BRAZIL LANDLESS ACTIVISTS STAGE LARGE MARCH IN

UNCLAS BRASILIA 001317 SIPDIS SENSITIVE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PREL ECON SOCI BR PHUM TIP SUBJECT: BRAZIL LANDLESS ACTIVISTS STAGE LARGE MARCH IN BRASILIA REF: SAO PAULO 0554 ¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY. As part of its continuous campaign for agrarian reform, Brazil's Landless Movement (MST) often schedules a wave of land occupations and other activities in the month of April. But 2005 has been a slow year for MST, and the traditional "Red April" events were delayed and downsized into a two-week 150-mile march that reached Brasilia this week. On May 17, some 12,000 rural activists waving flags and sporting MST's trademark red caps and t-shirts marched down Brasilia's main avenue agitating for greater GoB attention to agrarian reform and rural development, as well as an array of leftist political and economic causes. The marchers held protests at the US embassy, the Finance Ministry and the Congress, while their leaders met for three hours with President Lula. 5,500 police were on hand to keep the peace, including 200 at the US embassy. The march was generally peaceful, although a scuffle with mounted police at the end of the day resulted in some minor injuries. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (SBU) During their meeting, MST leaders presented President Lula with a cap and t-shirt (Lula was criticized in 2003 for donning an MST cap, but he showed no hesitation in wearing it for the cameras this time). MST's principal demand is for President Lula to fulfill his campaign promise to resettle 430,000 landless families during his four-year term. Two and a half years in, the administration has resettled 118,000 families and is limited by budget constraints from moving faster. Other MST positions include: greater funding for family farming; defending the biodiversity of the Amazon region against "transnational interests"; reducing the prime lending rate to "US levels"; redirecting the primary surplus from foreign debt repayment to housing and health programs; opposition to FTAA; and withdrawing US troops from Iraq and Brazilian troops from Haiti. ¶3. (SBU) Marchers conducted noisy protests at the Finance Ministry and at the US embassy (which closed for the afternoon),where they threw garbage and burned a US flag. Later they moved to the lawn in front of the Congress building. When some marchers threatened to storm the Senate, police brought in a mounted unit that scuffled with the activists until two leftist senators (Heloisa Helena and Eduardo Suplicy) took the microphones and calmed the situation. ¶4. (SBU) COMMENT. This has been a relatively quiet year for landless activists. To date in 2005, there have been 95 land and building occupations (compared to 165 by this date last year). Yet, MST is a fact of life in Brazil. The reduction in invasions has been variously interpreted as a "period of truce" with the Lula government (unlikely) or a natural lull and a chance for the landless to reorganize (more likely). MST's principal leader, Joao Pedro Stedile, standing atop a sound truck during yesterday's events told the marchers, "The militants have to raise their consciousness and do more invasions." Since its founding in the early 1980s MST has evolved into a media-savvy (if politically tone-deaf) organization happy to agitate for a buffet of leftist causes. Yesterday's events illustrate both MST's strengths and weaknesses: a powerful grass-roots organization capable of mobilizing large crowds and attracting great press attention, coupled with a dissonant array of policy demands and a lack of political sophistication. CHICOLA