Globalise Hope - peasant struggle day 17th April

Tue Mar 27 02:18:41 BST 2012

Call for April 17: International Day of Peasant 
Struggle
Saturday, 03 March 2012 20:41

Stop Land Grabbing  land to the tillers!
http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=26&Itemid=33
http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1212:call-for-april-17-international-day-of-peasant-struggl&catid=26:17-april-day-of-peasants-struggle&Itemid=33

Use the poster attached!
Emacs!

(Jakarta, 2 March 2012) April 17 is the 
International Day of Peasant Struggle, 
commemorating the massacre of 19 peasants 
struggling for land and justice in Brazil in 
1996. Every year on that day actions take place 
around the world in defence of peasants and 
small-scale farmers struggling for their rights.

In recent years, we have suffered from the 
implementation of new policies and of a new 
development model based on land expansion and 
land expropriation, commonly known as land 
grabbing. Land grabbing is a global phenomenon 
led by local, national and transnational elites 
and investors, with the participation of 
governments and local authorities, in order to 
control the world's most precious resources.

Land grabbing has resulted in the concentration 
of the ownership of land and natural resources in 
the hands of large-scale investors, plantation 
owners, logging, hydro-power and mining 
companies, tourism and real estates developers, 
port and infrastructures authorities, and so 
forth. This has led to the eviction and 
displacement of the local populations - usually 
farmers -, the violation of human rights and 
women rights, increased poverty, social fracture 
and environmental pollution. Land grabbing goes 
beyond traditional North-South imperialist 
structures: the involved transnational 
corporations are based in the United States, 
Europe, Chile, Mexico, Brazil, Russia, India, 
China, South Africa, Thailand, Malaysia, 
Indonesia and South Korea, among others.

Financial institutions such as private banks, 
pension and other investment funds have become 
powerful actors in land grabbing, while wars 
continue to be waged to seize control of natural 
wealth. The World Bank and regional development 
banks are facilitating land and water grabs by 
promoting corporate-friendly policies and laws, 
providing capital and guarantees for corporate 
investors, and fostering an extractive, 
destructive economic development model. Meanwhile 
the World Bank and some other institutions have 
proposed seven principles of Responsible 
Agricultural Investment (RAI) that are supposed 
to prevent abuses but in fact legitimize farmland 
grabbing by corporate and state investors. La Via 
Campesina and key allies have protested against 
this initiative for the past two years.

Land grabbing is a global phenomenon based on the 
corporate domination of agriculture through 
control over land, water, seeds and other 
resources. It is justified by many governments 
and policy think tanks through claims that 
agribusiness will modernize backward agricultural 
practices and guarantee food security for all. 
However widespread those claims may be, they have 
been shown to be entirely false in the real world.

The key players behind land grabbing prioritize 
profit over peoples well-being: they produce 
agrofuels if this is more profitable than food 
production, and they export their food production 
if this is more lucrative than selling it at 
home. In this race to profit, the corporate 
sector is increasing its control over food 
production systems, monopolizing resources, and 
dominating decision making processes. Business 
lobbies have strong political influence that 
often overrides democratic institutions; in 
addition, they act with the complicity of local 
and national elites (traders, politicians and 
community leaders) who fail to protect their own people from predation.

Land grabbing has been dispossessing peasants, 
small-scale farmers and indigenous peoples, 
especially women and the youth, from their 
sources of livelihoods. It is also ruining the 
environment. Indigenous peoples and ethnic 
minorities are being expelled from their 
territories by armed forces, increasing their 
vulnerability and in some cases even leading to 
slavery. Market-based, false solutions to climate 
change such as the fashionable concept of "Green 
Economy" are forever finding new ways to alienate 
local communities from their lands and natural resources.

Therefore La Via Campesina calls on all of its 
members and allies, fisher-folk movements, 
agricultural workers organizations, students and 
environmental groups, women organizations and 
social justice movements to organize actions 
around the world on April 17 in order to display 
massive popular resistance to land grabbing and 
highlight the struggle against corporate control 
over land and natural resources.

Lets unite and fight:
To stop land grabbing and reclaim grabbed land  
the land should be in the hands of tillers.
To implement genuine agrarian reform in order to 
bring about social justice in rural areas.
To end the control over billions of peoples 
lives exercised by a few investors and transnational companies.
To oppose the principles of responsible 
agricultural investment (RAI) proposed by the 
World Bank as it can never be responsible for 
investors and corporations to grab farmers' land.
To strengthen the agriculture production model 
based on family farming and food sovereignty.

On April 17, groups and people are invited to 
organize a direct action, a film screening, a 
farmers market, a land occupation, a debate, a 
protest, an art exhibition, or any other event highlighting the same goal.
Inform us about your plans by sending an email to viacampesina at viacampesina.org
Subscribe to our special mailing list by sending 
a blank email to via.17april-subscribe at viacampesina.net
Send us reports, pictures and videos of your action!
We will publish the map of actions around the world on www.viacampesina.org
Join our facebook event 
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