mst

update: This cyberaction is now closed

*This is to ask your solidarity. Our movement is suffering a true offensive of the conservative forces in the Rio Grande do Sul State. Those forces not only wish to see the land distributed, as the Constitution states, but they also want too criminalize those who are struggling for the agrarian reform and stop the MST.*

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*To do so, those political forces which in fact defend the powerful interests from transnational corporation’s economic groups are establishing themselves in the state to control agriculture and large land owners are represented today in the Administration of Ms. Yeda Crusius, through it Military Brigade, in the Judiciary and in the media monopoly.*

*Bellow we are sending you various documents to ilustrate that, and it will require a bit of pacience but it will better explain the gravity of the situation.*

*Today, June 24th, we are submitting a formal denunciation to the Human Rights Commission of the Federal senate which has moved to Porto Alegre, especially to monitor de situation. Bellow is the document-denunciation drafted by Dr. Leandro Scalabrini, our attorney. We have also enclosed the minutes of the meeting of the Public Ministry, and the coverage from the local press.*

*What do need from you?*

*a) To send letters in protest to the Governor Yeda Crusius,* *gabinete.governadora@gg.gov.rs.br* <mailto:gabinete.governadora@gg.gov.rs.br> and *gabinete.governador@gg.gov.rs.br* <mailto:gabinete.governadora@gg.gov.rs.br>

*and to the General Attorney of Justice, who is appointed by the governor and coordinates the State Public Ministry. * *pgj@mp.rs.gov.br* <mailto:pgj@mp.rs.gov.br>

*A standard letter has been attached. But if you prefer, simply use your creativity.*

*b) Please send us a copy of all the messages sent to the authorities, write to Human Rights sector of the national MST* *dhmst@uol.com.br*

*and to the press sector * *imprensa@mst.org.br*

*c) We ask those who live abroad to write to the Brazilian Embassies in your countries demanding for the federal government to assure the right of workers to freely organize.*

*Thank you for everything*

*Juvelino Strozake*

*Human Rights Sector*

*MST/ national*

Dear friends,
hereby I forward you a letter and appeal from the MST-National office about the persecution of the MST in Rio Grande do Sul (the MST-RS), this is the most southern state of Brazil.
MST-national office asks you to send the attached example letter (with copies to MST, e-mails: *dhmst@uol.com.br* <mailto:dhmst@uol.com.br> and* **imprensa@mst.org.br* <mailto:imprensa@mst.org.br>) to the governor of the Rio Grande do Sul state as a way to show solidarity with the MST-RS, considering the fact that the public prosecution service of that state /(Ministério Público Estadual)/, based on a secret report from the state police, asked recently through its 'council of attorneys' for the dissolution of the MST and to declare the movement illegal. They also recommend an intervention in the schools of the settlements 'to readequate them to legality'. They suspect the movement and also the Via Campesina of getting support from foreign organizations, even the FARC from Colombia, and getting military training.
This happened in spite of a report of the Federal Police (the only police force allowed by law to investigate these issues) from 2007 that concluded that nothing of the accusations of foreign intervention, military training, relation with the FARC and MST being a threat for 'national security' is true.
The attached example letter to be sent to Rio Grande do Sul´s governor, in portuguese, has been written by the lawyer of the MST, Dr. Leandro Scalabrini. In the letter, he also points out that the report of the state public prosecution service disrespect the International Agreement of Civil and Political Rights, ratified by Brazil in 1992.
On 24 June, MST presented a formal denunciation to the Human Rights Commission of the Senate because of this situation.
This news comes in a moment that social movements in Brazil, and especially MST and the Via Campesina, are suffering more strongly from criminalization by the judicial power, the media, the parliament and sectors inside the government, because of their protests against the government priority for an economic model, based on support for big multinationals and their projects in the countryside (like the pulp companies like Stora Enso and Aracruz) stimulating plantation of large-scale monocultures for export, and the lack of priority given to land reform and small-scale production of healthy food crops.
Therefore your support is extremely important in this moment,
greetings,
Winnie