And, he added: ``It is a sad fact that Chile has taken the path to communism with only little more than a third of the nation approving this choice, but it is an immutable fact.''
Three years later, on Sept. 11, 1973, Allende was overthrown in a remarkably surgical military coup. Despite elaborate plans to train, arm and equip a clandestine militia, and to ring Santiago itself with fortified factories, the fighting on the llth took fewer than 200 lives on both sides.
In the aftermath, another journalist -- the talented British writer, David Holden -- wrote ``Salvador Allende died a lucky man. In life, he was a failure. Both his policies and his country were shattered long before the end. But in death, he achieved success beyond his dreams. Instantly canonized as the Western world's newest left-wing martyr, he became overnight the most potent cult figure since his old friend, Che Guevara
The MST, swelled by Brazil's army of jobless urban and rural poor, has turned to land invasions to force Lula to honor his word. They have staged 117 land grabs in the first half of 2003 compared to 103 in all of 2002, according to the government. MST tactics of invading farmland and torching ranch houses, have left Lula open to widespread criticism in the media and from opposition parties that he has lost control of his allies and failed to create jobs to help them.
Founded in 1984, the MST mixes Marxism with Catholic liberation theology -- a blend of religious teachings and calls for social justice -- and promises its 1.5 million members a chance to own land if they work for it and join the movement.
The MST now has 150,000 families living in squatter camps that it runs while waiting for the government to expropriate and redistribute unused land. Lula promised to settle 60,000 families in 2003. During the first seven months of the year he has settled only 2,534, according to the government. That compares to 43,000 families settled in 2002 during the last year of the previous centrist government of President Cardoso.
With Lula failing to deliver on his promises he is not in a strong position to condemn the landless' fight and he now faces loud demands for a tougher stance. Despite Lula's election vows to bring robust economic growth and provide jobs, jobless numbers are growing since he took office in January prompting Lula to replace economic deliverables with land invasions.
The MST leadership has increased its activity with repeated public calls for a Cuban and Soviet inspired revolution. Meanwhile, Brazil’s Agrarian Reform Minister Miguel Rosetto, a self-defined Trotskyite, has aggressively defended the MST’s behavior from growing criticism from middle class and business leaders.
Brazilian ranchers form militias to protect their land
The MST’s national leader, João Pedro Stedile, was recently recorded by a journalist describing the landless movement’s activists as “our army” and calling for it to “finish with” the 27,000 ranchers and landowners facing the 23-million people involved in the “fight in the countryside” (“luta camponesa”). “That is the dispute. We won’t sleep until we do away with them.” In response, ranchers in fertile southern regions such as Sao Paulo state’s Pontal do Paranapanema are forming militias to protect their property from invasion by landless farm workers, and police fear the tension could explode into armed conflict. Landowners are stepping up pressure on the Lula government to move against the protests to little avail. ***