Bolsonaro government orders halt to land reform.
The government of Jair Bolsonaro ordered on Tuesday the indefinite suspension of all processes for the acquisition, expropriation, or other means of obtaining land for the national agrarian reform program; the measure immediately affects 250 processes already underway at INCRA (National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform), in addition to another 1,7 processes for the identification and delimitation of quilombola territories; for the MST (Landless Workers' Movement), the suspension of agrarian reform will aggravate tension in the countryside and generate losses for public coffers.
247 - The government of Jair Bolsonaro determined this Tuesday, the 8th, the indefinite suspension of all processes of acquisition, expropriation, or other forms of obtaining land for the national agrarian reform program.
The measure immediately affects 250 processes already underway at Incra, in addition to another 1,7 processes for the identification and delimitation of quilombola territories.
Heard by Folha de S. PaulThe Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) believes that the measure will worsen tensions in the countryside, harm public coffers, since the government has already spent resources on fieldwork in several land identification processes, and "could even be considered an unconstitutional act."
"For the past four years, since Dilma's government, agrarian reform has been paralyzed, and now it's worsened. We have 120 families camped out, and they will not give up the fight for land, always for peace in the countryside; we repudiate violence," said Alexandre Conceição, from the national coordination of the MST (Landless Workers' Movement). He estimated that 365 cases at INCRA (National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform) will be affected by the paralysis. "It's an escalation of the agrarian conflict in the country," said Conceição.
The paralysis or even the end of the agrarian reform program was a frequent fear of organizations working with landless rural worker families, especially after threats made by then-candidate Jair Bolsonaro. He threatened to criminalize actions by the MST (Landless Workers' Movement), whom he called terrorists. In 2017, one of his sons, federal deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro (PSL-RJ), said in a video released on social media that the distribution of land to MST members "does nothing to contribute to the country's growth" and accused the MST of being "a politically motivated movement."
Since its creation in 1970, Incra has recorded 1,34 million families settled in the agrarian reform program across 9,4 settlements created and recognized, covering 88 million hectares. According to Incra, the total number of families currently living in settlements and reformed areas is 972.