Porto Alegre, January 3, 2004 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - At 7 P.M., yesterday (2), after an eight-hour blockade of the BR-293 highway in Hulha Negra, in the Southern frontier region of Rio Grande do Sul, near the city of Bagé, 293 kilometers from the state capital, around 600 already settled members of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) decided to allow circulation of traffic in a single lane.

They used tractors and agricultural machinery to block the highway in the morning. The farmers demand better infrastructure in the camps: construction of schools, water supply systems, electric lines, and roads to market their agricultural and dairy production. Leaders of the movement informed that the protests will continue until their representatives are received in the Ministry of Agrarian Development and the Incra (National Institute of Colonization and Land Reform). (DAS)