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07/14/2003 "WOMEN DOING IT FOR THEMSELVES"

Farm, Build New Lives
Fri July 11, 2003 08:07 AM ET

FROM REUTERS


By Nicholas Winning
CELINA'S SETTLEMENT, Brazil (Reuters) - The locals like to call it the women's settlement.

It was born on a rainy April night three years ago when some 40 women, led by members of the radical left-wing Landless Workers Movement (MST), occupied the idle land of a dead farmer 53 miles from Recife, capital of the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco.

"In the meetings to plan the invasion the men said we couldn't do it," 41-year-old Luiza Ferreira da Silva, the local regional MST coordinator who led the land grab, told Reuters.

"We felt discriminated against as women. So on the day of the occupation the husbands stayed away. We decided to do that to change the way things worked."

In mid-2002, the government's National Institute of Settlement and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) granted their claim to the land, known as Celina's Settlement, splitting the 1,100 acres among 30 families which include husbands and sons as well as female members.

Since then the settlers have moved into the ramshackle buildings on the land and set up a small-scale farming cooperative with guidance and cash from the MST, INCRA and other donors. Housing plans are also in the works.

"After that we will say to the MST that we have invented the women's settlement, it worked, and now we are going to set up more," said Silva, a veteran of over 60 land invasions.

The women's settlement is a departure for the MST, the largest left-wing group dedicated to forcing land redistribution among the poor in this nation of 170 million.

Although the movement, which was formed in 1984, has stepped up the pressure on President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to speed land reform, his government is enthusing about Celina's Settlement.

"This is the first of its kind in Brazil," said Joao Farias de Paula Junior, head of INCRA in Pernambuco state. "As a result of the way this settlement has developed, I am going to push this initiative as much as possible."

"THE STRUGGLE"

The women were first driven away by police. Those that returned were soon faced with an even tougher adversary.

"Lots of people went hungry until we could start growing crops," said Beatriz Matias Perreira, 49, a small but sturdy woman with sparkling eyes and tuft of hair on her chin.

"Many people left because it was so hard at the start," she said, holding out her leathery hands as proof of her toil.

The women cleared rubbish, human feces and used condoms before moving in to the farmer's derelict house.

"It is where the people from the town liked to bring their women," said Elizama Maria das Gracas, 38, the head of the cooperative who lives in the house with her family.

The women named their new home Celina's Settlement in honor of Dorcelina Folador, an MST militant and left-wing mayor who was assassinated in 1999 in southern Brazil.

Weeds poke out of the walls of the main house and the plaster is missing in several places. Inside, dangerous-looking electric wires crisscross overhead and there is no running water, but 16 people now live under its leaky roof.

For Gracas and the MST, occupying the house and land represents a victory in "the struggle," the battle of poor rural workers to break free from the slavery imposed by the wealthy landowners.

But, in a reminder the landless movement is no stranger to breaking the law, a few days later Silva took part in a raid on food trucks nearby carried out by families that had grown impatient waiting for government food aid.

"TODAY I DON'T GO HUNGRY"

The settlement is a far cry from the farming techniques which have made Brazil the world's top exporter of goods such as coffee and sugar, but the settlers' lives have improved.

Silva said each family was allotted 2.5 acres (1 hectare) to build a house and seven more to cultivate fruit and vegetables. Raising cattle, goats and poultry also helps make ends meet.

"I sold a calf and made enough money to fix the fridge," said Gracas as flies buzzed around scraps of breakfast on her kitchen table and a curious turkey peered through the doorway.

The settlement has electricity after the settlers joined forces to pay bills. Two teachers also visit to teach literacy and arithmetic. Some of the women, who could only register documents with a thumb print, can now sign their names.

For Benicio Severino de Menezes, 47, Gracas' husband, life has improved from the unemployed days when he once passed out from hunger. He now has 13 goats, two head of cattle and a horse.

"Today, I don't go hungry. We managed to rise above it and now we plant and cultivate the land," he said.

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