17 April : Day of Peasant's Struggle
European Coordination Via Campesina is determined to defend family farming and small-farmers in Europe
- Details
- Published on Tuesday, 23 April 2013 19:36
Press Release, 17 April- Fuerteventura
From 15th to 17th April, ECVC, a European association of small-farmers that brings together 27 farming bodies from 17 countries across Europe, including outside the EU, held its annual General Assembly in the Canary Islands, Spain. One of the Outermost Regions of the European Union, it is not only where Rafael Hernandez, president of Coag Canarias and outgoing member of the management team, grows his crops but also where Mario Cabrera Gonzales, President of the Government of the Island of Fuerteventura, has declared his intention to develop food sovereignty by promoting local production and autonomy.
This is a goal shared by ECVC, and represents a real challenge at a time when the CAP, currently under reform, has come under attack from agribusiness and defenders of major European farming, who are opposed to any change. The CAP offers little hope to the organisations represented by ECVC despite their considerable contribution to the institutional debate, aimed at defending small and medium-scale farmers, the majority of whom are based in the EU.
Nepal, ANPFa celebrate the Global day of Peasants struggles
- Details
- Published on Tuesday, 23 April 2013 02:37
Interaction program held in Kathmandu to mark the Global Day of Peasant Struggle
On April 17, 2013, All Nepal Peasants' Federation (ANPFa), member of international peasant movement (La Via Campesina) organized a special program on the occasion of Global Day of Peasant Struggle. An interaction program was organized in Headquarter of ANPFa in Kathmandu to mark the day and pay tributes to all late Martyrs who sacrificed their life defending peasants' rights. April 17 is the International Day of Peasant Struggle, commemorating the massacre of 19 peasants struggling for land and justice in Brazil in 1996. Every year on that day actions take place around the world in defence of peasants and small-scale farmers struggling for their rights. Member of La via Campesina around the world Mark this special day organizing various program in memory of the Martyrs.
The program chaired by the treasure of ANPFa, Sarada Prasad Subedi started with one minute silent paying tribute and homage to the Martyrs. Similarly Com. Bamdev Gautam president of ANPFa, General Secretary com. Prem Dangal, Deputy General Secretary Com. Balram Banskota and standing committee member Dr. Keshab Khadka were speakers who addressed the gathering. Peasant leaders, members of right to food and food sovereignty groups, ANPFa leaders from the Kathmandu valley including youth and women peasants were present in this program.
17th April: Hundreds of actions around the world to celebrate the International Day of Peasants’ Struggles
- Details
- Published on Wednesday, 17 April 2013 02:32
La Via Campesina Press Release
(Jakarta, 16th April 2013) Small-scale farmers and their allies are celebrating the International Day of Peasant's Struggle tomorrow, 17th of April 2013, organizing hundreds of actions and demonstrations all over the globe. This event commemorates the massacre of 19 landless farmers demanding access to land and justice in 1996 in Brazil (1).
A full list of actions, ranging from university lectures and workshops to the occupation of land and government institutions is available on the website www.viacampesina.org. A map of actions will also be updated on a daily basis.
April 17 in the world in posters
- Details
- Published on Tuesday, 16 April 2013 09:59
Posters from France, Quebec, Uruguay, Colombia, Switzerland.
April 17th: International Day of Peasants' Struggles – Call for Action - CLOC VIA CAMPESINA
- Details
- Published on Friday, 12 April 2013 05:02
On April 17th we commemorate the International Day of Peasants' Struggles, by remembering and honoring all the peasants who have sacrificed their own lives in the name of agrarian reform and food sovereignty, as well as to protect and care for nature, seeds and water. We pay tribute to them for sacrificing their lives so that we may have a better world.
On April 17th, 1996 in Dorado dos Carajas, Brazil, 19 peasants from the MST were murdered. Yet today, seventeen years after the fact, their assassins remain unpunished. Sadly, this type of impunity is far too common throughout out continent: we still face the attacks from transnationals, who with their capitalist thirst for the privatization and mercantilization of land, agriculture and nature. To confront them, we must ensure that peasant movements – whether of struggle or resistance – continue to grow and gain strength throughout all regions of the American continent.
These agrobusinesses, with their unbridled ambition, have reacted with violence, illegal actions and corruption, taking hundreds of peasant lives in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia and Paraguay. In all these countries we have witnessed how the police and the army partake in this violence by murdering and violating peasant rights.
17 April: International Day of Peasants’ Struggles Resist the commercialisation of nature - Stop land grabbing!
- Details
- Published on Tuesday, 26 February 2013 09:36
Call for mobilisation
The dramatic environmental, economic and social crises that we are currently observing have surprisingly not led to a complete change in the direction taken by most national and international elites. On the contrary, we are seeing an increased offensive by economic super-powers to grab all the resources still available to make a profit. Land has become a valuable commodity entering speculative trade, followed by water, seeds etc. This hyper-commercialisation of the commons leads to a massive dispossession of the people who are simply living on the land. Women and men farmers are particularly affected.
At the same time, resistance is blooming everywhere. All over the world, urban and rural communities hit by the same wave of privatisation and destruction of life are resisting against transnational companies which impose the rule of profit over the people's needs and rights.
Brasil, Two military leaders of Eldorado dos Carajás massacre jailed
- Details
- Published on Tuesday, 29 May 2012 13:24
Sixteen years after the event, the two commanders of the Eldorado dos Carajas massacre, in which 19 people were killed, are finally jailed.
By Nayana Fernandez for LAB
On the 7th of May 2012, sixteen years after their crimes and ten years after their conviction, the court in Pará finally issued an order demanding the immediate detention of the two leaders of the 1996 Eldorado dos Carajás massacre: Colonel Mário Colares Pantoja and Major José Maria Pereira de Oliveira. Both were considered responsible for leading the attack against the Movimento dos Sem Terra or Landless Workers Movement (MST) members in the municipality of Eldorado dos Carajás in the south of the Brazilian Amazonia state of Pará, where 19 people were brutally killed and over 60 were seriously injured – of whom three subsequently died. Pantoja had been sentenced to 228 years and Oliveira to 158 years, but both men appealed against the verdict.
The orders were issued by Judge Edmar Pereira in Belém, Pará, at the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court because neither man has further grounds for appeal. The court order demanded that they comply with their sentence immediately.
Colonel Mário Pantoja was the officer responsible for the killings of the rural workers on the 17th of April 1996. On that fateful day, almost 1,500 MST members were occupying the state highway, claiming the land for agrarian reform. According to the Brazilian judge, they were surrounded by military officers who shot at the demonstrators from close range. Colonel Mário Pantoja was the 4th Military Police Battalion commander in Marabá and Major José Maria Oliveira was leading Parauapebas police station, both in Pará state.
