Curitiba, February 5, 2004 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - Invasions of toll plazas, yesterday (4), by members of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) in the state of Paraná left surveillance equipment and gates broken, and users circulated without paying tolls, which had suffered a rate hike at midnight. Of the 26 toll plazas that exist in the state, 8 were invaded.

The protest occurred on the same day as the Legislative Assembly voted the government's project to take over highway maintenance services. The approximately two thousand landless workers demanded a reduction in tolls. After the deputies approved the project, the landless workers withdrew from the toll plazas.

One of the coordinators of the MST, José Damasceno, denied that the protest in the toll plazas had any connection with the interests of the state government. He said that the MST is an autonomous movement and doesn't depend on anybody's orientation about what to do. He also said that tolls are included in freight costs, making production more expensive. Besides the tolls, the landless workers also demand agrarian reform and opposition to transgenic products.

For his part, the secretary of Public Safety, Luiz Fernando Delazari, thinks that the invasion might have been a retaliation by leaders of the movement against the 40th instance, yesterday, of the police's enforcing judicial orders to restore invaded properties to their rightful owners.

"A large part of the police force (490 military police) was involved in vacating the Cristo Rei Farm, in the Guarapuava region. This invasion of toll plazas might be a reaction by the MST to the removals we are promoting in the state," Delazari reflected. (DAS)