Re: [Marxism] Landless struggle in Paraguay

[Aaron Aarons <aaron@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Some more articles:
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>Cooperation as Rebellion: Creating Sustainable Agriculture in Paraguay
>Written by April Howard   Thursday, 25 September 2008

is a good long article with some photos. It's at 
<http://towardfreedom.com/home/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1419>.

**********

<http://greenbio.checkbiotech.org/news/2008-10-10/Campesinos_fight_against_GM_soy/>

 Campesinos fight against GM soy
 
October 10, 2008
 
Farmers occupy large Brazilian-owned farms to block the entry of 
genetically-modified soy.
 
Campesinos in the department of San Pedro occupied Brazilian-owned farms on 
Oct. 1 to block the entry of transgenic soy, and began planting other crops 
such as sesame and yucca on the plots.

Some 120 campesinos occupied two 600-hectare (1,480 acre) farms, according to 
local media reports.

Cristino Peralta, the San Pedro correspondent of the daily ABC Color, said that 
the farmers immediately began planting the sesame and yucca after occupying the 
plantations.

"There was no law enforcement intervention," he said. "The group´s leader 
Florencio Martínez said that the occupation marked the start of the recovery of 
Paraguayan territorial sovereignty."

San Pedro is considered Paraguay´s best farmland, but it is also the country´s 
poorest department. President Fernando Lugo worked as a bishop there for a 
decade.

Land is concentrated in the fewest hands in Paraguay than in any other Latin 
American country. Only 351 landowners hold 9.7 million hectares (24 million 
acres), while, according to civil society organizations, there are more than 
350,000 families with insufficient quantities of land or no land at all.

The demonstrators said that they took over the Brazilian-owned plantations in 
protest of what they called the government´s failure to implement land reform. 
Paraguay has also seen other campesino protests against transgenic soy 
plantations and the indiscriminate use of farming chemicals.

© Latinamerica Press 2008
Source: Latinamerican Press


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