Letter from the MST to the Brazilian People – toward the Movement’s 40

Da Página do MST

With the representation of delegations from 24 states of the country, the MST held this year’s meeting of the National Coordination of the Movement, in Luiziânia (GO), during the week of January 23 to 27.

The activity took place in a period of great symbolism for the Movement, especially for the celebration of the 39th anniversary of the founding of the MST, celebrated on January 22, and the anniversary of the inauguration of the Florestan Fernandes National School, celebrated on January 23.

The celebrations are also added to the victory of President Lula’s inauguration in 2023, a struggle in which the Movement has been engaged over the last year.

The meeting, which ran until January 27, included a schedule of discussions, work meetings, but also spaces for mistica and celebration of the organization and struggles of workers around the world.

Relying on the representation of MST internationalist brigade members who are active in different continents around the world, in addition to the presence of parliamentarians and government supporters who were part of the meeting’s program, discussing the current situation.

As a synthesis of the analyses marking the next steps towards the 40^th anniversary of the Movement, the National Coordination launches a letter to the Brazilian people with a political message, reflections, and guidelines for 2023.

Letter from Luziânia

Message to the Brazilian People

We achieved an important victory for the Brazilian people in the streets and at the polls by electing Lula president. We defeated the coup leaders of 2016, the advance of the extreme right, tutelage of the military and the fascist project, which has dominated the Brazilian State in recent years. We won an important battle, but we know that the struggle continues.

The challenges are great, as we are experiencing a serious crisis of capitalism, with an economic, political, social and ecological dimension that puts all of humanity at risk. We are facing a highly destructive scenario derived from a system of multiple domination and oppression: patriarchal, racist, capitalist and colonial, which increasingly concentrates wealth and deepens social inequality.

In Brazil, the crisis has deepened in recent years, taking on an even more violent character, fascist in nature with an ultraliberal economic orientation. The consequences are tragic and have a decisive impact on society as a whole, widening inequalities, from the withdrawal of social rights and environmental destruction.

The popular forces that gave Lula victory – women, Blacks, youth, LGBTI+ subjects, Indigenous peoples, rural and urban workers – support a popular project for the country, which faces exploitation, oppression, exclusion, hunger, denial of rights, land concentration, environmental destruction and the poisoning of nature, food, water and people.

Overcoming this violence among the working class as a whole will be the starting point for building a Brazil the size of our dreams, as President Lula stated in his inauguration speech. We need to defeat the practices of hate speech, fake news, fundamentalism, religious intolerance and manipulation of minds.

Faced with these challenges, the National Coordination of the MST, gathered in Luziânia – GO, with its more than 450 male and female delegates from all states of Brazil, reaffirms its commitments:

• Boosting popular participation in guiding the country’s direction, through permanent mobilization and the continuity of the fight against fascism in Brazil and in the world;

• Supporting People’s Agrarian Reform as indispensable for the production of healthy food and overcoming hunger;

• Confronting the agribusiness model, which concentrates land, destroys nature, promotes deforestation and poisons us with pesticides. This model does not pay taxes, it only produces commodities and does not feed the people;

• Combating the climate crisis, guaranteeing the rights of people and nature, with real measures against deforestation, degradation and increased emissions. No to the green economy and its false promises!

• Denouncing and permanently mobilizing against all forms of violence, discrimination, racism, misogyny, LGBTIphobia and religious intolerance, fostered by agro-coupismo and fascist Bolsonarism;

• Accumulating forces in the next period through building ties between popular organizations in the countryside and in the city, exercising class solidarity and unity in the struggle, understanding that without organization, training and popular mobilization there will be no real change in the country.

We are committed to cultivating solidarity and building the necessary organization of our people.

We will continue with our Plan to Plant Trees, Produce Healthy Food.

We will prioritize the fight for the education of the people, in literacy campaigns and in the processes of political formation and battles of ideas.

We defend the sovereignty of all peoples and condemn economic blockades, military bases, wars and imperialist aggressions all over the world, which only guarantee a market for the arms industry and cause deaths.

We will join everyone who defends indigenous peoples and demand the demarcation of quilombola and indigenous lands, so that the tragedy that the Yanomami people face is not repeated.

The struggle is our strength! Organization is our base and a society that is just, socialist and in solidarity is our path.

Long live the struggle for People’s Agrarian Reform! Long live the legitimate right of the people to occupy the lands and break the fences of destruction. We will continue moving swiftly toward the 40-year anniversary of the MST!

Struggle, Build People’s Agrarian Reform!

January 23 to 27, 2023

Movimentos dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra – MST

*Editado por Lays Furtado