Editing Landless Workers' Movement (section)

=== 1995–2005 Cardoso government ===
Brazil has long history of violent land conflict. During the 1990s, the MST emerged as the most prominent land reform movement in Brazil, and in 1995–1999, led a first wave of occupations<ref>According to MST-friendly [[UNESP]] professor Bernardo Mançano, interview to Giovana Girardi, available at {{cite web |url=http://www.unesp.br/aci_ses/revista_unespciencia/acervo/16/perfil |title=Unesp - Universidade Estadual Paulista - Portal |access-date=2011-08-10 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111001165107/http://www.unesp.br/aci_ses/revista_unespciencia/acervo/16/perfil |archive-date=2011-10-01 }}</ref> which resulted in violence. The MST, landowners, and the government accused each other of the killings, maimings, and property damage.

In the notorious [[Eldorado de Carajás massacre]] in 1996, nineteen MST members were gunned down, and another 69 were wounded by police as they blocked a state road in [[Pará]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/brasil/ult96u551569.shtml |title=Folha Online - Brasil - Ocupações do MST lembram 13 anos do massacre de Eldorado dos Carajás (PA) - 17/04/2009 |publisher=.folha.uol.com.br |date=2009-04-17 |access-date=2012-08-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121016225724/http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/brasil/ult96u551569.shtml |archive-date=2012-10-16 |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1997 alone, similar confrontations with police and landowners' security details accounted for two dozen internationally acknowledged deaths.<ref>[[Robert M. Levine]], ''The History of Brazil''. New York: Palgrave- Macmillan, 2003, {{ISBN|1-4039-6255-3}}, page 164</ref>

In 2002, the MST occupied the family farm of then-president [[Fernando Henrique Cardoso]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/free/imf/brasil/mst/2002/0324mst_action.html |title=www.agp.org &#124; arquivos dos protestos globais: MST action in Brazilian president's farm &#124; 23/2/2002 |publisher=Nadir.org |access-date=2012-08-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120204054457/http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/free/imf/brasil/mst/2002/0324mst_action.html |archive-date=2012-02-04 |url-status=live }}</ref> in [[Minas Gerais]], a move publicly condemned by [[Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva|Lula]], then-leader of the leftist opposition,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/brasil/ult96u31238.shtml |title=Folha Online - Brasil - MST deve seguir lei, diz Lula - 11/04/2002 |publisher=.folha.uol.com.br |date=1970-01-01 |access-date=2012-08-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120204041334/http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/brasil/ult96u31238.shtml |archive-date=2012-02-04 |url-status=live }}</ref> and other prominent members of the PT.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/brasil/ult96u31194.shtml |title=Folha Online - Brasil - Entre petistas, maioria é contra ação de sem-terra - 10/04/2002 |publisher=.folha.uol.com.br |date=1970-01-01 |access-date=2012-08-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120204041346/http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/brasil/ult96u31194.shtml |archive-date=2012-02-04 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/brasil/ult96u30653.shtml |title=Folha Online - Brasil - Ato do MST foi "irresponsável", diz Genoino - 27/03/2002 |publisher=.folha.uol.com.br |date=2002-03-27 |access-date=2012-08-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120204041357/http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/brasil/ult96u30653.shtml |archive-date=2012-02-04 |url-status=live }}</ref> The farm was damaged and looted in the occupation, and a [[combine harvester]], tractor, and several pieces of furniture were destroyed.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/brasil/ult96u30607.shtml |title=Folha Online - Brasil - Administrador da fazenda de FHC avalia prejuízo em R$ 100 mil - 26/03/2002 |publisher=.folha.uol.com.br |date=2002-03-26 |access-date=2012-08-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120204041422/http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/brasil/ult96u30607.shtml |archive-date=2012-02-04 |url-status=live }}</ref> MST members also drank all the alcohol at the farm. Later, 16 MST leaders were charged with theft, vandalism, trespassing, kidnapping, and resisting arrest.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/brasil/ult96u30559.shtml |title=Folha Online - Brasil - Líderes do MST serão julgados por violação de domicílio e furto - 25/03/2002 |publisher=.folha.uol.com.br |date=2002-03-25 |access-date=2012-08-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120204041431/http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/brasil/ult96u30559.shtml |archive-date=2012-02-04 |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 2005, two undercover police officers investigating cargo truck robberies near an MST homestead<!-- check, this said "stead"--> in Pernambuco were attacked. One was shot dead, and the other tortured; MST was suspected to be involved.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/brasil/ult96u67074.shtml |title=Folha Online - Brasil - Um policial é morto e outro é torturado em área do MST - 08/02/2005 |publisher=.folha.uol.com.br |date=1970-01-01 |access-date=2012-08-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120204041325/http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/brasil/ult96u67074.shtml |archive-date=2012-02-04 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Throughout the early 2000s, the MST occupied functioning facilities owned by large corporations, whose activities it considered at odds with the social function of property. On March 8, 2005, the MST invaded a [[Nursery (horticulture)|nursery]] and a research center in [[Barra do Ribeiro]], 56&nbsp;km (34.8 mi) from [[Porto Alegre]], both owned by [[Aracruz Celulose]]. The MST members held local guards captive while they ripped plants from the ground. MST president João Pedro Stédile commented that MST should oppose not only landowners, but also agrobusinesses that partook in "the project of organization of agriculture by transnational capital allied to capitalist farming"—a model he deemed socially backwards and environmentally harmful.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.direitos.org.br/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3561&Itemid=2 |title=Direitos Humanos - Palestra de João Pedro Stédile no 5º Congresso do MST |publisher=Direitos.org.br |access-date=2012-08-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120301205034/http://www.direitos.org.br/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3561&Itemid=2 |archive-date=2012-03-01 |url-status=live }}</ref> In the words of an anonymous activist: "our struggle is not only to win the land&nbsp;... we are building a new way of life."<ref>Quoted by Jeff Noonan, ''Democratic society and human needs'', Mc Gill -Queen's University Press, 2006, {{ISBN|0-7735-3120-3}}, page 244</ref> The shift had been developing since the movement's 2000 national congress, which focused mainly on the perceived threat of transnational corporations, whether Brazilian or foreign, to both small property in general, and to Brazilian national [[food sovereignty]],<ref>Nik Heynen,ed. ''Neoliberal environments: false promises and unnatural consequences'', Abingdon (UK), Routledge, 2007, {{ISBN|978-0-415-77149-8}}, page 249</ref> especially in the area of [[intellectual property]].<ref>Ruth Reitan, ''Global activism''. Abingdon: Routledge, 2007, {{ISBN|0-203-96605-8}}, page 155</ref> In July 2000, this principle was the impetus for MST to mobilize and lead farmers in an attack against a ship loaded with GM [[maize]] from [[Argentina]] that was docked in [[Recife]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Scoones |first=Ian |date=2005 |title=Contentious politics, contentious knowledges: mobilising against GM crops in India, South Africa, and Brazil |url=https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/handle/20.500.12413/4053 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20230421051044/https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/handle/20.500.12413/4053 |archive-date=21 April 2023 |access-date=21 April 2023 |website=[[Institute of Development Studies]] |page=12 |type=PDF}}</ref> Since 2000, much of the movement's activism consisted in symbolic acts in opposition of multinational corporations, as "a symbol of the intervention politics of the big monopolies operating in Brazil."<ref>Jagdish N. Bhagwati, ''In defense of globalization''. Oxford University Press, 2007, {{ISBN|978-0-19-533093-9}}, page 23 - quoting MST activist on [[International Women's Day]] 2001, protesting before a [[McDonald's]] restaurant in Porto Alegre.</ref>

A possible reason contributing to the change in strategy might have been the perceived shift in government stances in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The Cardoso government declared that Brazil "had no need" for land reform, that small farms were not competitive, and were unlikely to increase personal [[income]]s in rural areas.<ref name=":0">William C. Smith, ed. ''Latin American democratic transformations: institutions, actors, and processes''. Malden, MA: Blackwell-Wiley, 2009, {{ISBN|978-1-4051-9758-8}}, page 259</ref> He believed that it would be better to create skilled jobs, which would cause the land reform issue to recede into the background.<ref>A stance endorsed by former US ambassador to Brazil [[Lincoln Gordon]], known for his support for the 1964 Brazilian coup d'état: Lincoln Gordon, ''Brazil's second chance: en route toward the first world''. Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2001, {{ISBN|0-8157-0032-6}}, page 129</ref> Cardoso denounced the MST's actions as aiming for a return to an archaic, agrarian past, and therefore, in conflict with "modernity"—"one of the enabling myths of the [[neoliberal]] discourse."<ref>Eugene Walker Gogol, ''The concept of Other in Latin American liberation: fusing emancipatory philosophic thought and social revolt''. Lanham, MA, Lexington Books, 2002, {{ISBN|0-7391-0330-X}}, page 318</ref>

Cardoso offered lip service to agrarian reform in general, but also described the movement as "a threat to democracy."<ref>Benjamin Keen, Keith Haynes: ''A History of Latin America: Independence to the Present''. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2009, {{ISBN|978-0-618-78321-2}}, Volume 2, page 526</ref> He compared the MST's demands for subsidized credit, which led to the 1998 occupation of various banks in [[Paraná (state)|Paraná]], to bank robbery.<ref>''Veja'', 3 June 1998, reproduced in ''Veja'' digital archive text, "Os 25 anos do MST: invasões, badernas e desafios a lei" [25 years of the MST: invasions, disorder and contempt for the law], 23rd. January 2009, available at {{cite web |url=http://veja.abril.com.br/noticia/brasil/25-anos-mst-invasoes-badernas-desafio-lei?print=1 |title=Os 25 anos do MST: Invasões, badernas e desafio à lei - Brasil - Notícia - VEJA.com |access-date=2011-06-16 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121014181249/http://veja.abril.com.br/noticia/brasil/25-anos-mst-invasoes-badernas-desafio-lei?print=1 |archive-date=2012-10-14 }}</ref> In a memoir written after he left office, Cardoso expressed sympathy for land reform, stating, "were I not President, I would probably be out marching with them," but also countering, "the image of mobs taking over privately-owned farms would chase away investment, both local and foreign."<ref>Fernando Henrique Cardoso (with Brian Winter), ''The accidental President of Brazil: a memoir''.New York: Publicaffairs, 2006, {{ISBN|978-1-58648-324-1}}, page 210</ref> Although Cardoso himself never branded the MST as terrorists, his Minister of Agricultural Development did, and even hypothesized that the MST invaded [[Argentina]] from the north in order to blackmail the Brazilian government into action.<ref>Jorge I. Domínguez, Anthony Jones, eds.: ''The Construction of Democracy: Lessons from Practice and Research''. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007, {{ISBN|978-0-8018-8595-2}}, page 157</ref> In July 1997, Senior General Alberto Cardoso,<ref>{{Cite web |date=27 November 1998 |title=Discurso na abertura do 12 Fórum Nacional Antidrogas |url=http://www.biblioteca.presidencia.gov.br/presidencia/ex-presidentes/fernando-henrique-cardoso/discursos/1o-mandato/1998-1o-semestre/27-de-novembro-de-1998-discurso-na-abertura-do-i-forum-nacional-antidrogas |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20230421060348/http://www.biblioteca.presidencia.gov.br/presidencia/ex-presidentes/fernando-henrique-cardoso/discursos/1o-mandato/1998-1o-semestre/27-de-novembro-de-1998-discurso-na-abertura-do-i-forum-nacional-antidrogas |archive-date=21 April 2023 |access-date=21 April 2023 |website=Biblioteca da Presidência da República |language=Portuguese |format=PDF}}</ref> Cardoso's Chief of Military Household (''Chefe da Casa Militar'', among other things, a general comptroller over all issues regarding the military and police forces as armed civil servants), expressed concern about participation of MST activists in the then-ongoing police officers' strikes, as a plot to "destabilize" the military.<ref>João R. Martins Filho & Daniel Zirker, "The Brazilian Armed Forces After the Cold War: Overcoming the Identity Crisis". LASA paper, 1998, available at [http://lasa.international.pitt.edu/LASA98/MartinsFilho-Zirker.pdf] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120426035313/http://lasa.international.pitt.edu/LASA98/MartinsFilho-Zirker.pdf|date=2012-04-26}}. Accessed December the 28th. 2011</ref>

In terms of concrete measures, Cardoso's government's approach to land reform was divided: while the administration simultaneously acquired land for settlement and increased taxes on unused land, it also forbade public inspection of invaded land—thereby precluding future expropriation, and the disbursement of public funds to people involved in such invasions.<ref>A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi, Saturnino M. Borras, Cristóbal Kay,eds., ''Land, poverty and livelihoods in an era of globalization: perspectives from developing and transition countries''.Abingdon: Routledge, 2007, {{ISBN|0-203-96225-7}}, pages 87/88</ref> Cardoso's main land reform project, supported by a [[World Bank]] US$90 million loan, was addressed to ''individuals'' who had experience in farming, and a yearly income of up to US$15,000; they were granted a loan of up to US$40,000 if they could associate with other rural producers in order to buy land from a willing landholder.<ref>Becky Mansfield, ''Privatization: property and the remaking of nature-society relations''. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008, {{ISBN|978-1-4051-7550-0}}, page 166</ref> Thus, this programme catered primarily to substantial small farmers, not to the MST's traditional constituency—the rural poor. Cardoso's project, ''Cédula da Terra'' ("landcard"), did offer previously landless people the opportunity to buy land from landowners, but in a negotiated process.<ref>Hans P. Binswanger-Mkhize, Camille Bourguignon, Rogerius Johannes Eugenius van den Brink, eds.: ''Agricultural Land Redistribution: Toward Greater Consensus''. Washington D.C.: The World Bank Publications, 2009, {{ISBN|978-0-8213-7962-2}}, pages 295/296</ref>

In the words of an American scholar, despite its efforts in resettlement, the Cardoso government did not confront the prevailing mode of agricultural production: concentrated, mechanized, latifundia-friendly commodity production—and the resulting injustices.<ref>Alfred P. Montero, ''Brazilian politics'', pages 88/89.</ref> In his own words, what Cardoso could not accept about the MST was what he saw not as a struggle for land reform, but a wider struggle against the capitalist system.<ref>Juan David Lindau, Timothy Cheek, ''Market economics and political change: comparing China and Mexico''. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998, {{ISBN|0-8476-8733-3}}, page 70</ref> Therefore, Cardoso's administration tried to initiate tamer social movements for land reform on purely negotiated terms, such as the Movement of Landless Producers (''Movimento dos Agricultores Sem Terra'', or MAST), organized on a local basis in the [[São Paulo (state)|São Paulo State]], around the trade union central Syndical Social Democracy (SDS).<ref>Jurandyr Luciano Sanches Ross,ed. ''Geografia do Brasil'',São Paulo: EDUSP, 2005, {{ISBN|85-314-0242-5}}, page 534</ref>

By contrast, MST leaders emphasized that their practical activity was a response to the poverty of so many people who had little prospects of productive, continuous work in conventional labor markets. This reality was admitted by President Cardoso in a 1996 interview: "I'm not going to say that my government will be of the excluded, for that it cannot be&nbsp;... I don't know how many excluded there will be."<ref>Anthony Peter Spanakos & Cristina Bordin, eds. ''Reforming Brazil''. Lanham, MD: Lexington Press, 2004, {{ISBN|0-7391-0587-6}}, page 103</ref> In 2002, João Pedro Stedile admitted that in plotting the movement's politics, one had to keep in mind "that there are a great many [[lumpenproletariat|lumpens]] in the country areas."<ref>Stedile, "Landless Battalions", interview to Francisco de Oliveira, IN Francis Mulhern, ed., ''Lives on the Left: a Group Portrait''. London: Verso, 2011, {{ISBN|978-1-84467-798-6}}, preview available at [https://books.google.com/books?id=F1a9X9nr0oAC] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161216063640/https://books.google.com/books?id=F1a9X9nr0oAC&printsec=frontcover&hl=pt-BR&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0|date=2016-12-16}}</ref> In Stedile's view, the existence of the large underclass should not be held against the working class character of the movement, because many rural working class had been "absorbed" into the periphery of the urban proletariat.<ref>Tom Mertes, Walden F. Bello, eds., ''A Movement of Movements: Is Another World Really Possible?''. London: 2004, Verso edns., {{ISBN|1-85984-504-5}}, pages 34/35</ref> Such a view is shared by some academic authors, who argue that, behind its avowedly "peasant" character, the MST, as far as class politics is concerned, is mostly a ''semi proletarian'' movement, consisting of congregations of people trying to eke out a living in the absence of formal wage employment, out of a range of activities across a whole section of the social divisions of labour.<ref>David Clark, ed., ''The Elgar Companion to Development Studies''. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2006, {{ISBN|978-1-84376-475-5}}, page 332</ref>

MST somewhat filled the void left by the decline of the organized labor movement in the wake of Cardoso's neoliberal policies.<ref>William C. Smith,ed. ''Latin American democratic transformations: institutions, actors, and processes''. Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons, 2009, {{ISBN|978-1-4051-9758-8}}, page 258</ref> Therefore, the movement took steps to ally with urban struggles, especially those connected to housing.<ref>Thomas Janoski, ed., ''A handbook of political sociology: states, civil societies, and globalization''. Cambridge University Press, 2005, {{ISBN|978-0-521-52620-3}}, page 602</ref> João Pedro Stedile stated that the struggle for land reform would unfold in the countryside, but would be decided in the city, where "political power for structural change" resided.<ref>Douglas H. Boucher,ed. ''The paradox of change: hunger in a bountiful world''. Food First Books, 1999, {{ISBN|0-935028-71-4}}, page 325</ref>