An incendiary speech by a leader of the MST, the movement of landless peasants, may have provided the excuse for government action to disperse the organisation's biggest encampment, at the Pontal do Parapanema in the southwestern corner of São Paulo state.
At the same time, a violent incident at a squat organised by the MST's urban counterpart, the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Teto (MTST, Movement of Roofless Workers), has added fuel to the growing demands for government action.
'War on landowners.' João Paulo Stédile, an MST leader closely associated in the public mind with this year's wave of land 'invasions', raised many hackles on 23 July when, addressing a gathering in Rio Grande do Sul, he said, 'We shall not rest until we have done away with the fazendeiros [and won] this war [...] There are now 23m people devoted to the peasant struggle. On the other side are only 27,000 fazendeiros. Are we going to lose with a thousand-to-one ratio? That's very difficult; all we need to do is to unite so that each thousand of us grabs one of them.'
This prompted José Germano, secretary of public security in São Paulo state, to ask the public prosecutor if there were not grounds to charge Stédile with inciting violence, or at least public disorder. 'His statements,' said Germano, show a clear intention not to lead things to a good ending; they compromise the relationships between citizens and harm the cause of agrarian reform.'
For some time the state government had been seeking a compelling motive to disperse the Pontal do Parapanema camp, where the MST has installed 3,900 families to await the distribution of land. It has already moved against another camp, at Chico Mendes de Rosana, by getting the state railway, which owns the land the squatters are on, to obtain an eviction order from a judge.
Tough talk in Brasília. A hardening of attitudes was also evident in Brasília. President Lula da Silva's chief of staff, Tarso Genro, announced, 'The government will not renounce its role as the political guarantor of governability and democratic stability.' He said the authorities would use force if necessary.
An even more somber note was struck by trade & industry minister Luiz Fernando Furlan, who described the MST's actions as a 'power struggle' driven by that organisation's aim to become a broader political organisation.
[This is a mild variant of another which was being circulated by a firm of security specialists, suggesting the possibility that the MST could strike an alliance with the drug-trafficking gangs that control many of the Rio shantytowns.]
The roofless. Last week the São Paulo state government took direct action against about 1,000 MTST squatters who had moved into an empty hotel building in the state capital. Police were ordered to evict them; they left peacefully.
A larger contingent, reportedly 3,500 strong, that had improvised a shantytown in a vacant lot owned by Volkswagen was still refusing to obey an eviction order at the weekend. The local MTST coordinator, João Batista Costa, warned that any attempt by the police to use force would be met with force.
Many fear that the authorities will be quick to move against the urban squatters.
PT congressman Ariel de Castro Alves, who is piloting a disarmament bill, says, 'This event will demand from the government tougher measures than the occupation of rural land.' Political scientist David Fleischer, of Brasília university, concurs. He predicts that the police will evict the squatters by force, and that there may be injuries and even some fatalities. The reason: there are no funds for urban reform.
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