Interview with João Alexandre Peschanski, MST Brazil | Roey Angel

João Alexandre Peschanski is an activist of the Landless Workers Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, MST), working especially in the communication sector of the movement, and member of Brasil de Fato, weekly newspaper of Brazilian social movements. He visited Israel and Palestine this week and talked in Salon Mazal in Tel Aviv.

João, give us a short background of the MST

The MST is a Brazilian social movement which struggles to do agrarian reform in this country. Today less than 3% of Brazilian landowners have 2/3 of the lands that could be produced. These big landowners, usually rich families or corporations, do not make all their land productive, letting big amounts of them non-worked. At the time they have so much, millions of people starve in Brazil. 42 millions – of the 168 of the country - live under the rate of misery (less than one dollar per day). In 1984, the MST was founded aiming to stop this inequality: the strategy was, since the government at that moment – and still now – did not appear to want to change the land concentration, some worker families started to occupy these big landowners’ lands and organize on these lands communities. The goal is to create communities, with hundreds or thousands of families, where people would have food, education, health, social consciousness and dignity. There are hundreds of these communities today in Brazil, where hundreds of thousand of people live. More information: www.mstbrazil.org

Why did you come to this area?

The MST is an organization that considers that small social changes in Brazil, for instance giving people education and food, are connected to how the dominant system of the world organizes itself and how it deals with social problems. We live in a period of Imperialism, of money, individualism and violence. The occupation of Palestine, financiated by the US, is one of the most evident example of the perversion of the dominant system, because it shows how rich countries or government consider that they can do whatever they want, oppress, aterrorize, and even kill, just not to lose any benefit or to preserv the security of their dominant system. Therefore, the MST supports the Palestinian and Israeli resistance to the occupation. It does it by trying to bring information to Brazil on the situation here and by coming here to share experiences of organizing and hope to build international bridges against Imperialism.

The Resistance of Brazil to GMO was very meaningful in blocking the taking over of biotech corporations on the South American market. What role did MST play in this resistance?

The GMOs are not in the interest of the small land workers, because they are less productive than normal seeds, more dangerous for environment (use more agrotoxics), and more harmful to Brazilian economy, creating dependance to corporations who produce these modified seeds. In a country where millions of people starve, making the option for keeping them on their situation. It is the option of death, not life. Therefore, based on the principles that economy interests and political decisions have to be submitted to this prioritarian criterium: solving social problems, always respecting environment, the MST has started a national campaign against GMOs: doing leaflets, lectures in the MST communities, schools, poor neighborhoods, demonstrate in front of Monsanto office, Agriculture Ministry, burning GMOs experimental plantations, while they were considered illegal by gov’t, and presenting a different model of agricultural production, based on small scale and non-toxic production, from which people and Brazil would benefit. Brazilian capitalists and gov’t were stupid when they started to allow GMOs, because Brazil would have benefitted from its clean production, because European market is reluctant to buy modified food. We tried to say that to Agricultural Minister, yet he wouldn’t pay attention.

In the early 2003, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the Brazilian president, legalized GMOs. Firstly, in some controlled amounts, with some restrictions, like not having some products with modifications and labeling every product. He did this because he had a lot of pressure from US government, which wanted Brazil stop imposing obstacles to its interests, especially to allow Monsanto to come to Brazil, and to the interest of some landowners who thought that GMOs would make profits by entering this international business of modifications. Lula also thought Brazil would benefit, because it would make the economy more competitive – he presented some statistic when he took his decision. Yet, the conclusion of this permission is now completely different: small landowners who used GMOs poisoned their lands and each year have to buy seeds from the corporations, especially Monsanto, because the seeds do not allow to be reusable, once you planted them, you have to buy others if you want to do another plantation, and Brazil had agricultural deficits, so the profits did not come. Today, where farmers (big or small) planted GMOs we have a social catastrophe: land is poisoned, they do not manage to sell their products, and have enormous debts with corporations. The government, at the same time, did not manage to make labeling work, so people do not know what they are eating when they go to supermarkets. Lula tried to stop GMOs, considering that the situation was unbearable, yet he could not anymore, because too many farmers had started to produce it and because – again – the US, to which economy Brazil is almost fully dependant, made pressure again.
It is not na easy situation for social movements, because the government showed itself powerless to solve the situation even when it tried, yet what we can do is organizing civil society not to consume modified products, explain what are GMOs, and help to rebuild the farms of small owners who were fooled by gov’t. We will not adopt the strategy of going to the gov’t and say “Remember, we told you”, yet we will try to stop the contamination of lands and present again the agrarian reform – giving land to workers – as the only way to have social problems solved and a sovereign economy, and the complete non-acceptance of any US or corporation pressure: social interests before corporation interests. The point is, at the same time, almost that the capitalists of Brazil are so incompetent that not to ruin the country, we have to orientate their policies, otherwise they would simply destroy everything. They do not have commitments with the development of the country, just to their interests.