which has expropriated land for wind turbines, displacing 500 families. The electrical utility companies alongside the big landlords displace peasants from their land and de-forst and pollute, further ruining peasant land, sharpening contradictions in the countryside.

Throughout the second half of March, the violence around the struggle for land sharpened:

On March 15, indigenous Pataxo youth occupied the headquarters of Discovery National Park, demanding that their land demarcation demands be met. On March 20, a reactionary operation against the Pataxo struggling for land was initiated by the police and latifundium (big landlords)paramilitaries, carrying out arrest warrants and attacks on land occupations.

On March 16, indigenous Kaingang people took up arms against an opportunist land chief who leased their land to the latifundium.

On March 19 and 20, gunmen hired by a local landlord snuck onto camp Barro Branco and set fire to the peasants’ plantation. The peasants stood firm in the face of the attack, writing that they “will fight for every inch of land.”

On March 22, a demonstration was held against mining companies infringing on the ancestral territory in Eastern Rio de Janeiro.

On March 24, the old State announced its deployment of the National Public Security Force, akin to the National Guard, against the struggle for land in the area of the Belo Monte Dam.

On the same day, the Avá-Guarani indigenous people won an important victory with R$240 million (~$41,000,000) being given to them to buy 3000 hectares (7413 acres) of land. Despite this win, they vowed to continue struggling to achieve their entire ancestral territory, stating that the amount won was only a tiny fraction of it.

On March 28, latifundium gunmen shot at a peasant camp in Bahia and beat a peasant, breaking his arm.

On March 31, gunmen burned a mother and two children alive during a raid to kick the Guarani-Kaiowá people out of their ancestral land, which they had recently retaken, part of their sharpening struggle for land in other parts of the region.

On the same day, a League of Poor Peasants (LCP)-organized Camp Gedeon in Rondônia was attacked by gunmen serving the latifundium. The peasants were able to successfully repel the attack, but two were shot. The latifundium’s goons, gunmen, and Military Police attacked the same camp again on April 9. AND reports that the force attacking the peasants are associated with Invasion Zero, the Bolsonarist paramilitary force, funded and organized by the big landlords, and that the force was led by a convicted-yet-released murderer who had orchestrated a massacre of peasants in 2012.

Workers’ and Peoples’ Struggle

On March 20, residents of the Taruma-Acu neighborhood blocked a road, protesting against the lack of state support after their town was flooded the day before.

On the same day, teachers of Passo Fundo demonstrated primarily for an 11% pay-floor bump in order to have a pay-floor on par with Brazil’s average.

From March 17 to 22, masses of Salvaterra protested against the hike in freight truck fares that travel between their region. They faced severe police repression, with helicopters, riot vehicles, and bombs deployed, as well as police raids on protesters’ homes being carried out. They continued their protest until the state gave in to their demand: the suspension of fare increases.

On March 25, roughly 200 Vila Esperança occupation residents militantly protested against the old State’s inability to provide a housing solution to over 800 families. The old State harshly repressed the protest, pepper-spraying the crowd and arresting protesters.

On March 26, oil workers held a 24-hour national strike against the state-owned Petrobras, protesting against issues such as public funding cuts and the 6×1 scale—a constitutionally-set work week of 44 hours within 6 days—to name a few. AND reports the strike unified operational and administrative workers, from the offices to the oil platforms, which, along with the large national turnout for the one-day strike, demonstrates the workers’ strength.

On March 31, a national strike of app drivers (Uber, Lyft, etc) was initiated, demanding a minimum payment of R$10 ($1.71) per delivery and a minimum rate of $2.50 per kilometer ($0.27 per mile).

Student Struggle

On March 17, students occupied the University of Pernambuco, making several demands such as school supply kits, air conditioning, and immediate payment of cafeteria workers, who have had their wages delayed for months now. A demonstration for similar demands was held by Pernambuco dentistry students on March 27.

On March 19, students occupied the University again against the dismantling of the Center for Philosophy and Human Sciences as well as other demands such as drinking water and no privatization. Another demonstration against educational privatization took place in Pernambuco on March 27, and in Rio de Janeiro on March 28.

On March 24, over 400 people at University of Brasília protested against a demonstration scheduled in the same day in support of far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro. The group that organized the pro-Bolsonaro demonstration had been slandering the University in order to cut public funding from it.

The campaign in tribute of Comrade Professor Fausto Arruda continues. On March 24 and 26, activists at the Federal University of Paraíba and the Federal University of Bahia respectively initiated their campaign in honor of him.

On March 30, students, teachers, and sympathizers protested against the old State’s measure to increase the daily school workload to ten hours, which has resulted in a rise in dropout rates. Demonstrators also called for the freedom of Palestine solidarity movement hero Mahmoud Khalil.

Brazil’s National Situation

President Luiz Inácio’s popularity is still low. According to a survey released on April 1, out of those eligible to vote, 49.6% of people disapprove of his government, and 37.4% approve.

Inflation of necessities continues to worsen. Egg prices rose by roughly 20% and coffee by 8.5% in March.A Nova Democracia(AND), Brazil’s leading people’s democratic newspaper, says that the egg price rise is due to large companies and the latifundium charging exorbitant amounts to poor farmers for distribution.

AND’s editorial board, when covering the three indigenous people burned alive by the latifundium, noted that the genocide against the indigenous is growing, citing how during 2023, the first year of Luiz Inácio’s presidency, the number of indigenous people murdered in Brazil grew by 15%. The indigenous struggle is part and parcel of the land struggle. AND consistently argues in editorials that the anti-fascist and national democratic struggle is mainly in the countryside with the Agrarian Revolution, that it is the heroic peasantry fighting for land to the tiller who form the front lines in the struggle, calling on the workers, students, and democrats of Brazil to support the Agrarian Revolution.

Image: A peasant of Camp Gedeon José Duque holds an LCP flag. Credit: @abraponacional.

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