The Latin American School of Agroecology of the MST, situated in the municipality of Lapa (in the state of Paraná) was the setting for a conversation with studants, board members and professors regarding the indigenous question in Mato Grosso do Sul on July 7 & 8 of 2009. The Indigenous Missionary Counsel (CIMI) brought to the session the reflection on the struggle of the Guarani People, drawn from the campaign “Guarani People, a Great People”(Tetã Guarani, Tetã Tuicháva).

 

The documentary “Seed of Dreams” was screened to generate debate. The 18-minute film covers the crushing genocidal elements suffered by the Kaiowá Guarani in Mato Grosso do Sul (MS) and in the Mercosul region, especially in the border area of Paraguay and Brazil. The video also presents the different forms of resistance of the indigenous in seeking their historical and constitutional rights.

 

The objective of the campaign is to inform participants of the fundamental ways of supporting the struggle of the indigenous peoples through affirmation, winning and consolidation of their rights and to seek national and international solidarity in support of the Kaiowá Guarani. Approximately 35 students from various Brazilian states and from Argentina and Paraguay participated in the activity. Animated and touched by the grave situation of the Guarani people, they organized and presented a ‘mística’ (collective short improvisational theater piece) in which they approached the most powerful moments of the documentary “Seeds of Dreams” and other dramatic data from the situation in which the Guarani communities live in their struggle for land and survival.

 

The tremendous injustices resulting from the huge land and agribusiness concentrations in Brazil and Latin America are the result of organized actions by large-scale farmers, ranchers and large land owners in MS. Mass media use by these interests focus on misrepresentation of legal administrative processes, misinforming the public about what they mean and what they imply in terms of impact on civil society. This has been documented by the Guarani campaign and raised as a serious concern shared by all rural peoples. In this process there has been a virtual ideological smear campaign generated by the agribusiness perspective. Small family farms and owners of small land parcels are intentionally confused, attempting to convince them that the process of indigenous land demarcation according to constitutional land recognition is an attack on the interests of rural residents.  The concern of the MST is to counter the disinformation campaign with broad-based educational efforts. Teachers and class structure are committed to multiplying the public understanding of the campaign among rural residents, quilombolas and indigenous peoples of the necessity to be able to work socially and collectively for restitution of lands to their legitimate owners.

 

The School of Agroecology

The MST is responding to surge in demand for the necessity to train men and women connected to the rural world in the dimensions of “theory and practice of agroecology”.  The School provides pupils with an “educational method that reconciles study, work, and cultural and political activities”. The method demonstrates that future technicians of agroecology are able to develop in their respective communities by “becoming more qualified in a productive matrix that strengthens resistance to the existing capitalist model in agriculture”.

For more information, please see: www.guarani-campaign.eu