Violence in the Countryside and Land Reform
September 20, 2005
This article analyzes violence in the countryside and land reform during 2003 and part of 2004. In 2003, the inauguration of the Lula government created great expectations. According to the Pastoral Commission on Land (CPT), “The year 2003 began with the euphoria of hope that can overcome fear. The rural workers believed that the time had come for a profound change, that Land Reform would finally happen.”
| Maria Luisa Mendonça and Roberto Rainha |
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In September 2004, an MST survey showed that only 5440 families from MST encampments had been settled on land since the beginning of the Lula government. Data from the Agrarian Reform Auditor indicates that from January to August of this year the number of land occupations increased 47% in relation to the same period last year, reaching a total of 271.
Violence in the Countryside and Land Reform
Maria Luisa Mendonça and Roberto Rainha
This article analyzes violence in the countryside and land reform during 2003 and part of 2004. In 2003, the inauguration of the Lula government created great expectations. According to the Pastoral Commission on Land (CPT), “The year 2003 began with the euphoria of hope that can overcome fear. The rural workers believed that the time had come for a profound change, that Land Reform would finally happen.”
At that time, the CPT attributed a large number of mobilizations to this expectation. In 2003, the occupations and encampments reached a total of 676, involving 124,634 families or around 623,170 people. The number of people who participated in the demonstrations was estimated at 481,023. The total number of conflicts reached a never-before-seen level: 1690 conflicts, involving around 1,190,578 people.
In 2003, the number of killings of rural workers grew 70% in relation to 2002, reaching a total of 73. The number of eviction notices -- 35,297 families involving around 176,485 people -- was also at a record high in 2003, an increase of 263% in relation to 2002. The number of imprisonments was also 140% higher than in 2002.
In April 2003, the CPT diagnosis was that “the hopes deposited in the Lula government are being transformed into doubts, or even deception. No one is ignorant of the immense difficulties, barriers, and impediments placed by the elite classes on this government. Although the federal government adopted a new posture in relation to the rural movements, not treating them as criminal movements outside the law, as happened in recent years, it also did not carry out a true land reform.” According to the CPT, the number of families settled on land during 2003 and 2004 was “laughable”.
In September 2004, an MST survey showed that only 5,440 families from MST encampments had been settled on land since the beginning of the Lula government. The government claims to have settled 70,100 families since January 2003 but these numbers are contested by the social movements. According to the MST, 14,000 families were settled in 2003 and only 7,000 families in the first three months of 2004. The majority of these settlements did not benefit families in encampments, because they were concentrating on regularizing their ownership status.
Even the data from the National Institute of Colonization and Land Reform (INCRA) indicates that perhaps the government did not succeed in fulfilling its goal of settling 115,000 families in 2004. In August, the government stated that it had settled 33,300 families, only 29% of the goal. According to official data, in 2003, the government settled only 36,800 of the announced goal of 60,000 families.
On the other hand, data from the Agrarian Reform Auditor indicates that from January to August of this year the number of land occupations increased 47% in relation to the same period last year, reaching a high of 271.
Full report:
Violence in the Countryside and Land Reform
11 page Word doc
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