The MST Method: Work the State, Alienate the Locals

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TAGS: PREL PGOV EAGR ELAB PHUM PINS EINV SOCI ASEC BR
SUBJECT: The MST Method: Work the State, Alienate the Locals

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1. (SBU) Summary: The Landless Rural Worker's Movement (MST)
follows a pre-planned methodology in its land seizures that includes
leveraging contacts within the GOB's National Institute of
Colonization and Agricultural Reform (INCRA) to help select targets,
according to MST expert Clifford Welch, a U.S. professor based in
Presidente Prudente, an interior city in Sao Paulo State. A visit
by EconOff to this region provided a snapshot of the mechanics of
how the MST has operated in this area. Once MST members occupy the
land, the organization negotiates with the police and the GOB to
convert the land into a permanent MST settlement. The MST then
distributes plots of land to their followers. In a practice, both
cynical and ironic, MST members sometimes wind up renting to
agribusinesses the very lands they seized. The demographic profile
of MST members shows them to be primarily small families and retired
couples. Non-MST locals would prefer their MST neighbors leave,
fearful that MST tactics will scare off foreign investment. End
summary.

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An Up-Close View of the MST
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2. (SBU) On April 7, EconOff met with Landless Rural Workers
Movement (MST) expert Professor Clifford Welch, from the State
University of Sao Paulo (UNESTE) in Presidente Prudente (a regional
city in the interior of Sao Paulo State, pop. 230,000) and on loan
from the University of Michigan. Welch has been teaching about the
MST movement for the last three years at the UNESTE agrarian reform
center called NERA. His students compile information on MST,
usually by closely monitoring newspaper articles, and they also
directly interact with the movement's members and visit their camps.
Welch himself has spent extensive time in MST camps and has a good
understanding of the organization. He has a decidedly pro-MST view,
calling the movement, "The Fight for Land." EconOff got Welch's
view of how the MST operates in that area while on a visit to
Presidente Prudente.

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The MST Method: Work the State
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3. (SBU) The MST uses its contacts inside the federal agency INCRA
(National Institute of Colonization and Agricultural Reform) to
determine which land is next up for expropriation, Welch said. This
agency is charged with designating private land for government
seizure, usually by deeming it "unproductive." Welch told EconOff
that INCRA does not make this information publically available and
that the only way MST could access it would be through informants
inside INCRA. (Note: There is at least one public case of a
retired INCRA employee, Ivan Carlos Bueno, later joining MST. End
note.) Once MST chooses its land target from INCRA's list, it then
gives INCRA a deadline to expropriate the land--usually five
days--or else MST threatens to expropriate it for them.


4. (SBU) INCRA normally cannot expropriate land with such a short
deadline, so MST invades the land as promised. They follow up by
constructing what they call a camp, essentially a makeshift
settlement. The police usually arrive shortly after and begin
negotiations for the squatters to leave. MST supporters,
overmatched by armed police, evacuate the camp, wait for the police
leave, and then return. This process repeats, sometimes
indefinitely.

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Life inside an MST Settlement
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5. (SBU) A legal MST settlement is formed on parcels of land that
INCRA has officially expropriated and then opened for public use.
MST settlers live on many of them, but not all. Once on the land,
MST farmers usually produce beef, dairy products, castor oil, or
coffee. They sell their crops on the open market. Anyone who owns
a parcel of land has complete control over it and does not share it
with other settlement workers. Some farmers even choose to rent the
land to agribusiness. A local agribusiness leader who has rented
from MST "landowners" told EconOff that many of the settlers are
remarkably good businesspeople.


6. (SBU) It takes approximately five years for a new MST recruit to
earn a piece of land. He or she performs menial tasks for the

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community while waiting. As new workers join the movement and this
wait time grows, the pressure to find more settlements grows with
it. A 10 percent tax (the MST prefer to call it a tithe) from the
farmers supports these laborers while they wait for their parcel of
land.


7. (SBU) NERA has determined that invasions directly resulted in
legalization of 80 percent of the MST's settlements. Welch would
not speculate on what would have happened if the movement had tried
to take that same land with peaceful action. He did indicate that
MST uses NERA's study to justify its continued invasions. INCRA
uses the judicial process to expropriate peacefully the remaining 20
percent of settlements.

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The MST Participant Profile
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8. (SBU) According to Welch, the driving force behind agrarian
reform is the desire to move out of poverty. The principal
demographic of those who join the movement are retired couples in
their 40s and 50s, many of whom are former sugarcane laborers.
Welch told EconOff that Brazilian law entitles these sugarcane
cutters to a pension after 20 years of work, leaving many of them to
early retirement. Since a large portion of these workers has always
wanted their own parcel of land, they join the MST. (Note: While
the GOB officially counts MST family size at five per person, Welch
estimates a number close to three, due to this demographic and his
experience in the camps. This means MST membership self-estimates
of 1.5 million people are at least 40 percent too high. End note.)

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Public Support Waning
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9. (SBU) Conversations with citizens in the city of Presidente
Prudente in the interior of Sao Paulo State indicated that few
people in the community support the MST. The president of the
President Prudente chapter of the Sao Paulo Federation of Businesses
(FIESP) told Econoff that fears of land seizures had pushed the real
estate price for the fertile land down to one-third of what similar
land costs in non-MST threatened areas in Sao Paulo State. FIESP
board members agreed, citing the movement's decline as a principal
reason that local land value had just recently begun to rise.
Presidente Prudente's vice-mayor and city manager both echoed
FIESP's sentiments.


10. (SBU) Comment: The MST's practice of distributing fertile
parcels of land to the faithful and the subsequent ability for these
individuals to rent the land back to agribusiness is ironic, to say
the least. President Lula has been conspicuously silent on his
early-career promises to support the MST for a good reason: An
organization that seizes land in the name of the landless and then
rents it back to the very same sorts of people from whom they took
it has a serious credibility problem. End comment.


11. (U) This cable was coordinated with and cleared by Embassy
Brasilia.

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