With a sound truck playing the national anthem, farmers performed with a convoy of vehicles, last Friday afternoon (3), to the Limoeiro Farm, in Jacobina (BA). The area had been occupied by around 150 families from the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) since last February 27th.
Shacks were dismantled and mattresses set on fire. Under stress, the landless families left the place. They went to another camp a few kilometers away, already in place since 2008, where there is a project for a dam by the government of the State of Bahia.
Read more: MST occupies three areas of Suzano Papel e Celulose and a farm in Jacobina (BA)
In videos made by the farmers themselves circulating on social networks, it is possible to hear phrases such as “go away, you bunch of bums”, “break your dick on their backs”, “touch gasoline and set our faces on fire” and “we’re fighting back”.
“With the violence, a lot of people got scared. We stayed until Saturday morning (4) looking for people in the bush, because there were people who ran to the back of the farm and got lost in the woods”, describes Abraão Brito, political articulator of the MST in Chapada Diamantina. “What the ranchers did there doesn’t exist because the repossession order was not issued to evict the families”, he says.
The Military Police were on site during the conflict. According to the MST, some farmers were armed, but they were not approached. Rural workers, on the other hand, had work equipment, such as hoes, retained.
“There is no one working on the land”
The Limoeiro Farm has 1,700 hectares and, according to the movement, has been unproductive for 15 years. “The families were giving life to the farm. I reiterate: it is an abandoned farm, it does not fulfill its social function. It has no corral, no house, no pasture, no cattle, no energy, no one working the land” , reports Brito.
“That area needs to become an agrarian reform settlement,” he argues. “The MST will sit down and evaluate, because the way it is, we will not allow it to remain. Democracy is governing Brazil and we are not going to take a step back. We are going to resist, dialogue with the families and take back this area”, he says.
:: In criticism of agribusiness, the MST women’s journey will have acts, camps and other actions ::
Editing: Nicolau Soares
