Analysis of the Brazilian Situation – October

From the MST’s website

Dear Friends of the MST,

Greetings from the Internationalist Sector of the MST in Brazil!

We are approaching the end of 2024 in a context of great concern and tension over global geopolitical disputes. Perhaps the most emblematic example was the last UN General Assembly. After one year of the genocide against the Palestinian people, we have witnessed as the General Assembly has been taken hostage by the Western powers, demonstrating its irrelevance while Israel expands its war against the entire Middle East, with the complicity of the United States. The need to reform global governance and the UN is evident also from its failure in achieving the goals of the Paris Agreements and its handling of the conflict in Ukraine, which now enters its third year.

President Lula’s speech at the UN received applause from the delegates when he addressed the need to reform the UN system and the increasingly protagonistic role of the Global South in global affairs, but, on the other hand, the environmental issue ended up being sidelined in his speech. This is worrying given that Brazil will host COP30 in 2025, as well as the fact that this year the country faced a series of climate catastrophes: the drought that hit the Amazon rivers, the floods that affected thousands of people in the south and, finally, the illegal burns set off by agribusiness to make room for livestock and soybean farms, which resulted in 109,000 fires, concentrated in the Amazon, the center-western regions, and São Paulo, and released clouds of toxic smoke that spread all over the country.

The environmental issue has been central to the MST’s discussions in recent times. In addition to our National Tree Planting Program, which will plant more than 25 million trees and recover more than 15,000 hectares of land, the floods in the South have mobilized our solidarity with the creation of several solidarity kitchens, some of them producing more than 2,000 meals a day, the reconstruction of settlements for the affected communities, and the popular grassroots organizing work in the vulnerable neighbourhoods. In this process, we counted on the collaboration of an international brigade made up of comrades from Puerto Rico, Colombia, Guatemala, Norway, and the Basque Country.

However, the strength of agribusiness prevails in the Brazilian parliament, where the ruralist caucus continues its offensive against the environment, with dozens of bills to loosen environmental laws and bills that persecute people’s movements, such as the bill that criminalizes those taking part in land occupations. In the executive sphere, agribusiness receives billions in tax incentives and subsidies, as well as the 80 billion dollars they recently received to finance agribusiness production, with resources going to the very industrial farmers who set the fires in the first place.

These economic forces also played a role in the early October municipal elections, where the right won in the vast majority of municipalities, while the left made a small recovery, although it is insufficient in the face of the setbacks suffered since 2016 and 2020. Even more alarming than these right candidates, is the growth of far-right sectors within this local political spectrum.

Against this backdrop of the advance of the far right, the MST decided this year to participate more deliberately in the electoral race. Historically, due to its protagonism in local politics, MST militants have always participated in electoral disputes, but this year, participation was organized and conducted on a national level. The result was very positive, with the election of 1 mayor, 3 vice-mayors and 40 city councillors who are organic to the Movement, as well as 87 allies, including 19 mayors.

Participation in the institutional struggle is part of the larger struggle for agrarian reform and social change, and has not diminished our energy in opening new encampments and organizing mobilizations, such as the July Day of Struggle, when thousands of MST workers from 15 states mobilized to occupy large land estates, public buildings, and banks, and also established several new encampments.

In 2025, the struggle for Popular Agrarian Reform will continue to be mobilized around the environmental issue and the production of healthy food, with the April Day of Struggle and our 7th National Congress in July. We also call on all our friends to remain mobilized and alert to solidarity efforts with the peoples of Palestine, Haiti, Venezuela, and Cuba in their struggles against imperialism.

Forte abraço e boa luta!

MST’s Internationalist Sector

——–

Translation: Natalie Illanes Nogueira
Proofreading: Eduardo Rodríguez