MST'S "RED APRIL" OFFERS LOTS OF THEATER BUT NOT MUCH

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 SAO PAULO 000367 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR WHA/BSC, DRL/IL, INR/IAA, INR/R/AA STATE PASS USTR FOR CRONIN STATE PASS EXIMBANK STATE PASS OPIC FOR DMORONESE, NRIVERA, CVERVENNE NSC FOR FEARS TREASURY FOR OASIA, DAS LEE AND JHOEK USDOC FOR 4332/ITA/MAC/WH/OLAC USDOC FOR 3134/ITA/USCS/OIO/WH/RD SOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD DOL FOR ILAB USAID FOR LAC/AA E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: EAGR ELAB PGOV PINS PINR BR SUBJECT: MST'S "RED APRIL" OFFERS LOTS OF THEATER BUT NOT MUCH SUBSTANCE REF: (A) SAO PAULO 150; (B) 06 BRASILIA 1138; (C) 06 SAO PAULO 332 SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED - PLEASE PROTECT ACCORDINGLY -------------- SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. Summary: (SBU) Actions by the Rural Landless Workers' Movement (MST) this year in observance of "Red April" have been characterized by strident rhetoric but less property destruction than last year. While they have generated some attention, the land invasions and occupations do not appear to have a particular focus or objective. In most cases, MST militants have occupied private farms or estates but have withdrawn after a brief period, often without even waiting for the judicial order directing them to vacate the property. Takeovers of the GoB's land reform office in several cities have likewise not generated significant trouble. Sugar plantations in Sao Paulo state have been a particular target this year, due in part perhaps to the heightened profile of the sugar industry as a result of the increased international interest in sugarcane-based ethanol. MST leaders have made a conscious decision to elevate the tone of their attacks against President Lula, who has long been considered, if not exactly one of their own, at least an MST sympathizer and protector. The landless people assert that Lula owes them for their past support in his five presidential campaigns and during the 2005 political corruption scandals. However, according to one insider, the Lula administration and the MST made an agreement back in 2003 which the government has largely honored and the MST has not. Accusing the movement of "hypocrisy," this erstwhile champion of the landless asserted that MST leaders routinely flatter GoB officials in private as they seek more funding for their initiatives, while at the same time publicly confronting the government with ugly rhetoric and provocative land invasions. End Summary. -------------- COMMEMORATING THE DEAD -------------- ¶2. (U) "Red April" is an annual observance by the Landless Movement to commemorate an April 1996 confrontation between MST militants and state Military Police in the northern state of Para that left 19 landless people dead. Every April, MST conducts a series of activities designed to raise public consciousness of the need for agrarian reform and to pressure the government to distribute more land and provide settlements for landless people. This year, the movement has invaded 81 farms and other properties spread across 21 states of Brazil's 26 states, with an emphasis on the impoverished northeast and the more prosperous southeast. This is a significant increase over the 28 land invasions carried out in 2006 and the 44 in 2005. It has also briefly occupied the facilities of the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) in Brasilia and elsewhere and of the Sao Paulo State Land Institute (ITESP) in the troubled Pontal do Paranapanema (see ref A). In the southern state of Parana, MST has attacked tollbooths on public highways, driven away the collectors, and allowed motorists to pass through for free, while at the same time setting up stands to sell food, drinks and other items. In Santa Catarina, also in the south, approximately 500 families briefly occupied a 10,000-hectare Army facility. ¶3. (U) In almost all cases, MST militants withdrew from the properties after only a short occupation (and before the inevitable SAO PAULO 00000367 002 OF 004 court order was issued),suggesting that they were more interested in attracting attention than in serious confrontations with landowners or police. The fact that the ownership of many of the properties targeted is not in dispute, and that few can be considered idle or unproductive - two normal conditions for its redistribution) - offers another indication that the MST is not seriously attempting to engage the government on land reform. It is worth noting that, unlike last year, when assaults on agri-business facilities led to damage estimated at USD 400,000 (ref C),this year's MST activities have not involved any significant destruction of private property. ¶4. (U) Throughout the month of April, Sao Paulo also saw several invasions of abandoned buildings by members of the National Union for Popular Housing (UNMP),an urban equivalent of the MST that advocates on behalf of the homeless, generating some concern that the two movements were joining forces. However, leaders of both MST and UNMP were quick to deny any such intention, calling their concurrent actions "a coincidence." UNMP stressed that it has nothing to do with Red April, but is simply pressing the claim of Sao Paulo's poor to adequate housing. According to press reports, Sao Paulo state is home to some 4 million inhabitants of "irregular parcels, favelas (makeshift urban slums),swamps, and unsafe areas," as well as 2 million tenement-dwellers and another 2 million camping out in friends' and relatives' apartments. When heavy rains cause the rivers to rise and flood the city' periphery, the homeless are among the most seriously affected. -------------- BREAKING WITH LULA -------------- ¶5. (U) The MST is an autonomous social movement affiliated with President Lula's Workers' Party (PT). As such, while movement leaders have criticized the federal government for a lack of progress on land reform and redistribution, they have generally spared Lula personally. However, there are signs that this might be changing. In a recent press interview, MST national director and spokesman Joao Pedro Stedile argued that Lula has "debts" with the MST and that he and the PT need to "return to their historical commitments" and reduce the "rightist influence" in the government. MST supported Lula in his three unsuccessful presidential bids as well as his victorious 2002 campaign. Though sometimes critical of Lula's orthodox macroeconomic policies, the MST joined the United Workers' Center (CUT) and the National Students' Union (UNE) at the height of the 2005 political corruption scandals to defend Lula's government and denounce the opposition. The movement then went on to support Lula's re-election in 2006. ¶6. (U) Now, however, MST's patience appears to be wearing thin. During his post-election Cabinet shuffle, Lula left in place the Minister of Agricultural Development, Guilherme Cassel, who has been blamed by the movement for the slow pace of land reform. Then, after the POTUS visit in March and the signing of the MOU on biofuels cooperation, amid widespread talk of expanding sugar cultivation nationwide to meet an anticipated increase in demand and exploit Brazil's leadership in the production of sugarcane-based ethanol, Lula delivered public remarks in which he characterized the sugar growers and mill owners as "national heroes." The MST has long considered the sugar-growers a prime adversary because of their practice of "monoculture and their treatment of workers, which some have compared to slave labor. In his labor union days, Lula often marched with the MST. As a politician, he has long been one of the sugar industry's harshest critics, and movement leaders found his SAO PAULO 00000367 003 OF 004 sudden about-face anything but encouraging. Among other properties, MST invaded a significant number of sugar plantations in western Sao Paulo state this year, possibly in an attempt to take advantage of all the attention focused on the industry due to the ethanol boom. Sao Paulo state, which is approximately the size of Minnesota and Iowa combined, has 3.66 million hectares of sugar cultivation and produces more than 60 percent of Brazil's ethanol. At the same time, the state has about three times as much pasture land as crop land, and the pasture land, though very inefficiently used, with an extremely low density of animals per hectare, does not receive nearly as much attention from the landless movement as does the crop land. -------------- A FORMER SUPPORTER SPEAKS -------------- ¶7. (U) Poloffs and Political Assistant met April 20 with former PT Federal Deputy Luiz Eduardo Greenhalgh (1987-91, 1995-2007),now an attorney in private practice. Greenhalgh was one of only a handful of Federal Deputies openly affiliated with the MST, some of whose members he had defended as a lawyer. As head of the Chamber of Deputies' Human Rights Commission, he was the PT's choice for President of the lower house in February 2005, but, in a setback for the Lula administration, was defeated by backbencher Severino Cavalcanti (Progressivist Party -Pernambuco) after a PT dissident entered the fray. However, he failed to win re-election in the 2006 elections despite the PT's strong showing nationwide (83 seats out of 513, second-highest) and in Sao Paulo state (14 out of 70, also second-highest). ¶8. (SBU) Asked about the MST's recent activities, Greenhalgh (please protect) said he had been present at meetings between the movement and the Lula administration in 2003 when the two sides had negotiated a modus vivendi. From his perspective, the government had upheld its side of the agreement, but MST had not. The government had provided considerable funding to various NGO which supported MST initiatives, or, in some cases, had passed the money directly to the movement. It had also established some settlements for the landless. The MST, however, had continued to adopt a confrontational pose, invading property and routinely employing ugly rhetoric. Greenhalgh accused the MST of hypocrisy in pretending to militate against the government while adopting a soft, flattering tone in private discussions as it attempted to gain access to more funding. This led him to distance himself from the movement, many of whose members decided in turn not to vote for his re-election. He listed the lack of MST support as one factor that contributed to his unexpected defeat. Greenhalgh also noted that though the movement is affiliated with the PT, some of its regional leaders and local leaders are strongly influenced by former Senator and 2006 Presidential candidate Heloisa Helena and members of the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL),which she formed after being expelled in 2003 from the PT after criticizing Lula's orthodox economic policies. -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶9. (SBU) The good news is that despite increased activity this year, the MST and similar organizations did not commit the sort of wanton destruction of property as in 2006, which included not only the attacks on agri-business facilities but also an invasion of Congress (ref B) carried out by the Movement for the Liberation of SAO PAULO 00000367 004 OF 004 the Landless (MLST),accompanied by major vandalism. Nevertheless, the movement continues to generate considerable concern, especially in the business community. For example, the CEO of International Paper (please protect) in Brazil told the Consul General recently that MST represents one of the biggest problems for his company, a major foreign investor which is in the process of building a billion-dollar wood pulp and paper manufacturing plant in a small town in Mato Grosso do Sul state, a site of frequent MST activity. Also of concern is the fact that, while criticizing the land invasions and calling for the law to be upheld, the federal government does not seem interested in trying to work constructively to address MST's grievances; Lula and his advisors apparently believe they have already done more than enough. ¶10. (SBU) Like other social movements of the PT's left wing, the MST seems belatedly to be coming to the conclusion that Lula is a traitor to his class and that his centrist policies, far from being temporary, tactical measures (as some claim he led them to believe), represent the direction in which he wants to lead the country. The group's occupations of sugar plantations is no accident; one the one hand, MST views the industry as among the worst perpetrators of abusive labor practices, while on the other, they are aware of its high visibility due to the current focus on increased ethanol production. For his part, Lula recognizes that production of sugarcane-based ethanol is one area where Brazil has a clear advantage over its competitors, and he may well see the biofuels boom as an important part of his legacy if only the country can attract the necessary foreign investment. Seen in this light, his decision to praise the sugar-growers and ignore the landless people should come as no surprise. End Comment. ¶11. (U) This cable was coordinated/cleared with Embassy Brasilia. MCMULLEN