Free Republic

Activists want land redistributed to the poor Police in Brazil have arrested a leader of the country's landless movement. Jose Rainha Junior, 42, one of the top leaders of the Landless Workers' Movement (MST), was detained on Friday in Teodoro Sampaio, Sao Paulo state, where he was testifying in a court hearing. "Rainha was arrested for organising the 2000 occupation of a ranch in which several landless farmers stole cattle and destroyed crops," police inspector Agenor de Oliveira told the Associated Press news agency. Mr Rainha was taken to a high security prison in the town of Presidente Venceslau, his...

A festering situation that so far seems not to have attracted attention internationally is that of "land reform." Clashes between the landless people and proprietors of farms and ranches that are being invaded are bound to happen. ................................................................................................ The most organized group, the Cuban-tutored MST (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra—Landless Rural Workers' Movement) has invaded privately owned productive property in parts of São Paulo State, Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul, Minas Gerais and Pernambuco. A giant tent city with over a thousand families has sprung up on a state highway right of way in the western part of São...

TRES MARIAS RANCH, Brazil - On May 12, Gabriel Maciel and more than 1,000 other landless farmers knocked down the barbed-wire fences surrounding the Tres Marias ranch in southern Brazil, evicted its owner and claimed the land for themselves. "This is our land now and no one will take it away from us," he says a few weeks later, as his wife, Remy, cooks rice and beans over a fire by their hut of bamboo stakes and black plastic sheeting. Less than 50 miles away, gunmen in masks patrol the perimeter of another ranch whose owner vows to fight back...