Brasília, August 7, 2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - The Minister of Justice, Márcio Thomaz Bastos, affirmed today that agrarian reform will be qualitative, rather than quantitative, permitting people effective sustenance and work. "When we form settlements, and we shall form many settlements, they will be of a quality that has never existed before in Brazil," he guaranteed.

The Minister acknowledged that the repressed social demand in the country is very large. "There has not been income distribution in 30 years, and there has not been sustained growth in 20. We recognize the needs, the demands, the dissatisfactions, and the anguishes. We realize that Lula's government may have instigated this to some extent by its democratic character, its character of change," he affirmed. Bastos explained that the government's handling of the problem is guided by two principles: Nothing outside the law, and the social question is not a police matter. (DAS)