Brazilian MST leaders tour
More than 250,000 poor and working class families in Brazil have won the right to farm a parcel of land, a public meeting in Newcastle was told on April 8.Roberto Baggio, one of two leaders of Brazil's Movement of Landless Workers (MST), currently in Australia on a national speaking tour, explained that this 20-year struggle has mobilised hundreds of thousands of farm workers and their supporters. He said that the MST is organised around cooperatives based on around 10 family groups. These units come together to make up 1000 or more people who camp out waiting for the most opportune time to occupy the idle and unproductive farmland of absentee landlords.
Fellow MST leader Amelia Franz emphasised that the cooperatives adopt principles of community leadership, gender balance and equality. As well as land reform, which helps to assure a food supply, MST activists are involved in health care, popular education and cultural activities in their settlements.
The speaking tour organised by the Committees in Solidarity with Latin America and the Caribbean also visited Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide.
Cuban activist tours
As part of an Australia and New Zealand wide tour, Fernando Duque, the Oceania representative of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the People, spoke at an April 5 forum in Brisbane.Condemning the US-imposed economic blockade against Cuba, Duque estimated that the illegal 43-year blockade has cost Cuba US$60 million. He documented the numerous attacks on Cuba including incursions of airspace, jamming of airwaves, burning of cane crops and bombings of Cuban hotels.
He explained that Cuban doctors have offered free medical care to the prisoners held by the US Navy in Guantanamo Bay, but the US government rejected the offer.
When asked about international anti-globalisation protests, Duque told Green Left Weekly: the movement's character, to succeed, must be clearly anti-capitalist and its goal must be to fight for socialism. Duque also held meetings with the Communications and Electrical Trades Union, the Migrant Worker Resource Centre and the Queensland Council of Unions.
Acehnese independence activist speaks
DARWIN International solidarity is important for the struggle for independence in Aceh, Kautsar, chairperson of the Acehnese Peoples Democratic Resistance Front (FPDRA), stated at a public meeting attended by 60 people on April 7. The meeting was organised by Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor.Kautsar told the meeting that 708 Acehnese civilians were killed since Megawatis election, until February 2002. The Acehnese have made a decision not to compromise again with an Indonesian government, he said.
Arguing that Australians must campaign against their governments ties with the Indonesian military, Kautsar said that international solidarity campaigns were effective and had led to his recent release from jail.
Kautsars responses to challenges against his argument for Acehs independence that came from people aligned with the Indonesian consulate, were met with much applause.
Dita Sari tours Perth
PERTH Dita Sari, the general secretary of the Indonesian National Front for Labour Struggle (FNPBI), toured in early April to seek support from WA unions and activists for the FNPBI's First of May Committee, which is organising a mass workers' demonstration for May Day.As well as meeting with union officials, Sari was able to meet with workers at three unionised workplaces: Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union members at a Multiplex worksite, Maritime Union of Australia members at P&O and Patricks wharves, and Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union members at the Perth Red Cross Blood Bank.
The public meetings, at Murdoch University on April 4 and in the Perth Resistance Centre on April 5, attracted 75 people in total. Sari outlined the reasons for the FNPBI's rejection of Reebok's hypocritical US$50 000 human rights award, and urged Australian unions to support the campaign to close the refugee detention camps.
In his introduction to the Perth meeting, maritime union activist Chris Cain praised the efforts of Dita Sari and the FNPBI in spearheading an independent, fighting trade union movement. Sari received greetings and gifts from Aboriginal activist Clarrie Isaacs, Mick Beattie from the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union, and Chris Latham from the newly launched Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific.
From Green Left Weekly, April 17, 2002.
Visit the Green Left Weekly
home page.