From: glevy@PRATT.EDU
Date: Fri Mar 11 2005 - 16:05:35 EST
OPEN LETTER TO BRAZILIAN PRESIDENT LUIZ INACIO "LULA" DA SILVA AND AGRARIAN REFORM MINISTER MIGUEL ROSSETTO Dear President Lula and Minister Rosseto: It has come to our attention through trade union leaders in Brazil that an increasing number of landless peasants in Brazil have been murdered in recent weeks as they fight to gain access to lands that have been long promised to them. In mid-December, three landless peasants - all members of the Landless Peasants Movement (MST) - were assassinated in S. José da Coroa Grande and Passira in the state of Pernambuco. They are the latest in a long list of murdered landless peasants in that state. Jaime Amorim, leader of the MST in Pernambuco, denounced these assassinations and pointed out that "to date no one has been apprehended for these killings. ... The landowners' hired hands (or jagunços) are well known, and yet no one is lifting a finger to arrest them." (quoted in O Estado de Sao Paulo, Dec. 19, 2004) A few weeks earlier, five landless peasants in the Nova Alegria encampment of the MST were assassinated and 13 others were severly injured in the state of Minas Gerais - also by goons hired by the large landowners. According to an article in the November 25 issue of Folha de Sao Paulo, "about 15 armed men, wearing masks, descended upon the MST encampment, machine gunning at random and burning down the barracks." Again, no one was brought to justice. As trade unionists and activists in the United States - some of us leaders of farm labor unions - we are deeply attached to the struggle for justice for all working people and the oppressed in the United States and across the Americas. In this sense, we are alarmed by the violence and injustice facing the landless peasants in Brazil. We were heartened by the results of the election of October 27, 2002, where more than 53 million Brazilians, with their votes, gave you and the Workers Party (PT) a mandate to enact - among other long-delayed measures - a sweeping agrarian reform program. Brazil's working people also entrusted you to put a halt to the landowners' violence against the landless peasants. But, alas, we are compelled to note with great chagrin that the long-awaited agrarian reform you promised has not been delivered. You have rejected the Agrarian Reform plan commissioned by your own government: the Plinio Sampaio Plan, which would have provided titles to the land to one million landless peasants over five years. Instead, you downsized your own election campaign promises, pledging to give land to only 400,000 peasants during this period, with 115,000 targeted for land distribution in 2004. The reality is that only 55,000 peasants received titles to the land this past year. In fact, during your first two years in office, fewer peasants have received land than during the first two years of the previous rightwing Cardoso government. Worse still, the agrarian reform you have adopted has followed to the letter the guidelines imposed by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Agrarian Decree No. 92 - enacted recently by you, Mr. Rossetto - now allows the large landowners to redeem the agrarian reform certificates they receive from the state for the sale of their land just two years after their issuance - instead of 20 years, as existed previously. Your government gave in to the pressures of the landowners who insisted that the fixed face-value certificates were greatly devalued after 20 years, given the high rates of inflation. Bishop Dom Tomas Balduino, a member of the Pastoral Land Commission, condemned the adoption of Decree No. 92 as follows: "The government has now decided to carry out a 'market land reform' just like the one that was created by the previous Cardoso government and that was criticized so severely by us and by the Workers Party (PT) itself at the time. The government has submitted to the pressures of the World Bank, which promotes this kind of reform because it does not want to change the structure of land ownership." (quoted in O Estado de Sao Paulo, June 24, 2004) Dear President Lula and Minister Rossetto: An estimated 240,000 landless peasants are currently in encampments, mobilizing to occupy lands they need to feed their near-starving families. More than one million other landless peasants await in the wings. They are all clamoring for justice and for land in a country where the large landowners still own and control the overwhelming majority of the nation's productive lands We, the undersigned, add our voices to the countless numbers of unionists, activists, and elected officials across Brazil who are calling upon you to: 1) apprehend and bring to justice all the landowners and their hired hands who are responsible for the hundreds of deaths of landless peasants, and 2) carry forth with a genuine agrarian reform plan along the lines outlined by your own Plinio Sampaio Commission - so that 1 million landless peasants, beginning with the 240,000 who have occupied lands in the MST encampments, can receive titles to their lands, without the newly enacted two-year title redemption. We urge you to do the right thing before more lives of landless peasants are taken by greedy landowners! Initiators of Open Letter in U.S. Baldemar Velasquez, President, Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC, AFL-CIO); Alan Benjamin, Co-Coordinator, Open World Conference Continuations Committee; Ed Rosario, Co-Coordinator, Open World Conference Continuations Committee Initiators of Open Letter in Brazil Julio Turra, National Executive Director, CUT Trade Union Federation; Roque Ferreira, National Federation of Independent Rail Workers; Edison Cardoni, Executive Board, Federation of Federal Public Workers, CONDSEF-CUT; Joao Batista Gomes, Executive Board, CUT of State of Sao Paulo; Luiz Bicalho, Executive Board, CONDSEF-CUT; Walter Matos, Executive Board, CUT-Amazonas; Gardenia Baima, Executive Board, CUT-Ceará; Joao Bosco, Executive Board, CUT-Federal District of Brasilia; Roberto Cupolillo, Executive Board, CUT-Minas Gerais; Maurício Rosa, Executive Board, CUT-Santa Catarina; Josenildo Vieira, Executive Board, CUT-Pernambuco. Initial List of Endorsers from the U.S.: (titles listed for id. only) Marty Fishgold, President, International Labor Communications Association (AFL-CIO), New York, NY; David Swanson, Media Coordinator, International Labor Communications Association (AFL-CIO), Washington, DC; Ray Baeza, Chairperson, SEIU Local 715 Latino Caucus, San Jose, Calif.; Peter Kuttner, Nat'l Exec. Bd., IATSE Local 600, Chicago, Ill.; Joaquin C. Pedroso, Transport Workers Union, Miami, Fla; Dr. Beatriz Urrea, Tucson, Ariz.; Helen A. Spalding, AFSCME Retiree Chapter 1184, Sub-chapter 146, Bay View, Ohio; Gabriella Canez, El Cerrito, Calif.; Alli Starr, Co-Director, Cultural Links; Elisabeth Schoepflin, Youth Program Coordinator, Collective Heritage Institute, San Francisco, Calif.; Levana Saxon, Oakland, Calif.; Hal Sutton, Trustee, UAW Local 1268, Roscoe, Ill.; Chris Kaihatsu,Chicago, Ill.; Craig Gordon, Site Rep., Oakland Education Assn, Berkeley, Calif.; Francesca Rosa, Exec. Bd., SEIU Local 535, San Francisco , Calif.; Marlene Santoyo, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, Philadelphia, Pa.; Joyce Umamoto, San Francisco, Calif; Timothy Stinson, Socialist Organizer, San Francisco, Calif.; Angelina Grab and Sam McAfee, President, Vice President, RadicalFusion, Inc., San Francisco, Calif; Amber Heintzberger, Campobello, South Carolina; Katherine Hoyt, National Co-Coordinator, Nicaragua Network, Washington, DC; Joshua Sperry, Organizer, CWA Local 9423, AFL-CIO; Larry Small, Chair, Labor Support Committee, No. Calif. Media Workers Union, San Francisco, Calif.; Susan Quinlan, Northern California War Tax Resisitance,Berkeley, Calif.; Mario Santos, Organizer, SEIU-United Healthcare Workers (UHW)-West, and Secretary, Filipino Workers Association, Fremont, Calif.; Evelyn I. Montez, OP, St. Joseph the Worker Parish, Oakland, Calif.; Maggie Phair, Peace and Freedom Party, Van Nuys, Calif.; Arturo Garcia, Coordinator, Pesante-USA, Los Angeles, Calif.; Rebecca Burrill, Belchertown, Mass.; Allan Fisher, Political Director, AFT 2121, San Francisco, Calif.; Jahn Overstreet, ILWU Local 10, Oakland, Calif.; Jamie Nunez, Founder & Coordinating Adviser, Social Advocates for Global Education (SAGE), San Francisco, CA; Sergio N. Yahni, Forefront, A global network of Human Rights Defenders, New York, N.Y. Initial Foreign Endorsers: BANGLADESH: Tafazzul Hussain, President, Bangladesh National Workers Federation, Dhaka, Bangladesh; Zakir Hossain, General Secretary, Bangladesh National Workers Federation, Dhaka, Bangladesh BURUNDI: Paul Nkunzimana, President, Union of University Workers of Burundi, Bujumbura, Burundi CANADA: B. Ross Ashley, Service Employees International Union Local 1.on; webmaster, NDP Socialist Caucus, Toronto, Ontario; Ronald Cameron, President, National Federation of Teachers of Quebec (FNEEQ-CSN), Montréal, Québec; Dave Bleakney, National Union Representative, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Ottawa, Ontario; Karine Peschard, ATTAC-Québec, Montréal DENMARK: The United Peoples, Esbjerg, Denmark INDIA: H. Mahadevan, Deputy President, All India Trade Union Congress, New Delhi, India MALAYSIA: Irene Xavier, TIE Asia, Kajang, Malaysia SERBIA: Charles Alverson, Parage, Serbia and Montenegro PAKISTAN: Gulzar Ahmed Chaudhary, General Secretary, President, Pakistan Workers Confederation-Punjab & All Pakistan Trade Union Federation; Rubina Jamil, Chairperson, All Pakistan Trade Union Federation; Aima Mahmood, Secretary, Working Women Organization, Pakistan; Farid Awan, United Workers union TMA-Town Hall (Affiliated APTUF); Nasir Gulzar, President, Progressive Youth Organization, Pakistan; Fazal-e-Wahid, All Pakistan Trade Union Federation; Junaid Awain, President, All Pakistan Trade Union Federation, Karachi-Sind; Rao Muhammad Nasim, President Sind Chapter, PWC -Karachi (affiliated APTUF); Muhammad Amin, Senior Vice President, Mandiwala Mauser Plastic Industries Employees Union (affiliated APTUF); Muhammad Ishaque, General Secretary, Ittehad Carpet Labour Welfare Union -Karachi -Sind (affiliated APTUF); Ghulam Fatima, General Secretary, Bonded Labour Liberation Front (BLLF), Pakistan; Ranou Ahmed, ice President, Progressive Youth Organization (affiliated APTUF), Pakistan PALESTINE: Ghassan Abdullah, Palestinian Peace Coalition, Ramallah, Palestine PHILIPPINES: Emmi de Jesus, Secretary General, GABRIELA Alliance of Women's Organization, Quezon City, Philippines; Nato M. Reyes, Secretary General, BAYAN - Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (New Patriotic Alliance), Quezon City, Philippines; Fernando Hicap and Gerry Albert Corpuz, Pamalakaya (National Federation of Small Fisherfolk Organizations in the Philippines), Manila, Philippines ---------- OPEN WORLD CONFERENCE CONTINUATIONS COMMITTEE Jack Henning Secretary-Treasurer Emeritus California Labor Federation (AFL-CIO) Walter Johnson Secretary-Treasurer Emeritus San Francisco Labor Council (AFL-CIO) Baldemar Velasquez President Farm Labor Organizing Committee (AFL-CIO) Nancy Wohlforth Secretary-Treasurer OPEIU (AFL-CIO) Ed Rosario President, GCIU Local 4-N (AFL-CIO) Daniel Gluckstein Coordinator International Liaison Committee of Workers & Peoples (ILC) Marta Ames Past Executive Director Pride at Work (AFL-CIO) Julian Kunnie Professor, Africana Studies U. of Arizona at Tucson Patrick Hébert General Secretary CGT-Force Ouvrière (Loire-Atlantique) France Frank Martin del Campo President, S.F. Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (AFL-CIO) Alan Benjamin OPEIU Local 3 Executive Board member, San Francisco Labor Council (AFL-CIO) OWC CO-COORDINATORS: Alan Benjamin & Ed Rosario OPEN WORLD CONFERENCE OF WORKERS In Defense of Trade Union Independence & Democratic Rights c/o S.F.Labor Council, 1188 Franklin St. # 203, San Francisco, CA 94109 Tel: 415-641-8616 Fax: 415-440-9297 email: ilcinfo@earthlink.net web page: www.owcinfo.org
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