In addition to intensifying the resumption of the debate on agrarian reform in Minas Gerais, the occupation of landless women in Lagoa Santa brought concrete victories that go beyond the limits of the municipalities of the Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte (RMBH).
The mobilization of more than 500 families who were camped on the Aroeiras farm, between the 8th and 20th of March, won the commitment of the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra) with the regulation of historical areas occupied by the Movement of Rural Workers Without Terra (MST), such as the Quilombo Campo Grande and Terra Prometida camps, in Campo do Meio and Felisburgo, respectively.
“The promise to regularize our camping areas is a very big victory. While [Romeu] Zema wants to hand over the land to mining and real estate speculation, we are fighting to make these lands productive again. In Lagoa Santa, the land that was already hard due to the abandonment of almost a decade, we managed to build an agroecological garden in just 14 days”, explains Ana Cláudia de Resende Silva, MST activist, resident of the Zequinha Nunes camp, in São Joaquim de Bicas, at RMBH.
Almost 30 years of resistance in Quilombo Campo Grande
Incra’s commitment represented an important sign for the more than 400 families in the 11 camps that make up Quilombo Campo Grande, in the south of Minas. They have occupied the land of the former Ariadnópolis sugarcane factory for 26 years, which went bankrupt in 1996, leaving debts owed to the State and workers.
During this period, the campers have already faced 12 eviction attempts. The last one, which took place in 2020, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, lasted approximately 60 hours and left a trail of destruction, which did not even spare the Eduardo Galeano Popular School, built by the MST with the aim of teaching children and adolescents to read and write. Of region.
Even so, the areas occupied by the movement in the South of Minas are considered a national reference for the care of the land and the high productivity of the camps, which currently have, for example, more than 2 million coffee plants and are responsible for the production of famous Guaí agroecological coffee.
Tuíra Tule, camper at Quilombo Campo Grande and member of the MST national leadership, highlights that State recognition will be essential for families to be able to work and protect their land.
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“We have already planted more than 150 thousand trees on these lands. Before, nothing was produced here, not even sugarcane. Today, we have more than 160 different types of food. But the important steps we took in organizing production were without any subsidies from the Brazilian State. In these 26 years, everything we built was based on the resistance of those in the countryside and those in the cities”, he assesses.
“With the consolidation of the Quilombo Campo Grande settlement, we will be able to exist before the Brazilian State and have recognition not only of ownership, but also of our entire production and organization. We have more than 100 families that still do not have electricity, for example”, adds Tuíra.
The MST leader also argues that, in addition to institutional recognition, by definitively settling families, they will be able to access rights that, as campers, they still cannot.
“It is the house, the road, the water infrastructure, technical assistance, credits and other rights that are fundamental for us to develop and produce even more and with quality, increasing the volume of production, guaranteeing a dignified life for us, through our work, but also by ensuring that food reaches those who need it most”, he explains.
“We will also be able to overcome the specter of eviction, which still haunts us. During these 26 years, our homes and our production have often been taken away and our trees have been cut down. Our school was destroyed”, concludes Tuíra.
Definitive settlement is a response to the Felisburgo Massacre
In the Vale do Jequitinhonha region, Terra Prometida campers have the same expectations, following the agreement with Incra.
Since 2002, when 230 families occupied the old Nova Alegria farm, the dispute over the land has become one of the best known in the country. After two years of legal disputes and threats from farmer and businessman Adriano Chafik Luedy, five landless people were murdered and another 20 were injured, in the episode that became known as the “Felisburgo Massacre”.
Since then, across the country, the MST has raised the slogan “they killed five landless people, but we will move on”, stating that the struggles organized by workers today are also in response to those who lost their lives in the search for the right to land.
Kelly Gomes, one of the survivors of the massacre, highlights that, among the families that are still there, the imperative is stubbornness.
“Our stubbornness to continue producing healthy food, to say that the land has to fulfill its social function, to build popular self-organization. These are families who have a dream of continuing on this land and have been challenging themselves to produce with dignity. I am the mother of three children who were born here and I am very proud to say that in this territory we produce freedom and dignity”, says the Terra Prometida camper.
“My children grow up here with a totally different life than my parents, without being exploited by farmers. The massacre has a great weight, because it remains in our memory and brings us very strong sadness, but the land needs to fulfill its social function, which is to produce healthy food. It is necessary to issue ownership of this land because it is our right and also that of our five companions”, concludes Kelly.
Source: BdF Minas Gerais
Editing: Leonardo Fernandes
Tags: occupation landless women hundreds
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