I arrived by bus from the northern region of the state late on a Monday night and went to the Movement’s residence hall in Porto Alegre. I had originally planned to rest from my trip and find a ride the next day to the region of São Gabriel, several hours west into the countryside where most mobilizations are taking place in Rio Grande do Sul (most encampments have been moved there to form a critical mass in the struggle for land in that region). Once I arrived, however, I was informed about an “activity” early the next morning and decided to take part. Those within the Movement in Porto Alegre knew that a mobilization on the regional headquarters of the National Colonization and Agrarian Reform Institute (INCRA, the government agency in charge of such issues) was to take place soon, in conjunction with an escalation of mobilizations in São Gabriel, but it was only the night before that those in support capacities in Porto Alegre received confirmation of the mobilization.
After very few hours of sleep I made my way to the INCRA building, where some from the residence hall had already arrived somewhat earlier and taken their positions inside and around the building. I was entrusted to join two other comrades with the duty of keeping the front gate open when and while some 9 bus loads of landless peasant families arrived from their countryside encampments with their personal belongings (rolled up mattresses and some clothes) and additional gear and food for a lasting occupation (such as pots, stoves, rice and beans). These were busloads of encamped landless peasants from São Gabriel and, mostly, other camp sites around the northern region of the state (where the Judiciary has been consistently issuing orders for the removal of encamped families from occupied farms, from the sides of the roads, and, ultimately, even from other previously established agrarian reform settlements… With no place else to go, these landless families went to the government bureaucracy in charge of obtaining land for their settlement to pressure it to advance the process in São Gabriel, where simultaneous mobilizations were taking place, and elsewhere in the state.).
It was very, very rainy, but this didn’t matter for the mobilization. After the first few hundred people made their way into the building with their personal belongings, some of the men that had gone in first began to go back to the buses to bring the rest of their heavier gear (pots and stoves) and food (mostly rice and beans). Once most women, children and personal belongings were already inside, we understood that an attempt to close the gate would be futile to stop the occupation. One, then another, then finally all three of us that had been guarding the gate began to help carrying these heavy items. The Movement’s flags were placed at the gate and banners with slogans for agrarian reform and against the state government and its repressive actions (that had murdered another landless peasant in São Gabriel just three weeks before) were hung throughout the front of the occupied building. The entire process took place completely non-violently and people were remarkably well disciplined, with the entire building being occupied before 10am.
The bureaucrats that had actually arrived to work on time began to pack their bags to leave, telling their peers arriving late, “don’t even bother going in there, its packed with the landless.” I was not too near them to follow their conversations in depth, but it looked as though they wanted to take advantage of the situation to orchestrate their own strike – instead of working harder to attend the demands of the occupying landless peasants, they chose instead to extend their long holiday until “decent” work conditions were reinstated by their repressive government.
Soon families organized themselves into the “base nuclei” already set up at their encampments and the buses in which they came, and decided on which floor each group would settle during the course of the occupation. Personal belongings were soon spread throughout the entire hallway of all eight floors of the building, but the office spaces themselves were not occupied by decision of the Movement (also, most had been still locked, or where soon locked when the occupation began). Three kitchen groups soon began to set up their large gas-fired stoves (each with at least 5 tops) under the awning right in front of the building, an empty room near the front of the building was found and designated communal pantry, into which all foodstuffs were taken, and the coordinating committees began their articulation with the base nuclei to set their terms of negotiation. The INCRA superintendent wasn’t at his office, and his deputy refused the initial negotiation “as long as the building was occupied” (ignoring the fact that the purpose of the occupation was obviously to guarantee that a negotiation would take place and that its terms would be followed).
The first lunch was served to the 450 people occupying the building, and in the afternoon the first sector meetings began to take place to organize a lasting encampment in the occupied INCRA building (since by then it had already become clear that no easy negotiation would be forthcoming through the mere show of force and that the occupation would indeed be necessary). Companheira Isabela, who I had already met on my travel into the countryside a few days earlier, introduced me to some other comrades in her sector, education, and this determined the capacity in which I was to lend support to the occupation. We raised an inventory of the children participating in the occupation up through the 5th grade, split among ourselves the responsibilities over each grade and a daycare (ciranda), searched for spaces to use for the education activities, and decided on the class schedule for the following day. We chose the afternoon, since that was when most meetings would be taking place and parents would need to leave their children to participate fully in the collective decisions over their terms of negotiation and the next steps of the occupation, as well as building maintenance activities (cleaning, etc.).
Since I knew that I would likely have to take my flight back to Brasília before the end of the occupation, I decided to work in the larger group of the daycare, where my leaving would cause less problems than if I had taken on the more committed responsibility over teaching one of the grades myself (or along with one other person). We chose an empty bank facility in the main floor of the building for the daycare, since its heavy double-doors would keep inside any runaway kid, and since the space could be kept relatively isolated from the busier parts of the building (in order for the smallest kids to take their naps, play at ease, etc.). The first activity in which all kids engaged was the making of signs to stake their own claim to the spaces of education. In the daycare, they stamped their little hands and feet with different color paints on a sign where we wrote “ciranda” (daycare). Still on the afternoon of the first day of the occupation, I ran an errand back to COCEARGS to pick up some toys for the children in the daycare. (Since I didn’t have any specific duties at the occupation, unlike most others, running such errands was a task more easily entrusted to me.) School materials for the children in grades 1 through 5 only arrived on the following day, when some unionized teachers from a nearby town brought donations.
During the first three days of the occupation, INCRA requested the local judiciary to issue a removal demand, but the judge refused saying that, since INCRA is a federal agency, the federal government could send in the federal police or the military to remove the occupiers without recourse to the civil courts (i.e., him). No legal claims were filled for three full days since neither the federal agency nor the local judiciary wanted to take responsibility for forcing the removal of 450 peaceful people, including children, from the public building of the bureaucracy that has been stalling their settlement and keeping them homeless, that is, landless. During this time, a public hearing took place at the state’s legislative assembly on “the criminalization of social movements” (it was called by a representative from the Communist Party who wore a very fine three-piece suit and spoke forcefully and eloquently, and held at the legislative assembly’s “citizenship and human rights commission”) and a meeting also took place in Brasília (thousands of kilometers away) between members of the Movement and the federal-level bureaucrats from INCRA. Recommendations came out of the first meeting, but the other seemed even less productive, and no direct negotiation was obtained by the fourth day of the occupation, when the judge finally caved in and signed the order for the removal of all occupiers within the next 48 hours.
During the days of the occupation a routine began to take shape, with the previous day’s leftovers being heated up for breakfast (along with a little bit of coffee, flat breads made then and there on frying pans, and lots and lots of chimarrão, i.e., mate), a few meetings during the morning and more during the afternoon, when we operated the education programs, the same rice and beans and some donated veggies (by Mauro from Integração Gaúcha) for lunch and dinner, and in the evening a movie was shown in the largest room at the top of the building through a projector brought from COCEARGS. One night we watched the first of the new Che Guevara films, on another night we watched a documentary about the popular uprising in Oaxaca in 2006, and all other films were similarly themed. There was a lot of time to get to know these people who go camp in extremely precarious conditions for months and years in the struggle for their own piece of ground, and all these conversations were fueled by lots and lots of hot chimarrão.
While I was there, I slept on a small couch on one of the hallways since I didn’t have a mattress. A 40f sleeping bag kept me nice and comfortable, though, even while it added to the way in which I stood out. Still, I soon made friends with others in that floor, helped them cleaning our bathroom regularly, and they shared with me their toilet paper, plates and silverware (since I didn’t have any with me while at the occupation). There was always a very long wait for the few showers available in a single bathroom in the first floor, so one was rigged in the bathroom of our floor, and even still I went without a shower until the third day, when I went on another errand (to bring some extra clothes for the occupiers and another piece of gear from COCEARGS for the movie showings) and accepted Jana’s invitation to shower and rest a moment with her at her apartment.
On the Friday of that week I had to leave to take my flight back to Brasília, and although I was no longer there to follow what happened, I know that the 450 landless peasants occupying the INCRA building refused to leave at the end of the 48 hours allotted in the judiciary’s removal demand. I do not know if the military police attempted to enter the building and dismantle the occupation, but I do know that a massive siege was staged in São Gabriel against the escalated mobilizations there, and those comrades decided to end their mobilization in order to avoid another conflict like the one in which Elton Brum da Silva had been murdered by the military police just three weeks prior in that very same place. Knowing of this decision, the peasants who were mobilized in Porto Alegre decided to follow in solidarity and disband their occupation as well, on the following Tuesday, a full week after the occupation had begun. It would have been unwise, they thought, to aggravate a situation in Porto Alegre against a decision of those in São Gabriel who were under far more severe repression, seeing the occupation of the INCRA building as an extension of the broader struggle being waged in the countryside itself.
The immediate goals of the occupation were not achieved, but there is a recognition that such are only the maneuvers of a long and intricate class struggle, where, as in any other struggle, there are times to advance and times to retreat. Nationwide mobilizations have already been in the works for the month of October, and the Movement in Rio Grande do Sul “jumped the gun” in launching these mobilizations on their own during early September. This was due to the particular circumstances of state repression, criminalization and judiciary blockading that have been so prominent in that state in recent times, and it demonstrates also the independence with which each regional branch of the Movement acts, as well as the independence within the sectors of the Movement in the same region. Still, the Movement has deep roots in the South and it remains strong in that state, so no one doubts that they will launch a new wave of mobilizations soon, most likely in conjunction with the series of mobilizations planned for this October.
domingo, 20 de setembro de 2009
quinta-feira, 17 de setembro de 2009
Educar Institute
The Educar (“To Educate”) Institute is a high school conceived, built and operated by the MST that combines academic education with technical formation in agriculture (agropecuária) with a focus (habilitação) in agroecology. Since the first group began its studies in 2005, three classes have graduated with a total of about 120 peasant youth and young adults now providing technical assistance to agrarian reform settlements and other peasant communities throughout the state (such as Alan, for example, who was doing the inspection of the organic rice paddies at Filhos de Sepé). The school’s “daring proposal” is to form “peasant technicians seeking to question and debate the sustainable viability, as well as the political, economic, technical and productive viability of the current model of agriculture.” (This and all other quotes in this entry from the “Cartilha No. 1” produced by the Instituto Educar itself.)
The Institute is located in the Nossa Senhora Aparecida Settlement in the highlands of north Rio Grande do Sul, one of the oldest agrarian reform settlements conquered through the peasant occupations from which the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST) would eventually be born in 1984. This is a region of deep fertile soils and rolling hills, marking a strong contrast with the low wetlands near Porto Alegre. Here, a “breadbasket” region of the country, agribusinesses still flourish with massive industrial monocultures of wheat, oats, (and during the summer) corn and soy. The community life and diversity of fruit, vegetable and animal production (especially milk) from the agrarian reform settlements contrasts harshly, then, with the endless plantations of grains, only marked by few empty farm houses used sporadically by absentee landowners.
“The history of this school has its roots in the 1980’s when, following upon the conquest of land, demands for basic necessities were also undertaken, such as: housing, education, healthcare, community centers, leisure and sport facilities as well as technical assistance for agricultural production. Technical assistance was a necessity for both the settled communities in the old Annoni plantation [where the Nossa Senhora Aparecida and eight other settlements are located] and also for the peasant communities nearby, organized through rural unions, the (now called) Peasant Women’s Movement and Church groups (Pastorais da Terra).”
“This need began to be satisfied when the MST donated 42 hectares of the above mentioned settlement, the area closest to the road and the city of Pontão, and organized “barn raisings” (mutirões) for the construction of the basic structures of the formation center then called Center for Alternative Popular Technologies (Centro de Tecnologias Alternativas Populares – CETAP). The goal was to rescue popular knowledges and to appropriate knowledge about alternative productive technologies with an agroecological dimension. By the end of the 1980’s the structure was built and the proposal for technical assistance for the settlement and peasant communities elaborated.”
“The technical group (agronomists, veterinarians and administrators from CETAP) worked in outreach technical assistance, built a seed bank, realized experiments with organic fertilizers, free range pig raising, grass fed cattle for milk production, biological control of soy pests, organized field days, systems of seed-barter, and a variety of meetings and seminars with the local peasantry for 10 full years.”
“By 2000, CETAP moved to the nearby city of Passo Fundo, where it could be nearer the majority of small farmers for whom it provided assistance (which were no longer agrarian reform settlement areas) and also because of the closer proximity to communication and information technologies. The MST organizers were pushed by their communities to set up a school for their youth, who had no other choice but to leave the countryside to study in the cities, where education was dissociated from their reality. This fact often led students to abandon their education, or abandon the countryside altogether.”
By 2004, the MST succeeds in establishing a partnership with INCRA (the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform), and in 2005 with the Federal Agro-technical School of Sertão, to create its own course for agriculture technicians with specialization in agroecology, choosing the structure of alternating periods of intensive residential education at the school and periods of work back at their own communities.
“The pedagogical strategy is to work on the construction and formation of militant agents with the capacity to analyze the social, political, cultural and economic reality, discerning the alternative technologies appropriate for the development of the countryside without depending on agribusiness. Hence, agroecology is the central focus of the education at the Educar Institute, which seeks to awaken the student’s conscience towards the harmony and coexistence between the ten million species that live on the planet and the struggle against the behaviors that destroy the equilibrium between them.”
While I visited, 42 students of mostly high school age were in residence. The students are organized into “base nuclei” of 5 or 6 members, who alternate on the daily tasks of cleaning their residential and academic space, running their kitchen, planning and leading the “mística,” organizing their library, etc. The students also have work hours (two days a week) and work days (Saturdays) where the groups alternate between operating the various productive sectors of their school: the vegetable garden, three extensive orchards, arable fields, raising animals (pigs, chickens, milk cows and sheep), healthcare (a medicinal herb garden and the production of homeopathic medicines), a bakery and the maintenance of building infrastructure. Every week day the students have classes morning and afternoon on all academic subjects of high school education. This intensive work/study schedule crams into 5 or 6 weeks the work of full semesters, allowing the students to return to their communities for a few months to live and work with their families before going back to school for another period of work/study.
The socialist ideological formation is strong at the school, not only through the communal work ethic and the socially engaged content of their academic education (especially through courses in history), but also through the practice of “místicas” every morning. The mística is an ever changing ritual of readings, songs, symbols and reflections on the history, life and struggles of the peasants and workers. The symbols usually include vegetables, fruits and grains produced, flowers, music and work instruments, flags and other symbols of the community. During Brazil’s independence day while I was there, the group of students who put together that morning’s mística read an account of the series of revolutions in 1848-49, called “Spring of Nations,” finding in that chain of nationalist bourgeois revolts the seeds of internationalist socialist revolution. Instead of singing Brazil’s national anthem, they sang the Internationale, as well as an anthem of the landless peasant movement and other songs of struggle.
The coordinator of the Institute is a respectable and intelligent peasant woman called Salete, who has been active in the land struggle since the late 1970’s, having taken part in the very first land occupation from which the MST would then be born at Encruzilhada Natalino. She has been an active force of the pedagogical formation of the landless peasant movement throughout all these years, from the organization of alphabetization programs while still at the encampments to the foundation and continued operation of the Educar Institute nowadays. The years of stories from the peasant struggles and the detailed knowledge she has of the students at Educar and others within the landless peasant movement kept me enthralled for long hours and many gourds of chimarrão… there is no way to begin to relate such an experience without living it for oneself.
The Institute is located in the Nossa Senhora Aparecida Settlement in the highlands of north Rio Grande do Sul, one of the oldest agrarian reform settlements conquered through the peasant occupations from which the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST) would eventually be born in 1984. This is a region of deep fertile soils and rolling hills, marking a strong contrast with the low wetlands near Porto Alegre. Here, a “breadbasket” region of the country, agribusinesses still flourish with massive industrial monocultures of wheat, oats, (and during the summer) corn and soy. The community life and diversity of fruit, vegetable and animal production (especially milk) from the agrarian reform settlements contrasts harshly, then, with the endless plantations of grains, only marked by few empty farm houses used sporadically by absentee landowners.
“The history of this school has its roots in the 1980’s when, following upon the conquest of land, demands for basic necessities were also undertaken, such as: housing, education, healthcare, community centers, leisure and sport facilities as well as technical assistance for agricultural production. Technical assistance was a necessity for both the settled communities in the old Annoni plantation [where the Nossa Senhora Aparecida and eight other settlements are located] and also for the peasant communities nearby, organized through rural unions, the (now called) Peasant Women’s Movement and Church groups (Pastorais da Terra).”
“This need began to be satisfied when the MST donated 42 hectares of the above mentioned settlement, the area closest to the road and the city of Pontão, and organized “barn raisings” (mutirões) for the construction of the basic structures of the formation center then called Center for Alternative Popular Technologies (Centro de Tecnologias Alternativas Populares – CETAP). The goal was to rescue popular knowledges and to appropriate knowledge about alternative productive technologies with an agroecological dimension. By the end of the 1980’s the structure was built and the proposal for technical assistance for the settlement and peasant communities elaborated.”
“The technical group (agronomists, veterinarians and administrators from CETAP) worked in outreach technical assistance, built a seed bank, realized experiments with organic fertilizers, free range pig raising, grass fed cattle for milk production, biological control of soy pests, organized field days, systems of seed-barter, and a variety of meetings and seminars with the local peasantry for 10 full years.”
“By 2000, CETAP moved to the nearby city of Passo Fundo, where it could be nearer the majority of small farmers for whom it provided assistance (which were no longer agrarian reform settlement areas) and also because of the closer proximity to communication and information technologies. The MST organizers were pushed by their communities to set up a school for their youth, who had no other choice but to leave the countryside to study in the cities, where education was dissociated from their reality. This fact often led students to abandon their education, or abandon the countryside altogether.”
By 2004, the MST succeeds in establishing a partnership with INCRA (the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform), and in 2005 with the Federal Agro-technical School of Sertão, to create its own course for agriculture technicians with specialization in agroecology, choosing the structure of alternating periods of intensive residential education at the school and periods of work back at their own communities.
“The pedagogical strategy is to work on the construction and formation of militant agents with the capacity to analyze the social, political, cultural and economic reality, discerning the alternative technologies appropriate for the development of the countryside without depending on agribusiness. Hence, agroecology is the central focus of the education at the Educar Institute, which seeks to awaken the student’s conscience towards the harmony and coexistence between the ten million species that live on the planet and the struggle against the behaviors that destroy the equilibrium between them.”
While I visited, 42 students of mostly high school age were in residence. The students are organized into “base nuclei” of 5 or 6 members, who alternate on the daily tasks of cleaning their residential and academic space, running their kitchen, planning and leading the “mística,” organizing their library, etc. The students also have work hours (two days a week) and work days (Saturdays) where the groups alternate between operating the various productive sectors of their school: the vegetable garden, three extensive orchards, arable fields, raising animals (pigs, chickens, milk cows and sheep), healthcare (a medicinal herb garden and the production of homeopathic medicines), a bakery and the maintenance of building infrastructure. Every week day the students have classes morning and afternoon on all academic subjects of high school education. This intensive work/study schedule crams into 5 or 6 weeks the work of full semesters, allowing the students to return to their communities for a few months to live and work with their families before going back to school for another period of work/study.
The socialist ideological formation is strong at the school, not only through the communal work ethic and the socially engaged content of their academic education (especially through courses in history), but also through the practice of “místicas” every morning. The mística is an ever changing ritual of readings, songs, symbols and reflections on the history, life and struggles of the peasants and workers. The symbols usually include vegetables, fruits and grains produced, flowers, music and work instruments, flags and other symbols of the community. During Brazil’s independence day while I was there, the group of students who put together that morning’s mística read an account of the series of revolutions in 1848-49, called “Spring of Nations,” finding in that chain of nationalist bourgeois revolts the seeds of internationalist socialist revolution. Instead of singing Brazil’s national anthem, they sang the Internationale, as well as an anthem of the landless peasant movement and other songs of struggle.
The coordinator of the Institute is a respectable and intelligent peasant woman called Salete, who has been active in the land struggle since the late 1970’s, having taken part in the very first land occupation from which the MST would then be born at Encruzilhada Natalino. She has been an active force of the pedagogical formation of the landless peasant movement throughout all these years, from the organization of alphabetization programs while still at the encampments to the foundation and continued operation of the Educar Institute nowadays. The years of stories from the peasant struggles and the detailed knowledge she has of the students at Educar and others within the landless peasant movement kept me enthralled for long hours and many gourds of chimarrão… there is no way to begin to relate such an experience without living it for oneself.
segunda-feira, 14 de setembro de 2009
THE SEEDLINGS BROKE THE SILENCE
There was a sepulchral silence
over the eighteen thousand hectares stolen
from the tupi-guarani peoples
over ten thousand quilombola families
evicted from their territories
over millions of litters of herbicides
poured in the plantations
There was a promiscuous silence
over the chlorine used
for whitening paper
producing carcinogenic toxins that harm
plants, animals and people.
over the disappearance
of more than four hundred bird species
and forty mammals
in the north of Espírito Santo
There was an insurmountable silence
about the nature of a plant
that consumes thirty liters of water/day
and does not give flowers or seeds
about a plantation that produced billions
and more billions of dollars
for just a half a dozen gentlemen
There was a thick silence
over thousands of hectares accumulated
in Espírito Santo, Minas, Bahia
and Rio Grande do Sul
There was an accomplice silence
over the destruction of the Atlantic Forest and the pampas
due to the homogenous cultivation of a single tree:
eucalyptus
There was a bought silence
over the voluptuousness of profits
Yes, there was a global silence
over Swedish capital
over Norwegian companies
over large national stalls
Finally,
there was an immense green desert
in concert with silence
II
Suddenly,
thousands of women got together
and destroyed seedlings
the oppression and the lie
The seedlings shouted
all of a sudden
and no less than suddenly
the smile of bourgeoisies became amazement
became a grimace, disorientation
III
The order raised incredulous
crying out progress and science
imprecating in vulgar terms
obscenity and bad language
Newspapers, radios, magazines,
the internet and TV,
and advertisers
well spoken businessmen
crawling advisers
clever technicians
reluctant governments
the yelling right
and all the centre extremists
in chorus, echo,
assemblies and declarations
to defend capital:
“They cannot break the silence!”
And cried for beheading!
IV
Suddenly
no less than suddenly
thousands of women
destroyed the silence
On that day
on the so called Aracruz land
the women of Via Campesina
were our gesture
were our voice.
Manifesto of Men and Women in Solidarity with the Peasant Women of La Via Campesina
over the eighteen thousand hectares stolen
from the tupi-guarani peoples
over ten thousand quilombola families
evicted from their territories
over millions of litters of herbicides
poured in the plantations
There was a promiscuous silence
over the chlorine used
for whitening paper
producing carcinogenic toxins that harm
plants, animals and people.
over the disappearance
of more than four hundred bird species
and forty mammals
in the north of Espírito Santo
There was an insurmountable silence
about the nature of a plant
that consumes thirty liters of water/day
and does not give flowers or seeds
about a plantation that produced billions
and more billions of dollars
for just a half a dozen gentlemen
There was a thick silence
over thousands of hectares accumulated
in Espírito Santo, Minas, Bahia
and Rio Grande do Sul
There was an accomplice silence
over the destruction of the Atlantic Forest and the pampas
due to the homogenous cultivation of a single tree:
eucalyptus
There was a bought silence
over the voluptuousness of profits
Yes, there was a global silence
over Swedish capital
over Norwegian companies
over large national stalls
Finally,
there was an immense green desert
in concert with silence
II
Suddenly,
thousands of women got together
and destroyed seedlings
the oppression and the lie
The seedlings shouted
all of a sudden
and no less than suddenly
the smile of bourgeoisies became amazement
became a grimace, disorientation
III
The order raised incredulous
crying out progress and science
imprecating in vulgar terms
obscenity and bad language
Newspapers, radios, magazines,
the internet and TV,
and advertisers
well spoken businessmen
crawling advisers
clever technicians
reluctant governments
the yelling right
and all the centre extremists
in chorus, echo,
assemblies and declarations
to defend capital:
“They cannot break the silence!”
And cried for beheading!
IV
Suddenly
no less than suddenly
thousands of women
destroyed the silence
On that day
on the so called Aracruz land
the women of Via Campesina
were our gesture
were our voice.
Manifesto of Men and Women in Solidarity with the Peasant Women of La Via Campesina
Integração Gaúcha Settlement
Integração Gaúcha was named accordingly because peasants from some 30 municipalities from all regions of Rio Grande do Sul (the state whose people are called gaúchos) were integrated in it. This was probably the most successful agrarian reform settlement I have seen so far, which I believe to be due to two major factors: its proximity to the large urban center of Porto Alegre (a mere 15km across the rivers) and the subsequent facility of marketing production; and its relatively small and politically conscious population (68 families), which facilitates strong civic ties and democratic organization. Still, the settlement is not without its challenges, among which remain the lack of resources for production, the difficulties of creating new forms of social organization (such as cooperatives), and, which is the other side of the “proximity to urban center” coin, the ease with which some settled families can obtain income from off farm labor limiting their agricultural production.
This land was previously owned by a government institution that researched alternative agricultural techniques for the production of rice in areas of high ecological risk and importance, but the institution had been mostly un-functional and underfunded for years, managed by a board of wealthy farmers, and the majority of the land had been “rented out” (under highly questionable legal terms) to a large farmer who operated it as a conventional plantation, with synthetic fertilizers and pesticides and the threat of violence against the peasantry encroaching nearby and all. As in other similar stories, the farmer eventually stacked up enough debt and the land came under enough pressure from the landless peasants (who began to carry out occupations and to blockade the entry to the farm in order to demand its expropriation) that the state finally caved in and expropriated the land some 16 years ago. (The farmer’s debt and the legal status of the land as public property are important considerations, since agrarian reform in Brazil is still carried out “with due compensation,” unlike agrarian reforms carried out under conditions of revolution or foreign occupation.)
The settlement is located in a mostly low wetland (várzea) like Filhos de Sepé, so rice is also the predominant crop of extended production. Like at the other settlement, ecological considerations restrict all production to organic techniques, but unlike at Filhos de Sepé, there seem to be fewer challenges managing and maintaining this practice collectively. However, the ease with which other goods can be marketed allows for a much more substantial production of vegetables, dairy products, chicken and pigs, and even baked goods (this last having been originally structured as all-women collectives that have since broken down into two private bakeries that employ female wage labor). The production of rice is sent to two other settlements near the metropolitan region for processing, storage and marketing (Assentamentos Capela and Tápes), since the cooperatives at those other two larger settlements have more of the necessary infrastructure for such tasks. The vegetables are marketed in farmers’ markets in Porto Alegre twice a week, where they obtain relatively higher prices as organic produce (but still at quite low prices, especially when compared to organic produce in the United States).
I was taken there by Mauro, who has been at Integração Gaúcha since the beginning of the occupations there, and hosted there by him and his partner Chris, a lovely couple that met and married within the Movement itself. While I was there, Chris was putting the final touches on her geography dissertation on the negative impact of agribusiness on women (an incredibly interesting piece of feminist-socialist-peasant research) and Mauro was straining to do most of the domestic work (including caring for their two young daughters) while keeping up the family’s income through work on their vegetable gardens, rice crops and farmers’ market. Luckily for him, Chris’s sister, Luciana, was also visiting and helped care for the young some of the time as well. Moreover, they have given part of their land to Mauro’s brother and his partner, who built their own residence and vegetable garden there as well, and who also help care for the young some of the time. This practice of hosting extended family in their land is not uncommon at Integração Gaúcha and speaks to the success of the settlement as a whole (since, instead of losing substantial portions of the originally settled population through abandoned plots and concentrated ownership, a mark of settlement failures, here the settlement community and production continues to expand and employ every nook and cranny of the land).
Chris and Mauro own 7 hectares of high ground, on which they have built their residence (and his brother’s), a fruit orchard and their vegetable gardens, and also 14 hectares of low land, on which they farm rice. The 7 hectares of high ground are not contiguous, in order for their vegetable gardens to be located alongside the land of two other families near an irrigation reservoir (açude), making up a little over 3 hectares of vegetable production. These three families cooperate informally on the seedlings, irrigation, care, harvest and marketing of their vegetables, grossing “easily” R$15 thousand per week. Mauro and Chris’s production is the least significant of these, then, rendering for them R$1.500 to R$3.000 per week. Mauro speaks mostly of popularizing his organic produce, rather than selling at higher prices to few elite buyers, which may also account for their lower income from their vegetable gardens. Moreover, the main share of their income seems to come from the production of rice, which is also carried out informally along with five other families (the vestiges of a previously failed cooperative arrangement). Mauro’s family had owned their own machinery for the production of rice in the past, but a sharp fall in the price of rice in recent years forced them to sell their machinery so now they cooperate with another family in the settlement that still has theirs. It was this drop in the price of rice, however, that motivated them to reinvest instead in organic produce and vegetables, providing them now with a more diverse and stable source of income. A last notable fact about Mauro’s production of rice is that he works with several organic varieties at the same time (red, brown, white, and he wants to experiment with black grains soon), priding himself of his organic production and quality whole grains.
Chris is a strong woman with visible leadership skills. She took part along with other peasant women of their settlement in occupations of the townhall nearby in order to demand the release of funds for the infrastructure and operation of a day care right there in the settlement itself, which was already an extension of their earlier struggle to set up a public school in the settlement for grades 1-5. The women’s successful struggles to set up education facilities in their settlement are among the positive qualities that highlights this settlement among others. But Chris’s struggles have extended far beyond her own local community, as she has taken part in several other mobilizations throughout her state and beyond, most notably the direct action during the International Women’s Day in 2006 when a group of peasant women of the Via Campesina uprooted thousands of eucalyptus seedlings in a direct action against the expansion of the “green deserts” of eucalyptus monocultures for industrial production in place of agrarian reform and food sovereignty of rural communities. This event has since been memorialized through the touching poem translated in the next entry.
This land was previously owned by a government institution that researched alternative agricultural techniques for the production of rice in areas of high ecological risk and importance, but the institution had been mostly un-functional and underfunded for years, managed by a board of wealthy farmers, and the majority of the land had been “rented out” (under highly questionable legal terms) to a large farmer who operated it as a conventional plantation, with synthetic fertilizers and pesticides and the threat of violence against the peasantry encroaching nearby and all. As in other similar stories, the farmer eventually stacked up enough debt and the land came under enough pressure from the landless peasants (who began to carry out occupations and to blockade the entry to the farm in order to demand its expropriation) that the state finally caved in and expropriated the land some 16 years ago. (The farmer’s debt and the legal status of the land as public property are important considerations, since agrarian reform in Brazil is still carried out “with due compensation,” unlike agrarian reforms carried out under conditions of revolution or foreign occupation.)
The settlement is located in a mostly low wetland (várzea) like Filhos de Sepé, so rice is also the predominant crop of extended production. Like at the other settlement, ecological considerations restrict all production to organic techniques, but unlike at Filhos de Sepé, there seem to be fewer challenges managing and maintaining this practice collectively. However, the ease with which other goods can be marketed allows for a much more substantial production of vegetables, dairy products, chicken and pigs, and even baked goods (this last having been originally structured as all-women collectives that have since broken down into two private bakeries that employ female wage labor). The production of rice is sent to two other settlements near the metropolitan region for processing, storage and marketing (Assentamentos Capela and Tápes), since the cooperatives at those other two larger settlements have more of the necessary infrastructure for such tasks. The vegetables are marketed in farmers’ markets in Porto Alegre twice a week, where they obtain relatively higher prices as organic produce (but still at quite low prices, especially when compared to organic produce in the United States).
I was taken there by Mauro, who has been at Integração Gaúcha since the beginning of the occupations there, and hosted there by him and his partner Chris, a lovely couple that met and married within the Movement itself. While I was there, Chris was putting the final touches on her geography dissertation on the negative impact of agribusiness on women (an incredibly interesting piece of feminist-socialist-peasant research) and Mauro was straining to do most of the domestic work (including caring for their two young daughters) while keeping up the family’s income through work on their vegetable gardens, rice crops and farmers’ market. Luckily for him, Chris’s sister, Luciana, was also visiting and helped care for the young some of the time as well. Moreover, they have given part of their land to Mauro’s brother and his partner, who built their own residence and vegetable garden there as well, and who also help care for the young some of the time. This practice of hosting extended family in their land is not uncommon at Integração Gaúcha and speaks to the success of the settlement as a whole (since, instead of losing substantial portions of the originally settled population through abandoned plots and concentrated ownership, a mark of settlement failures, here the settlement community and production continues to expand and employ every nook and cranny of the land).
Chris and Mauro own 7 hectares of high ground, on which they have built their residence (and his brother’s), a fruit orchard and their vegetable gardens, and also 14 hectares of low land, on which they farm rice. The 7 hectares of high ground are not contiguous, in order for their vegetable gardens to be located alongside the land of two other families near an irrigation reservoir (açude), making up a little over 3 hectares of vegetable production. These three families cooperate informally on the seedlings, irrigation, care, harvest and marketing of their vegetables, grossing “easily” R$15 thousand per week. Mauro and Chris’s production is the least significant of these, then, rendering for them R$1.500 to R$3.000 per week. Mauro speaks mostly of popularizing his organic produce, rather than selling at higher prices to few elite buyers, which may also account for their lower income from their vegetable gardens. Moreover, the main share of their income seems to come from the production of rice, which is also carried out informally along with five other families (the vestiges of a previously failed cooperative arrangement). Mauro’s family had owned their own machinery for the production of rice in the past, but a sharp fall in the price of rice in recent years forced them to sell their machinery so now they cooperate with another family in the settlement that still has theirs. It was this drop in the price of rice, however, that motivated them to reinvest instead in organic produce and vegetables, providing them now with a more diverse and stable source of income. A last notable fact about Mauro’s production of rice is that he works with several organic varieties at the same time (red, brown, white, and he wants to experiment with black grains soon), priding himself of his organic production and quality whole grains.
Chris is a strong woman with visible leadership skills. She took part along with other peasant women of their settlement in occupations of the townhall nearby in order to demand the release of funds for the infrastructure and operation of a day care right there in the settlement itself, which was already an extension of their earlier struggle to set up a public school in the settlement for grades 1-5. The women’s successful struggles to set up education facilities in their settlement are among the positive qualities that highlights this settlement among others. But Chris’s struggles have extended far beyond her own local community, as she has taken part in several other mobilizations throughout her state and beyond, most notably the direct action during the International Women’s Day in 2006 when a group of peasant women of the Via Campesina uprooted thousands of eucalyptus seedlings in a direct action against the expansion of the “green deserts” of eucalyptus monocultures for industrial production in place of agrarian reform and food sovereignty of rural communities. This event has since been memorialized through the touching poem translated in the next entry.
domingo, 13 de setembro de 2009
Filhos de Sepé Settlement and the Sepé Tiarajú Workers’ Formation Center
My first visit in the South was to an agrarian reform settlement called Filhos de Sepé (Children of Sepé). Sepé Tiarajú was a Guaraní who held an office of importance at one of the Jesuit Missions hundreds of years ago. Although the facts about his life are far less pleasant than the symbolism he currently represents (having been Europeanized, implemented order upon the other Guaranís at his Mission, and fought violently against “less civilized” indigenous peoples in the name of the colonizers), he is currently highly regarded for having (perhaps) proclaimed the phrase “THIS LAND HAS OWNERS” against invading European colonizers. He is usually depicted in traditional Guaraní attire and said to have died in battle against the colonizers (partially true due to the complex relations between the Missions and Spanish and Portuguese colonial powers more directly associated to the “crowns”).
The settlement is in the rural surroundings of the city of Viamão, one of the oldest in the state (indeed, older than the capital Porto Alegre). It was originally settled by Azorean peasants, the first of many waves of European family farmers that colonized this region of South America. Nowadays, the city is almost a satellite city of the capital, but maintains an attractive “small town” feel near its downtown historic district.
At the settlement, I was hosted at the Centro de Formação de Trabalhadoras e Trabalhadores (Workers’ Formation Center) Sepé Tiarajú. The Centrão (big center), as it is affectionately called by those in the Movement, is a space for social gatherings of the peasants in the settlement all around, as well as for broader meetings, courses, and other such events for members of the Movement and their allies from all over the state. It is maintained currently by two encamped landless peasants, Paulo and Tidão, both being freed from their camp duties to care for the Center. They lack many resources to do the upkeep of the infrastructure, but still do what they can to keep the space functional for all upcoming events, including the production of an organic garden (including medicinal herbs), some pigs, and a young fruit tree garden (pomar) with 180 sprouts. All production is agroecological (employing no toxic agrochemicals, but instead, e.g., organic fertilizers such as chicken manure, of which we unloaded 64 large sacks for use in the new fruit trees).
All that is there has been built by the Movement itself along the ten or so years of existence of the Filhos de Sepé settlement. It is composed, in addition to the agricultural production space around, of five main buildings. The largest has space for large meetings or seminars, a spacious kitchen and an office space packed with books and with computers linked to the internet. The second largest is a residence hall with enough space to host 130 people in large rooms with bunks and other beds (each room named after a known Latin American revolutionary). The third largest building is still under construction (along the principles of permaculture) and will serve varied functions from library to classroom space. The fourth and smallest building is an adobe construction with a grass roof (built along the principles of permaculture) to serve as a classroom and reading room. And the last structure is a common house in which Tidão and some of the agricultural technicians who work in the settlement reside. There is an effort to reduce consumption of energy and water, e.g., with the construction and use of three cisterns to capture and store rain water.
The land in which the settlement is located is a low wetland (várzea) of immense ecological importance. Although it was public land held as an ecological preserve, it was illegally seized by a big farmer during the 1960’s – 80’s, who created a dam for irrigation that has caused serious flooding issues down along the basin (affecting the function of the várzea as a sponge that should drain rain water and slowly release it to the nearby streams) and employed vast amounts of agrochemicals. Due to these and other economic problems (i.e., unmanageable debts stacked by the land “owner” against the state), the land was finally expropriated when the state was pressured by the landless peasants, who settled a few hundred families there, each with about 15 hectare plots. Most families have smaller plots (about 1 hectare) on higher ground where they built their homes and where they keep their gardens and small farm animals, while the larger plots are concentrated in the lowlands where there are mostly wet rice paddies (due to the nature of the place).
This year, only about 80 families have prepared projects for the production of rice, adding up to about 800 hectares of wet rice paddies. This represents only about half the arable low land and irrigation capacity of the settlement as a whole, due to the challenges of agroecological production most peasants there face. Due to the ecological importance of the place, government bureaucracies have required and are attempting to regulate the production of rice in the settlement to restrict the use of agrochemicals. That is, all production is required to be organic by law. Yet not all peasants there refrained from using such toxics, however, and last year a substantial portion of them had their crops seized by the state due to such infringements. This accounts, therefore, for the smaller number of families who are investing this year on the production of rice (either because they do not have the resources after having lost much in the previous year, or because they have chosen to focus on other sorts of production, and some even rely primarily on off-farm income, which is facilitated due to the close proximity of the settlement to the city of Viamão).
The process of organic certification is carried out by internal and external investigators. The external investigators come from some organization in Switzerland once a year, and the internal investigators come from other MST settlements who also work with organic rice. The process involves an extensive questionnaire about each family plot’s production and history, as well as plot walk-throughs and production site verification. The agronomy technician who I accompanied, Alan, is a recent graduate from the Instituto Educar (which I visited later and about which I will write in another entry) and since this was his first certification visit, he was joined by one of the agronomists from the local technician’s cooperative, Leandro, who showed me and him around the settlement and helped him through the process with the 20 or so peasants with which he worked on the certification process. The process was friendly among all, and we all seemed to be learning much throughout about organic production and the politics of the settlement. It was interesting to note that some peasants responded to the question “why have you decided on organic production” going beyond the obvious “because its legally required” to point out that such production is less costly and so they had already practiced agroecology before even knowing what these words meant, since their marginalized conditions precluded them from purchasing agrochemical inputs in the first place.
Such issues of organic vs. conventional production are an important challenge to the settled peasants themselves, who must struggle not only with the state and with the challenges of production, but also with each other for the control of their irrigation and other resources between the organic and the conventional “parties” in their settlement administration elections (the practice of direct democracy common to all agrarian reform settlements). As one of the leaders of the “organic camp” told me, “God is here in the settlement, but so is the Devil.” What he said is as true of that and any other settlement I visited as of any other place on this Earth…
This peasant of German descent is an important reference for the organic rice producers of the region, having produced his own rice crops organically for over 9 years now and even had much success with the combination of rice and fish farming in the same paddies (a practice through which the fish till the land while eating the pests and recycle those nutrients into fertilizer for the rice, a perfect example of the symbiotic integration of meat production in agroecological practice, pace dogmatic vegans). In fact, companheiro (“comrade”) Zang was so successful with the conjunction of fish and rice production (having produced higher yields this way than the average of conventional rice growers who use agrochemical pesticides and fertilizers) that he ended up with far more fish than he was able to sell to the local Gaúcho market (who have no tradition of eating seafood). Since the costs of freezing and shipping the fish beyond the local markets would render the production inviable for him, Zang abandoned the practice of combining fish with rice production this year despite the higher yields of fish-based pest-control and fertilizer and cheaper practice of using the fish instead of tractors to till the land. Comrade Zang’s agroecology seems to be, unfortunately, ahead of his time.
The settlement is in the rural surroundings of the city of Viamão, one of the oldest in the state (indeed, older than the capital Porto Alegre). It was originally settled by Azorean peasants, the first of many waves of European family farmers that colonized this region of South America. Nowadays, the city is almost a satellite city of the capital, but maintains an attractive “small town” feel near its downtown historic district.
At the settlement, I was hosted at the Centro de Formação de Trabalhadoras e Trabalhadores (Workers’ Formation Center) Sepé Tiarajú. The Centrão (big center), as it is affectionately called by those in the Movement, is a space for social gatherings of the peasants in the settlement all around, as well as for broader meetings, courses, and other such events for members of the Movement and their allies from all over the state. It is maintained currently by two encamped landless peasants, Paulo and Tidão, both being freed from their camp duties to care for the Center. They lack many resources to do the upkeep of the infrastructure, but still do what they can to keep the space functional for all upcoming events, including the production of an organic garden (including medicinal herbs), some pigs, and a young fruit tree garden (pomar) with 180 sprouts. All production is agroecological (employing no toxic agrochemicals, but instead, e.g., organic fertilizers such as chicken manure, of which we unloaded 64 large sacks for use in the new fruit trees).
All that is there has been built by the Movement itself along the ten or so years of existence of the Filhos de Sepé settlement. It is composed, in addition to the agricultural production space around, of five main buildings. The largest has space for large meetings or seminars, a spacious kitchen and an office space packed with books and with computers linked to the internet. The second largest is a residence hall with enough space to host 130 people in large rooms with bunks and other beds (each room named after a known Latin American revolutionary). The third largest building is still under construction (along the principles of permaculture) and will serve varied functions from library to classroom space. The fourth and smallest building is an adobe construction with a grass roof (built along the principles of permaculture) to serve as a classroom and reading room. And the last structure is a common house in which Tidão and some of the agricultural technicians who work in the settlement reside. There is an effort to reduce consumption of energy and water, e.g., with the construction and use of three cisterns to capture and store rain water.
The land in which the settlement is located is a low wetland (várzea) of immense ecological importance. Although it was public land held as an ecological preserve, it was illegally seized by a big farmer during the 1960’s – 80’s, who created a dam for irrigation that has caused serious flooding issues down along the basin (affecting the function of the várzea as a sponge that should drain rain water and slowly release it to the nearby streams) and employed vast amounts of agrochemicals. Due to these and other economic problems (i.e., unmanageable debts stacked by the land “owner” against the state), the land was finally expropriated when the state was pressured by the landless peasants, who settled a few hundred families there, each with about 15 hectare plots. Most families have smaller plots (about 1 hectare) on higher ground where they built their homes and where they keep their gardens and small farm animals, while the larger plots are concentrated in the lowlands where there are mostly wet rice paddies (due to the nature of the place).
This year, only about 80 families have prepared projects for the production of rice, adding up to about 800 hectares of wet rice paddies. This represents only about half the arable low land and irrigation capacity of the settlement as a whole, due to the challenges of agroecological production most peasants there face. Due to the ecological importance of the place, government bureaucracies have required and are attempting to regulate the production of rice in the settlement to restrict the use of agrochemicals. That is, all production is required to be organic by law. Yet not all peasants there refrained from using such toxics, however, and last year a substantial portion of them had their crops seized by the state due to such infringements. This accounts, therefore, for the smaller number of families who are investing this year on the production of rice (either because they do not have the resources after having lost much in the previous year, or because they have chosen to focus on other sorts of production, and some even rely primarily on off-farm income, which is facilitated due to the close proximity of the settlement to the city of Viamão).
The process of organic certification is carried out by internal and external investigators. The external investigators come from some organization in Switzerland once a year, and the internal investigators come from other MST settlements who also work with organic rice. The process involves an extensive questionnaire about each family plot’s production and history, as well as plot walk-throughs and production site verification. The agronomy technician who I accompanied, Alan, is a recent graduate from the Instituto Educar (which I visited later and about which I will write in another entry) and since this was his first certification visit, he was joined by one of the agronomists from the local technician’s cooperative, Leandro, who showed me and him around the settlement and helped him through the process with the 20 or so peasants with which he worked on the certification process. The process was friendly among all, and we all seemed to be learning much throughout about organic production and the politics of the settlement. It was interesting to note that some peasants responded to the question “why have you decided on organic production” going beyond the obvious “because its legally required” to point out that such production is less costly and so they had already practiced agroecology before even knowing what these words meant, since their marginalized conditions precluded them from purchasing agrochemical inputs in the first place.
Such issues of organic vs. conventional production are an important challenge to the settled peasants themselves, who must struggle not only with the state and with the challenges of production, but also with each other for the control of their irrigation and other resources between the organic and the conventional “parties” in their settlement administration elections (the practice of direct democracy common to all agrarian reform settlements). As one of the leaders of the “organic camp” told me, “God is here in the settlement, but so is the Devil.” What he said is as true of that and any other settlement I visited as of any other place on this Earth…
This peasant of German descent is an important reference for the organic rice producers of the region, having produced his own rice crops organically for over 9 years now and even had much success with the combination of rice and fish farming in the same paddies (a practice through which the fish till the land while eating the pests and recycle those nutrients into fertilizer for the rice, a perfect example of the symbiotic integration of meat production in agroecological practice, pace dogmatic vegans). In fact, companheiro (“comrade”) Zang was so successful with the conjunction of fish and rice production (having produced higher yields this way than the average of conventional rice growers who use agrochemical pesticides and fertilizers) that he ended up with far more fish than he was able to sell to the local Gaúcho market (who have no tradition of eating seafood). Since the costs of freezing and shipping the fish beyond the local markets would render the production inviable for him, Zang abandoned the practice of combining fish with rice production this year despite the higher yields of fish-based pest-control and fertilizer and cheaper practice of using the fish instead of tractors to till the land. Comrade Zang’s agroecology seems to be, unfortunately, ahead of his time.
Porto Alegre and COCEARGS
The city of Porto Alegre seems a typical big city with its tall buildings, busy streets and graffiti on the walls downtown (some illegible tags, and others are political stencils against racism, sexism, the fascist governor, the bureaucracy in Brasilia, etc). The city seems to have lost its leftist streak, however, having elected rightist representatives and executives lately (an inversion with the currently leftist countryside which used to be the bastion of rightist politicians). It is quite easy to get around town by bus or downtown on foot, if one doesn’t mind the constantly wet weather that is causing serious flooding problems throughout the state.
The Central Cooperative of Settlements of Rio Grande do Sul, COCEARGS (Cooperativa Central dos Assentamentos do RS), hosts the main office of the MST in that state, right in downtown Porto Alegre. Originally a very small office of the Central Cooperative alone, half the adjoining office spaces in that building’s floor have since been occupied by the MST in place of a public finance institution that shut its doors and left its employees jobless (who, then, helped the MST organizers occupy the vacant spaces). Nowadays, the total space includes room for finance, education, cooperation and production, mass movement and several other sectors of the Movement, as well as a cafeteria and kitchen large enough for all office workers to take their meals in common right there where they work.
This occupation is maintained through arduous negotiations with the state, which demands the evacuation of the Movement organizers or the payment of unmanageable rent and overdue fees, while the organizers negotiate and renegotiate payments in terms of community services in their own areas of rural extension programs and food donations from their own agrarian reform settlements for the federal government’s “Zero Hunger” program (of food donations for families in extreme poverty).
COCEARGS was my point of contact once I arrived in Rio Grande do Sul, and although my two contacts arranged in Brasília weren’t there to receive me when I first arrived, a member of the directory of the movement in that state, Janaína, received me and set up my visits throughout the state. She became an invaluable companion during my time in the South and since…
Most workers at the office are encamped somewhere throughout the state (and freed from their camp responsibilities by collective decision of their camp peers in order to take on office duties in the capital) and live in a residence hall of the Movement itself elsewhere in the city, while some live in nearby settlements and drop in and out to carry out organizational duties at the state level, and a smaller number still live on their own account nearby. The residence hall is quite large, with apartment spaces for more permanent residents as well as larger rooms with bunks to receive organizers, militants and select visitors on a more temporary basis. There are also common spaces for storage, cooking and sharing meals.
All in all, the Movement has strong roots in the city, even while the main functions carried out there are administrative and organizational in support of a much stronger and wider presence throughout the countryside of the state. After a few hours in the city, I soon left for the countryside by bus and only passed through the city on my way from one settlement to another, and then to participate on an ongoing mobilization at a government bureaucracy’s regional headquarters (to be described in a later entry).
The Central Cooperative of Settlements of Rio Grande do Sul, COCEARGS (Cooperativa Central dos Assentamentos do RS), hosts the main office of the MST in that state, right in downtown Porto Alegre. Originally a very small office of the Central Cooperative alone, half the adjoining office spaces in that building’s floor have since been occupied by the MST in place of a public finance institution that shut its doors and left its employees jobless (who, then, helped the MST organizers occupy the vacant spaces). Nowadays, the total space includes room for finance, education, cooperation and production, mass movement and several other sectors of the Movement, as well as a cafeteria and kitchen large enough for all office workers to take their meals in common right there where they work.
This occupation is maintained through arduous negotiations with the state, which demands the evacuation of the Movement organizers or the payment of unmanageable rent and overdue fees, while the organizers negotiate and renegotiate payments in terms of community services in their own areas of rural extension programs and food donations from their own agrarian reform settlements for the federal government’s “Zero Hunger” program (of food donations for families in extreme poverty).
COCEARGS was my point of contact once I arrived in Rio Grande do Sul, and although my two contacts arranged in Brasília weren’t there to receive me when I first arrived, a member of the directory of the movement in that state, Janaína, received me and set up my visits throughout the state. She became an invaluable companion during my time in the South and since…
Most workers at the office are encamped somewhere throughout the state (and freed from their camp responsibilities by collective decision of their camp peers in order to take on office duties in the capital) and live in a residence hall of the Movement itself elsewhere in the city, while some live in nearby settlements and drop in and out to carry out organizational duties at the state level, and a smaller number still live on their own account nearby. The residence hall is quite large, with apartment spaces for more permanent residents as well as larger rooms with bunks to receive organizers, militants and select visitors on a more temporary basis. There are also common spaces for storage, cooking and sharing meals.
All in all, the Movement has strong roots in the city, even while the main functions carried out there are administrative and organizational in support of a much stronger and wider presence throughout the countryside of the state. After a few hours in the city, I soon left for the countryside by bus and only passed through the city on my way from one settlement to another, and then to participate on an ongoing mobilization at a government bureaucracy’s regional headquarters (to be described in a later entry).
Assinar:
Postagens (Atom)
