BY JONATHAN SILBERMAN
LONDON - Twenty-five people picketed the Brazilian embassy in London September 9 to demand justice for José Rainha. A leader of the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST) in Brazil, Rainha faces 26 years imprisonment framed up on a murder charge. His retrial is currently scheduled for September 16.

The picket was called during the speaking tour here of two MST leaders. Rainha's wife Diolinda de Souza and Agnor Viera spoke at several meetings in London at the end of a European tour that took them to Switzerland, France, Holland, and Germany. They spoke at public meetings, met parliamentarians and government representatives, and gave media interviews.

Their August 17-27 visit to the United Kingdom was at the invitation of Christian Aid and GAMST (Friends of the MST). While here they addressed a press conference, attended the official launch by Amnesty International of a report into the Rainha case, spoke at a church-organized youth festival, a Militant Labour Forum, and a final public meeting.

According to Yara Evans, the coordinator of GAMST, some 270 people in Britain heard the two activists speak. Their case was publicized in some papers, including in Folha de S. Paulo, published in Brazil.

At his first trial on June 11 of this year, Rainha was found guilty of the intentional homicide of local landowner, José Machado Neto, and of a policeman during a land occupation in Brazil's Espírito Santo state. The jury verdict was passed by a majority of four to three. "All the jurors were linked, directly or indirectly, to the landowners, who themselves are linked to the big corporations," said de Souza at the final public meeting.

Rainha's lawyers had petitioned to have the trial moved to the state capital Vitória in the light of the hostility of local landowners to Rainha's activity as a campaigner for agrarian reform. The prosecution did not present a single witness placing José Rainha at the scene of the killings, while five witnesses testified that at the time Rainha was in the state of Ceará, about 600 miles away.

De Souza, 27, was herself adopted as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International in March 1996 when Brazilian authorities detained her in an attempt to force the MST to cease its land occupations and to persuade her husband to give himself up.

The daughter of a peasant family, with 11 brothers and sisters, de Souza always worked on the land. Her family moved from Minas Gerais to Espírito Santo where, following a 1985 land occupation by the MST, they won title to land the following year. They have 20 acres and form a cooperative with 43 other families.

"My great dream was to train as an agronomist," de Souza explained, "but my family didn't have sufficient funds. Eventually in 1988 I decided to become an MST activist and spent five years in the northeast."

Northeastern Brazil is a relatively poor part of the country where the official number of severely malnourished children hovers at 18 percent. De Souza has participated in seven land marches and "so many land occupations I can't remember," leading to her arrest on five occasions.

Other MST activists have faced torture and death at the hands of the landowners, goons, and cops. Engaging in land occupations and marches, the MST is fighting for land for Brazil's 4.8 million landless families. "In the past 13 years, through land occupations, marches and continual negotiations, we have achieved substantial victories improving the quality of life of 150,000 families," said MST leader Viera, who was a founding member of the organization.

The MST was established in January 1984 in Cascavel, Paraná, southern Brazil. A year later, the MST held its first congress, with 1,500 delegates from 13 out of Brazil's 26 states represented. Five thousand delegates attended the third congress in 1995. The Movement is committed to win land, promote agrarian reform, and fight for broader political changes. "Through land seizures we have won 7.8 million hectares [19 million acres] of land, equivalent to the area of France and Denmark combined," Viera continued.

"Through these land seizures infant mortality has been significantly reduced. Forty thousand children receive schooling in the squatter camps and settlements. The MST also organizes political education, health care, and security in the areas it controls.

"The MST is now active in 23 states, and has established 68 cattle-raising cooperatives in six regions. We seek to make the fight for agrarian reform everyone's struggle, forging links with trade unions, student, and other organizations. The movement has really become a broad social movement with the support of millions. Meanwhile the government, the landowners and the IMF [International Monetary Fund] see us as the enemy."

Bringing the public meeting to a conclusion, de Souza said that the MST "is internationalist. We support the struggles of working people around the world. We face a common enemy, the big corporations and bodies like the International Monetary Fund. We have to support one another's struggle."  
 
 
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