Brazil –
Two landless movement activists shot dead
The Brazilian government said on Saturday that two activists from the Landless Rural Workers Movement had been killed.
AFP
Posted today at 11:44 p.m. Updated 9 minutes ago
Members of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) gathered in Brasilia, February 10, 2014.
AFP
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Two activists from the Brazilian Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST) were shot and killed in an attack that also left six injured in the state of São Paulo (southeast), the Lula government announced on Saturday.
The Ministry of Justice ordered the Federal Police to open an investigation, citing a “violation of human rights”, in a statement shared on the social network MST, emblematic movement of the Brazilian left.
The attack took place during the night from Friday to Saturday, in the Olga Benario camp, located in the commune of Tremembé.
“The bodies of the two victims are still at the forensic institute”
“President Lula called the national leadership of the MST and expressed his solidarity with the movement and the families” of the victims, affirmed the MST on X.
“The bodies of the two victims are still at the forensic institute and the funeral wake will take place tomorrow morning (Sunday),” added this movement founded in 1984.
According to Paulo Teixeira, Minister of Agrarian Development and Family Agriculture, who visited the scene, “a total of eight people” were hit by the bullets, and one of the militants killed in the attack was Valdir do Nascimento, 52, one of the leaders of the movement in the region.
“Which proves that we wanted to delete it”
The national coordinator of the MST, Gilmar Mauro, told the Uol website that he died of several shots to the head, “which proves that they wanted to suppress him”.
Born at the end of the military dictatorship (1964-1985), the MST calls for in-depth agrarian reform, in a country where a large part of agricultural land is concentrated in huge farms.
Their modus operandi is to occupy land in order to pressure for land redistribution, enough to arouse tensions with the powerful agro-business lobby of Brazil, a leading agricultural power.
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