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Brazil ’s Landless Workers Movement, or in Portuguese Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), is the largest Social Movement in Latin America with an estimated 1.5 million landless members organized in 23 out 27 states. The MST carries out long-overdue Land Reform in a country mired by unjust land distribution. In Brazil, 1.6% of the landowners control roughly half (46.8%) of the land on which crops could be grown. Just 3% of the population owns two-thirds of all Arable lands. Since 1985, the MST has peacefully occupied unused land where they have established cooperative farms, constructed houses, schools for children and adults and clinics, promoted indigenous cultures and a healthy and Sustainable environment and Gender Equality . The MST has won land titles for more than 350,000 families in 2,000 settlements as a result of MST actions, and 180,000 encamped families currently await government recognition. Land occupations are rooted in the Brazilian Constitution, which says land that remains unproductive should be used for a “larger Social Function .” The MST’s success lies in its ability to organize and educate. Members have not only managed to secure land, therefore food security for their families, but also continue to develop a sustainable socio-economic model that offers a concrete alternative to today's globalization that puts profits before people and humanity. , Brazil - Landless Workers' Movement members marching to Constitutional Authority The Brazilian constitution requires land serve a social function. 5, Section XXIII. As such, the constitution requires the Brazilian government "expropriate for the purpose of agrarian reform, rural property that is not performing its social function." 184. According to Article 186 of the constitution, the social function is performed when rural propery simultaneously meets the following requirements: (1) rational and adequate use; (2) adequate use of available natural resources and preservation of the environment; (3) compliance with the provisions which regulate labor relations; and (4) exploitation which favors the well-being of the owners and workers." The MST identifies unproductive rural land that it does not believe is meeting its social function and occupies it. Upon occupation, a legal process commences to expropriate the land and grant title to the landless workers, while the owners do likewise to regain posession of it. The MST is represented in these activities by public interest legal counsel, including such organizations as ''Terra de Direitos'', a non-profit legal practice co-founded by Darci Frigo, the 2001 Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Human Rights Award Laureate. Sometimes the courts require the families to leave. Other times, courts refuse the landowners' request and allow the families to stay and engage in subsistence farming until the federal agency responsible for agrarian reform, INCRA , is able to determine if the occupied property is, indeed, unproductive. For example, in August of 1999, Chief Judge Rui Portanova overruled the decision of a trial court granting a landowner's petition to evict the MST off his property. The Court reasoned: Before applying a law, the judge must consider the social aspects of the case: the law's repercussions, its legitimacy and the clash of intersts in tension. The are landless workers [that want to plant a product that feeds and enriches Brazil in this world so globalized and hungry. But Brazil turns its back. The executive deflects money to the banks. The Legislature . . . wants to make laws to forgive the debts of the large farmers. The press accuses the MST of violence. The landless, in spite of all this, have hope . . . that they can plant and harvest with their hands. For this they pray and sing. The Federal Constitution and Article 5 . . . offers interpretive space in favor of the MST. The pressure of the MST is legitimate. the terms of paragraph 23 of Article 5 of the Federal Constitution [that land shall attend it social function , I suspended eviction. (Decision #70000092288, Rui Portanova, State Court of Rio Grande Do Sul , Porto Alegre ) The expropriation process can take years and is sometimes accompanied by violence as landowners hire gunmen to intimidate, and not infrequently kill, members of the MST. Organizational structure While certain individuals within the MST are key spokesmen, such as the radical Marxist economist João Pedro Stédile, authority is spread among a vast number of decision makers in thousands of temporary and permanent settlements throughout dozens of Brazilian states. Education The MST formed its education sector in Rio Grande Do Sul in 1986, a year after the first national convention. Barnard Mancano. ''The Formation of the MST in Brazil.'' Editora Vozes, Petropolis 2000, 78. By 2001, about 150,000 children were enrolled in 1,200 primary and secondary schools in its settlements and camps. The schools employ 3,800 teachers, many of them MST-trained. The movement has trained 1,200 educators who run courses for 25,000 young people and adults. It trains primary-school teachers in most states, and has set up partnerships with international agencies, such as UNESCO and UNICEF , as well with the Catholic Church. It reached agreement with seven institutions of higher education in different regions to provide degree courses in education for MST teachers. Rocha and Sue Branford. ''Cutting the Wire: The story of the landless movement in Brasil''. 2002, Latin American Bureau. Oscar Niemeyer , one of the most internationally renowned Brazilian architects, will be designing the Auditorium Building that will be part of the complex of the MST's National Florestan Fernandes School outside Sao Paulo . {Link without Title} Sustainable Agriculture The movement is also developing a model of sustainable agriculture on the lands the families farm. These efforts are gaining increasing importance as movement families gain access to an increasing amount of Brazil's unproductive land. For example, the Chico Mendes Center for Agroecology, founded May 15 , 2004 in Ponta Grossa , Paraná , Brazil on land formerly used by Monsanto to grow Genetically Modified crops, intends to produce Organic , native Seed to distribute through MST. 2005 March for Agrarian Reform After a two week march into Brasilia from the city of Goiania , several leaders of the MST met with President Lula Da Silva on May 18, 2005. The leaders presented President Lula with a list of 16 demands of which included economic reform, greater public spending, and public housing. Afterwards during interviews with Reuters, many of the leaders said that they still regarded President Lula as an ally but demanded that he accelerate his promised land reforms. Ideology The MST is an ideologically eclectic rural movement of hundreds of thousands of landless peasants (and some who live in small cities) striving to achieve Land Reform in Brazil . The MST has been inspired since its inception by Liberation Theology , Marxism , the Cuban Revolution , and a variety of other Leftist ideologies. Occupations of Other Sites In addition to occupying idle lands and government buildings, the MST has occupied research sites and properties owned by national and/or Transnational Corporations , such as Monsanto and Aracruz Celulose. The MST uses a number of environmental, labor, and other laws to defend their mobilizations, laws that these corporations have knowingly and publicly violated. On March 8 , 2005 , the MST occupied a Nursery and a research center in Barra Do Ribeiro , 56 km from Porto Alegre , both owned by Aracruz Celulose. External links
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