We
hereby publish an inofficial and preliminary translation of a very
important article on the peasants struggle in Brazil published by A Nova
Democracia:
Below, we reproduce
an article from the Resistance Peasant portal about the capture of the
last lands of Santa Elina that occurred 25 years after the historic
Battle of Corumbiara.
In the early
hours of August 16, dozens of peasant families led by the League of Poor
Peasants of Rondônia and Western Amazonia took the latifundio Nossa
Senhora, the last part of the old Santa Elina farm that was still in the
hands of landowners. These are lands where the Heroic Peasant
Resistance of Corumbiara occurred 25 years ago.
Located
in the municipality of Chupinguaia, on the MC01 line, about 675 km from
Porto Velho, the Nossa Senhora estate belongs to a third of the old
Fazenda Santa Elina and has approximately 6 thousand hectares of land
owned by a single family who have been enriched at the expense of
illegal use of these public lands for extensive livestock. According to
information from the peasants, the title of property and the Contract
for the Disposal of Public Lands (CATP) are falsified by the landowner
who claims to be the owner of Fazenda Nossa Senhora.
While
landowners falsify documents, enrich imperialist countries, destroy our
forests, exploit pedestrians, murder peasants and indigenous people,
the thousands of small and medium-sized peasants are responsible for
more than 70% of the food production that supplies the Brazilian table,
according to last census of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and
Statistics (IBGE).
With this new
take, the lands of Nossa Senhora, previously exploited for the benefit
of a few and to serve foreign interests, will now be cut off for
hundreds of families to produce food and prosper generating income and
moving the economy of the cities of Chupinguaia, Corumbiara, Cherry
trees and region.
The takeover takes
place exactly one week after the 9th of August, the date on which it
celebrated 25 years of the heroism of the peasants who opposed with
fierce resistance against the planned attack by the landlords and the
old state that became known as “Corumbiara Massacre”.
With
the occupation, the peasants in practice demand justice for the crimes
of the land thief who has their hands stained with peasant blood.
The
families' entry into the Nossa Senhora latifundium was received with
great enthusiasm and animation by the peasant masses of the neighboring
areas, in addition to the small and medium traders in the region;
everyone has expressed active support through food donations. On the
first day of the intake, more than 20 liters of milk arrived to help
many mothers with their young children.
The
profound general crisis of bureaucratic capitalism aggravated by the
pandemic and the consequent worsening of people's living conditions with
the reduction of the already meager jobs in the cities of Rondônia have
thrown thousands of workers into unemployment, causing more and more
masses to see land grabs of the latifundium as a way out of the crisis,
confirming in practice what the LCP has affirmed in its slogan “Against
the crisis, take all the land of the latifundium!”
The
new takeover has attracted peasants from several neighboring regions
and has led many of the families already living in the surrounding areas
to call on family members to conquer them also their piece of land and
the right to work.
Every day more and more families arrive to camp and fight for a piece of ground to work and produce.
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