Red April is one of the main actions of the Landless Rural Workers' Movement - Divulgação / MST As part of the day of mobilizations for the struggles for agrarian reform families from the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST in Portuguese) occupied unproductive areas in northeastern Brazil The actions took place in three states – Rio Grande do Norte Pernambuco and Paraíba – in the early hours of Sunday morning to demand that the federal government comply with the agrarian reform policy Around a thousand families occupied the CopaFruit company’s farm, located near the Federal Institute of the Sertão de Pernambuco in the city of Petrolina, Pernambuco state, the third occupation MST carried out in the state this weekend “It’s an area with all the characteristics to be made available for agrarian reform It doesn’t fulfill its social function,” MST state leader in Pernambuco “The property has stopped paying workers’ rights it has several debts with banks and public agencies such as Codevasf [the São Francisco and Parnaíba Valley Development Company] it has suspended water and power supply and produces nothing.” In the city of Mossoró, Rio Grande do Norte state, around 200 families from the Chico Mendes brigade occupied the experimental farm of the Federal Rural University of the Semi-Arid (Ufersa which had been deactivated for over three years “Families encamped in the western region of the state are arriving and we have a list of 300 families that are part of the movement to be settled in this area,” Aglailton Fenandes from the state leadership of the MST-Rio Grande do Norte “It’s an area of approximately 400 hectares and local families had already emphasized the need to claim it to create a settlement It was chosen because it already belongs to the Brazilian state so it’s easy to pass it on to landless families,” he said the movement kicked off its Red April activities with the occupation of Carvalho Farm in the town of Solânea “We inaugurated our day of struggle with more than 50 landless families anxious to have land to work on and decided to enter the city of Solânea at dawn [They encamped at] An area completely abandoned by its owners and which does not fulfill any kind of social function,” Paulo Romário from the state leadership of the MST-Paraíba “We need to move forward with land reform in Paraíba there are 29 landless workers’ encampments in the state that still haven’t been granted land we have placed land reform as central to the development of Paraíba so that we can move forward in overcoming hunger misery and poverty and producing healthy food,” he argues the MST says that 3,000 encamped families are waiting for land to be allocated for agrarian reform the government pledged to settle all of them after the occupation of Embrapa [Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation] there is huge difficulty in ensuring that the areas are acquired Agrarian reform has been destroyed under the Bolsonaro administration and the resumption of the Lula government has not made enough progress to meet the movement’s demands,” Araújo points out 5,000 families are encamped while waiting for land reform to take effect has waited 18 years for the land to be titled The MST points to the slowness of the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra in Portuguese) to expropriate land in the state: the last settlement to be created in Rio Grande do Norte was Olga Benário the landless movement points out that 2,000 families are still waiting for their land to be allocated “We have more than 2,000 families in Paraíba living under a black tarpaulin four comrades have been murdered in Paraíba for fighting for land but Incra is moving ahead very slowly,” said Romário BdF tried to contact those responsible for the occupied farms through online information The report is also waiting to hear back from Incra and Brazil’s Ministry of Education Land occupations food distribution and protests at the Incra headquarters will take place in all regions of the country Most of the actions will take place until April 17, the 29th anniversary of the Eldorado do Carajás massacre Since police repression of a march in the state of Pará in 1996 left 21 peasants dead and another 69 maimed the date has become the International Day of Struggles for Agrarian Reform All original content produced and editorially authored by Brasil de Fato may be reproduced provided it is not altered and proper credit is given All original content produced and editorially authored by Brasil de Fato may be reproduced provided it is not altered and proper credit is given.