Economist João Pedro Stedile, founder and national leader of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST), pointed to a procedural error committed by the MST’s Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI), in a statement to deputies this Tuesday (15) .
Stedile stated that the CPI’s work should focus on a random sample of MST settlers and campers, and not on certain groups previously chosen, so that the results found would be more faithful to reality.
“I want to make a statistical observation. We have 500,000 families in settlements and 60,000 families in camps, according to Incra (National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform). If you take a random sample of 1%, that would be 5,000 families you would have to listen to, although the more serious shows are even higher percentages.”
“To be an MST militant, you have to study”@stedile_mstdirector and one of the founders of the @MST_oficialexplained to Federal Deputy Ricardo Salles (PL-SP) the inner workings of the movement, during the #CPIdoMST. pic.twitter.com/juZMoaxTXT
— Brasil de Fato (@brasildefato) August 15, 2023
The commission’s rapporteur, Bolsonarist deputy Ricardo Salles (PL-SP), stated that there are leaders of the movement who would be embarrassing settlers and campers for their own benefit. “Leaders made all the settlers stay in a small place in the area, and the leaders leased the larger area, without sharing the resources with the other settlers”, said the rapporteur.
The MST leader stated, however, that it is not possible “to attribute these cases to the general. If we had a CPI of the Judiciary, who would the parliamentarians go after? Those judges who committed some infraction. . But that doesn’t mean it’s the majority”.
“This random method of going there and looking for people who are already known to be against the MST. This cannot be generalized. I suggest that you include in your report a suggestion of hiring Unesp to carry out a survey to see who the leaders are that embarrass them. We are the first ones interested. I cannot agree that it can be generalized”, said Stedile.
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The deponent also stated that each settlement and camp creates its own rules and can decide how to deal with those who break the rules, whether those who embarrass their companions or who divert resources, as pointed out by Ricardo Salles.
“The MST has organizational principles and whoever violates them is not in line with the ideology of our movement. It deviates from our principles. Just like the diversion of resources, the exit is at the police station. The rules of the camp and the settlement are decided by the community itself. community. It’s a people’s democracy,” said Stedile.
“In case of deviations or behavior by inappropriate leaders, that is the Penal Code. It is our duty to see that these deviations are corrected. The MST wants to organize the people to fight for the land, to put an end to the latifundio. that this random method of going there to look for a certain person who tells that he suffered some kind of embarrassment – which I think is possible – is widespread. Brazil is big, and you will agree that there are isolated examples, if that was the reality that you are describing. But I cannot agree that one can generalize.”
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commission apex
Stedile’s testimony is the culmination of the commission, which had its first session on May 23 of this year. Three months later, the CPI, made up mostly of extreme right-wing parliamentarians, tries to draw the attention of public opinion, which is concentrated on the CPI that investigates the coup acts of January 8 of this year and on the investigations of cases of corruption by people linked to the former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL).
On August 8, the ruling base negotiated exchanges of members of the MST’s CPI with centrão parties. Since then, the government has managed to form a majority in the commission, undermining the strategy of the president and the commission’s rapporteur, federal deputies Zucco (Republicanos-RS) and Ricardo Salles (PL-SP), both staunch opponents of the MST.
The exchanges involve the parties União Brasil, MDB, PP and Republicans. The last two can compose the first echelon of the government, gaining ministries, in an eventual ministerial mini-reform, which could take place until the beginning of September.
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“The extreme right caucus, which doesn’t even represent the interests of the ruralist caucus, turned the CPI into a circus, with all kinds of mischief, to post attacks on their social networks, which didn’t even pierce the bubble of the extreme right. positively that the bourgeois press, or corporate press, behaved with honesty and denounced this Manichaeism and manipulation that right-wing deputies did”, summed up Stedile to Brasil de Fato on the eve of the testimony.
Editing: Thalita Pires
