VZCZCXRO5979
RR RUEHRG
DE RUEHSO #0317/01 1491355
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 291355Z MAY 09
FM AMCONSUL SAO PAULO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 9243
INFO RUEHBR/AMEMBASSY BRASILIA 0391
RUEHRG/AMCONSUL RECIFE 4373
RUEHRI/AMCONSUL RIO DE JANEIRO 9159
RUEHBU/AMEMBASSY BUENOS AIRES 3516
RUEHAC/AMEMBASSY ASUNCION 3763
RUEHMN/AMEMBASSY MONTEVIDEO 2917
RUEHSG/AMEMBASSY SANTIAGO 2763
RUEHLP/AMEMBASSY LA PAZ 4114

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 SAO PAULO 000317 
 
STATE PASS TO DRL FOR MMITTELHAUSER 
 
SIPDIS 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PGOV EAGR ELAB PHUM PINS EINV SOCI ASEC BR
SUBJECT: The MST Method: Work the State, Alienate the Locals 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED--PLEASE PROTECT ACCORDINGLY 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary:  The Landless Rural Worker's Movement (MST) 
follows a pre-planned methodology in its land seizures that includes 
leveraging contacts within the GOB's National Institute of 
Colonization and Agricultural Reform (INCRA) to help select targets, 
according to MST expert Clifford Welch, a U.S. professor based in 
Presidente Prudente, an interior city in Sao Paulo State.  A visit 
by EconOff to this region provided a snapshot of the mechanics of 
how the MST has operated in this area.  Once MST members occupy the 
land, the organization negotiates with the police and the GOB to 
convert the land into a permanent MST settlement.  The MST then 
distributes plots of land to their followers.  In a practice, both 
cynical and ironic, MST members sometimes wind up renting to 
agribusinesses the very lands they seized.  The demographic profile 
of MST members shows them to be primarily small families and retired 
couples.  Non-MST locals would prefer their MST neighbors leave, 
fearful that MST tactics will scare off foreign investment.  End 
summary. 
 
--------------------------- 
An Up-Close View of the MST 
--------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (SBU)  On April 7, EconOff met with Landless Rural Workers 
Movement (MST) expert Professor Clifford Welch, from the State 
University of Sao Paulo (UNESTE) in Presidente Prudente (a regional 
city in the interior of Sao Paulo State, pop. 230,000) and on loan 
from the University of Michigan.  Welch has been teaching about the 
MST movement for the last three years at the UNESTE agrarian reform 
center called NERA.  His students compile information on MST, 
usually by closely monitoring newspaper articles, and they also 
directly interact with the movement's members and visit their camps. 
  Welch himself has spent extensive time in MST camps and has a good 
understanding of the organization.  He has a decidedly pro-MST view, 
calling the movement, "The Fight for Land."  EconOff got Welch's 
view of how the MST operates in that area while on a visit to 
Presidente Prudente. 
 
------------------------------ 
The MST Method: Work the State 
------------------------------ 
 
¶3.  (SBU) The MST uses its contacts inside the federal agency INCRA 
(National Institute of Colonization and Agricultural Reform) to 
determine which land is next up for expropriation, Welch said.  This 
agency is charged with designating private land for government 
seizure, usually by deeming it "unproductive."  Welch told EconOff 
that INCRA does not make this information publically available and 
that the only way MST could access it would be through informants 
inside INCRA.  (Note:  There is at least one public case of a 
retired INCRA employee, Ivan Carlos Bueno, later joining MST.  End 
note.)  Once MST chooses its land target from INCRA's list, it then 
gives INCRA a deadline to expropriate the land--usually five 
days--or else MST threatens to expropriate it for them. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) INCRA normally cannot expropriate land with such a short 
deadline, so MST invades the land as promised.  They follow up by 
constructing what they call a camp, essentially a makeshift 
settlement.  The police usually arrive shortly after and begin 
negotiations for the squatters to leave.  MST supporters, 
overmatched by armed police, evacuate the camp, wait for the police 
leave, and then return.  This process repeats, sometimes 
indefinitely. 
 
----------------------------- 
Life inside an MST Settlement 
----------------------------- 
 
¶5.  (SBU) A legal MST settlement is formed on parcels of land that 
INCRA has officially expropriated and then opened for public use. 
MST settlers live on many of them, but not all.  Once on the land, 
MST farmers usually produce beef, dairy products, castor oil, or 
coffee.  They sell their crops on the open market.  Anyone who owns 
a parcel of land has complete control over it and does not share it 
with other settlement workers.  Some farmers even choose to rent the 
land to agribusiness.  A local agribusiness leader who has rented 
from MST "landowners" told EconOff that many of the settlers are 
remarkably good businesspeople. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) It takes approximately five years for a new MST recruit to 
earn a piece of land.  He or she performs menial tasks for the 
 
SAO PAULO 00000317  002 OF 002 
 
 
community while waiting.  As new workers join the movement and this 
wait time grows, the pressure to find more settlements grows with 
it.  A 10 percent tax (the MST prefer to call it a tithe) from the 
farmers supports these laborers while they wait for their parcel of 
land. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) NERA has determined that invasions directly resulted in 
legalization of 80 percent of the MST's settlements.  Welch would 
not speculate on what would have happened if the movement had tried 
to take that same land with peaceful action.  He did indicate that 
MST uses NERA's study to justify its continued invasions.  INCRA 
uses the judicial process to expropriate peacefully the remaining 20 
percent of settlements. 
 
--------------------------- 
The MST Participant Profile 
--------------------------- 
 
¶8.  (SBU) According to Welch, the driving force behind agrarian 
reform is the desire to move out of poverty.  The principal 
demographic of those who join the movement are retired couples in 
their 40s and 50s, many of whom are former sugarcane laborers. 
Welch told EconOff that Brazilian law entitles these sugarcane 
cutters to a pension after 20 years of work, leaving many of them to 
early retirement.  Since a large portion of these workers has always 
wanted their own parcel of land, they join the MST.  (Note:  While 
the GOB officially counts MST family size at five per person, Welch 
estimates a number close to three, due to this demographic and his 
experience in the camps.  This means MST membership self-estimates 
of 1.5 million people are at least 40 percent too high.  End note.) 
 
--------------------- 
Public Support Waning 
--------------------- 
 
¶9.  (SBU) Conversations with citizens in the city of Presidente 
Prudente in the interior of Sao Paulo State indicated that few 
people in the community support the MST.  The president of the 
President Prudente chapter of the Sao Paulo Federation of Businesses 
(FIESP) told Econoff that fears of land seizures had pushed the real 
estate price for the fertile land down to one-third of what similar 
land costs in non-MST threatened areas in Sao Paulo State.  FIESP 
board members agreed, citing the movement's decline as a principal 
reason that local land value had just recently begun to rise. 
Presidente Prudente's vice-mayor and city manager both echoed 
FIESP's sentiments. 
 
¶10.  (SBU) Comment:  The MST's practice of distributing  fertile 
parcels of land to the faithful and the subsequent ability for these 
individuals to rent the land back to agribusiness is ironic, to say 
the least.  President Lula has been conspicuously silent on his 
early-career promises to support the MST for a good reason:  An 
organization that seizes land in the name of the landless and then 
rents it back to the very same sorts of people from whom they took 
it has a serious credibility problem.  End comment. 
 
¶11.  (U) This cable was coordinated with and cleared by Embassy 
Brasilia. 
 
WHITE