US embassy cable - 05BRASILIA1317

UNCLAS BRASILIA 001317 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, ECON, SOCI, BR, PHUM, Human Rights, TIP 
SUBJECT: BRAZIL LANDLESS ACTIVISTS STAGE LARGE MARCH IN 
BRASILIA 
 
REF: SAO PAULO 0554 
 
1. (SBU) SUMMARY.  As part of its continuous campaign for 
agrarian reform, Brazil's Landless Movement (MST) often 
schedules a wave of land occupations and other activities in 
the month of April.  But 2005 has been a slow year for MST, 
and the traditional "Red April" events were delayed and 
downsized into a two-week 150-mile march that reached 
Brasilia this week.  On May 17, some 12,000 rural activists 
waving flags and sporting MST's trademark red caps and 
t-shirts marched down Brasilia's main avenue agitating for 
greater GoB attention to agrarian reform and rural 
development, as well as an array of leftist political and 
economic causes.  The marchers held protests at the US 
embassy, the Finance Ministry and the Congress, while their 
leaders met for three hours with President Lula.  5,500 
police were on hand to keep the peace, including 200 at the 
US embassy.  The march was generally peaceful, although a 
scuffle with mounted police at the end of the day resulted in 
some minor injuries.  END SUMMARY. 
 
2. (SBU) During their meeting, MST leaders presented 
President Lula with a cap and t-shirt (Lula was criticized in 
2003 for donning an MST cap, but he showed no hesitation in 
wearing it for the cameras this time).  MST's principal 
demand is for President Lula to fulfill his campaign promise 
to resettle 430,000 landless families during his four-year 
term.  Two and a half years in, the administration has 
resettled 118,000 families and is limited by budget 
constraints from moving faster.  Other MST positions include: 
greater funding for family farming; defending the 
biodiversity of the Amazon region against "transnational 
interests"; reducing the prime lending rate to "US levels"; 
redirecting the primary surplus from foreign debt repayment 
to housing and health programs; opposition to FTAA; and 
withdrawing US troops from Iraq and Brazilian troops from 
Haiti. 
 
3. (SBU) Marchers conducted noisy protests at the Finance 
Ministry and at the US embassy (which closed for the 
afternoon), where they threw garbage and burned a US flag. 
Later they moved to the lawn in front of the Congress 
building.  When some marchers threatened to storm the Senate, 
police brought in a mounted unit that scuffled with the 
activists until two leftist senators (Heloisa Helena and 
Eduardo Suplicy) took the microphones and calmed the 
situation. 
 
4. (SBU) COMMENT.  This has been a relatively quiet year for 
landless activists.  To date in 2005, there have been 95 land 
and building occupations (compared to 165 by this date last 
year).  Yet, MST is a fact of life in Brazil.  The reduction 
in invasions has been variously interpreted as a "period of 
truce" with the Lula government (unlikely) or a natural lull 
and a chance for the landless to reorganize (more likely). 
MST's principal leader, Joao Pedro Stedile, standing atop a 
sound truck during yesterday's events told the marchers, "The 
militants have to raise their consciousness and do more 
invasions."  Since its founding in the early 1980s MST has 
evolved into a media-savvy (if politically tone-deaf) 
organization happy to agitate for a buffet of leftist causes. 
 Yesterday's events illustrate both MST's strengths and 
weaknesses: a powerful grass-roots organization capable of 
mobilizing large crowds and attracting great press attention, 
coupled with a dissonant array of policy demands and a lack 
of political sophistication. 
CHICOLA