MATO GROSSO DO SUL
Meeting to strengthen the fight for the repossessions
The event was called in the face of worsening violence against Indians by the latifundia and the governor of Mato Grosso do Sul
On December 6, leaders of villages and retaken areas of the Guarani-Caiouá people of Mato Grosso do Sul will hold a meeting on the struggle for retaken areas and demarcation, in the municipality of Dourados, on the premises of the Indigenous Intercultural College (Faind).
The event was called in the face of the worsening violence against the Indians carried out by the latifundia and the state governor, the paralysis in the demarcation processes and the policy of sectors of the parliamentary left, especially the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples (MPI), to seek electoral deals and their own benefits to the detriment of the struggle for the right to land.
Rather than being a meeting to lament or make electioneering propaganda, the Guarani-Caiouá leaders are proposing an agenda for struggle that will move the movement for the retaking and demarcation forward.
The issues to be debated are of great importance to the Indians of the retakings and who are on the front line of the struggle for land. The effort to hold them represents a step forward for the retakings in the face of the violence of the latifundia, the state and the paralysis in demarcations.
We would like to highlight some of the central points that the Red Earth Collective, [made up of militants and supporters of the Workers’ Cause Party (PCO) from the countryside and the indigenous struggle], intends to debate at the meeting.
Demarcations: to expand and unify self-demarcations, with measures by the movement to move demarcations forward, not with bureaucratic initiatives like promises from parliamentarians and the government, but in practice and which will be carried out by the Indians at the base of the struggle movement; to propose unified days of struggle, unified acts and marches;
Self-defense: with the increase in violence, particularly from the state through the police and the judiciary, with an increase in cases against leaders, it is necessary to discuss ways of unifying the movement and creating its own defense against the latifundia and their thugs and the criminal repression of the state against the Indians;
Elections 2026: discuss the next elections so that the electoral process serves to mobilize, boost the struggle, help in the process of demarcation and support for the villages and retakings. Point out the need to choose and nominate candidates who fight for the Guarani and other ethnic groups, who are combative and who defend the mobilization and are at the service of it and not for personal favoritism and agreements with the government that most attacks the Indians in Brazil. All so that Indians are not used as a mass of maneuvers by candidates from the right and the “left”;
Unification of the Indian movement at the grassroots: discuss measures to unify the movement with an organization that is independent of pro-imperialist governments and NGOs in order to strengthen the retakings, confront the latifundia, reduce violence and carry out joint activities, such as, for example, a period of retakings and struggle for the entire Guaraní-Caiouá movement similar to the Red April held by the MST or the FNL’s Red Carnival.
