Brazilian elite stamps on peasants’ revolt

The Brazilian landless farmers' movement, the MST, has been described as the most dynamic social movement in the world. Over a million strong, it has been feted across the globe by human rights and workers' organisations.

But its provocative tactic of direct action - taking over unproductive farms en masse - has always irked the Brazilian authorities, even though the rights of the landless are enshrined in the post-dictatorship 1988 constitution, which says that any land that remains unproductive should be used for a "larger social function".

Now, in a move that has left the MST and its supporters worldwide reeling in shock, the state prosecutor for the southern region of Rio Grande do Sul, where the MST was born, has declared the movement "a paramilitary organisation and a threat to

national security" and called for its dissolution and "a declaration of their illegality".

The prosecutor has accused the movement's leaders of being involved in organised crime, while certain sections of the Brazilian media have suggested that the MST is linked to FARC, Colombia's infamous guerrilla army.

Land has always been a potent issue here and the hands of the landowning elite have never been far from the levers of power. Brazil is a nation of 190m people, with an area of 8.5m square kilometres - twice the size of Europe - yet just 35,000 families own 46 per cent of the land. It remains the country with the second worst land distribution in the world.

To escape slavery conditions, millions flocked to the urban areas in the 1970s creating mega-cities and vast slums. The Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra