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When the Farmers’ Fight Becomes a Citizens’ Struggle

When nineteen landless farmers in Brazil were killed on 17 April 1996, it became a black day in history.  Killed for fighting for the right to live off their land, their memory has been celebrated every year since.  This day has come to commemorate for landless farmers around the world, but it is above all a day of struggle and protest.

Everywhere, from El Salvador to Jakarta, from Maputo to Santa Cruz, from Bangalore to Paris, farmers are “at war.”  At war against an economic model that, in the name of the free market and competition, gives us a uniform food supply, food that is not ours, food imported from further and further away, food that is less and less varied, food that more and more often comes from a few multinationals, and, as a result, food that puts farmers’ very existence in peril.

Eat what you produce; produce what you eat; that is the basis of food sovereignty, which must be seen as a fundamental right for individuals and for the population.  It is a right, but it is also an obligation.  We, citizens of cities, citizens of Europe, and of the world, we have the duty to make sure that conditions allow food sovereignty to develop.  In Europe, where people say that a farmer “disappears every three minutes,” what will be left?

Only farmers are truly able to guarantee food sovereignty; the same farmers that the world economic system tends to work against.  We must all support them in this “war,” but we also must make their fight our own, because their struggle is not just a fight for the survival of a social class, but also a fight for humanity. The demonstrations that took place around the world on 17 April are the proof of that.


Isabelle Dos Reis
FDH activist

PARTICIPATING / HAITI

Vallue no longer wants to hear anything except for offers
Vallue has been threatened, Vallue has been scrutinized, but Vallue is determined. After long months of clashes with Digicel, the telephone company, the town is resisting and listening closely in order to make progress. Vallue is situated on the side of a mountain on the commune Petit Goâve and overlooks the plain of Port-au-Prince.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  read this article

DEMONSTRATING / BRAZIL

Defending small-scale agriculture against industrial farming
Calm but determined on this autumn day in South America, nearly 1300 women from Via Campesina Brazil held sit-ins on the grounds of big businesses, such as Aracruz, Votorantim, Stora Enzo, and Ingeno Cevasa during the week of 8 March, in honor of International Women’s Day. The theme this year was “Women Fighting for Food Sovereignty and against Agro-Business.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  read this article

TRAINING / BOLIVIA

In Cochabamba, “‘Bio’-livian” agriculture is at its peak
Honey, jam, wine, as well as peppers, corn, and powdered garlic… As many choices as delicious gustatory sensations when one tastes the products that have been cultivated, manufactured, and marketed by the small farmers from the high Bolivian mountains. The OECA, the Cochabamba Farmers Economic Organization, is today federated and organized in order to offer a wider range of products, cultivated in an organic and eco-friendly manner.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  read this article

COOPERATING / NICARAGUA

Using communication for a better education
Keep on communicating : that is the slogan of the Workshop for Popular Communication Training, which took place from 19 to 23 February 2007 in Nicaragua. For the first time, it provided the opportunity for several social movements in Latin America to share experiences relating to their education and communication missions.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  read this article

COMMUNICATING / BOLIVIA

The “Mujeres Creando” collective uses creativity to fight oppression
“Crazy, provocative, rebellious, subversive, anarchic, feminist, lesbian and heterosexual, married and single, white and indigenous, prostitutes and virgins, young and old, Catholic and atheist.” These are the terms in which Mujeres Creando, an anarchist-feminist collective, defines their group. Since starting the movement in March 1992, María Galindo, Juliete Paredes and Mónica Mendoza made their goal to fight against all forms of oppression, and particularly against sexist, homophobic and political oppression.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  read this article

TESTIMONY / PERU

A week of accountability for violence against women
Sunday, March 4th 2007, 10:00 AM. More than 600 people have gathered in Bolognesi Plaza, in Lima, Peru, to wait for the show to begin. The applause is enormous when the women from the Peruvian women’s organization for housekeepers, SINTRAHOGAR, appear on stage. The show is the opening event for the much-anticipated Women’s Week.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  read this article

PORTRAIT / ECUADOR

Thanks to his art, Laureano turns children from the street into engaged citizens
Laureano Nastul Cardenas is the animator for the Programa del Mechcho Trabajador (PMT), created by the country’s central bank in 1983. This program is targeted to marginalized children and adolescents from the streets and offers them informational workshops, information on their rights, as well as artistic and cultural workshops.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  read this article