Marli Moreira      Reporter Agência Brasil

São Paulo – Members of the Landless Rural Workers Base (“Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra da Base - MSTB”), a dissident offspring of the original MST, have occupied a series of farms in the Pontal do Paranapanema region in the state of São Paulo, a region that has long been an area of land conflict.

According to the leader of the movement, Luciano de Lima, around 200 families invaded two farms on September 8, bringing the total of farms that have been invaded to seven.

The owners of three farms have obtained court orders allowing them to repossess their land. They are the owners of the farms known as Célia Maria, in the municipality of Marabá Paulista; Clarice, in Iacri and Mondengo, in the town of Arco-Íris. 

The MST leader, Lima, says his people will meet to decide what to do about the court orders. He explained that the group is acting on decisions made at a recent Forum on Land Reform (“Fórum Estadual São Paulo pela Reforma Agrária”), an umbrella group of social movements and labor unions, such as the CUT. The present wave of land invasions by the MSTB is part of larger social movement known as the Cry of the Excluded (“Grito dos Excluídos”).

Allen Bennett – translator/editor The News in English

Link - Sem-terra ocupam sete fazendas no Pontal do Paranapanema