Research Paper

Time and time again history has shown not everyone is given their fair share in life. It could mean people are not given the right to vote for their country’s leader. It could mean people are not allowed the rights other people are given. It could mean people face violence against themselves and others like them. These are all problems history has seen forced upon low income residents of countries worldwide.

Another problem similar to these is the unfair distribution of land. This might seem like a minor problem at first glance. If someone were to reflect on how important land is in the distribution of power and wealth it might seem like a bigger problem. There is such a problem in the South American nation of Brazil. The country has been in and out of many military dictatorships since it’s independence in 1822. These authoritarian governments are much more likely to unfairly distribute land than a democratic nation would. Military regimes often give out the business and land to those that support their forceful oppression of a nation with money, business deals, and other various means of supporting a government. (wikipedia)

Brazil was freed from its last dictatorship in 1985. With the collapse of such a regime came an era of democracy under the form of a republic state. The nation also adopted a constitution and began operating democratic elections, as most republics tend to do. This granted the oppressed poor to further organize and implement plans to gain their wealth and piece of the land.

The Landless Workers Movement (MST) also known as Moviemento Dos Trabalhadores Rurias Sem Terra had been started in 1980 in small grassroots political networks in the most southern state of Brazil, Rio Grande Do Sul. The movement began simply by farming families occupying land that was not being used to cultivate food by the overwhelming small minority that owned approximately two thirds of the land. In the first two years of the 1980s an estimated six thousand families joined the movement and began cultivating food on unused land. These families banded together too stand against the unfairly practiced laws about the occupation of unused land for agriculture development. They were the beginning sounds of a nation’s voice against unfair land laws and for the opportunity to provide food and shelter for themselves and their family. (wikipedia) (mstbrazil)

These families slowly spread to more states in the newly founded republic and gathered more supporters until in the mid-nineteen eighties when the last military dictatorship fell from power. Once the new republic’s government was organized and a constitution was written, the MST officially declared itself an organization. It was not allowed to declare itself under the oppression of the military’s strong hold over the government. Since then there have been numerous MST settlements declaring themselves in twenty-three of twenty-eight Brazilian states. (mstbrazil) (wikipedia)

They have found legal protection in many cases against landowners looking to evict them from their land. In many cases not only are the evictions rejected but the people begin to expropriate the pieces of unproductive land the MST families have settled on. The constitution declares land use must be used in rational and adequate sense, managed for the use of the natural resources and fair use for owners and laborers of the area. These laws in the constitution are one of the stepping stones that allow the MST to occupy land that is not in use and in turn provide for their communities. (mstbrazil)

The MST finds much of its legal help to battle the expropriating of land in court through family relations of MST families in law the progressive branch of the Catholic Church, and civil rights interested law firms in Brazil. The most frequent enemy of the MST in the legal since would be the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian reform (INCRA). INCRA evaluates and deems the land MST settlements have occupied as productive or unproductive for its current owners. The expropriating of land is not an easy process and any given settlement can take up to two years to be granted to the MST families. (mstbrazil) (wikipedia)

(Bibliography)
Website "Landless Workers Movement of Brazil", Laura Carlsen, 09/10/07,

http://mstbrazil.org/

Website: "Landless Workers Movement", 09/08/07,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landless_Workers%27_Movement