On December 7, the League of Poor Peasants of the North of the State of Minas Gerais and the South of the State of Bahia published a statement on the struggle of 100 peasant families in the Mãe Bernadete camp who, with the support of the LCP, are resisting attacks and attempts to evict them from their land.

The declaration primarily denounces the machinations and crimes of the Calsete mining company against the people in the region, which range from environmental pollution and threats against activists to corrupt links to the state and land theft. Various examples are also used to denounce the local justice system, which for its part has consistently sided with the mining company. Building on this, the peasant families of Mãe Bernadette are announcing that they will continue to uphold and consistently defend the occupation and reclaiming of their land. The declaration also calls for solidarity from all honest people among the workers, fishermen, teachers, students and traders to support the farmers' struggle for their land. The entire declaration can be found here.

Group photo of the farmers of the Mãe Bernadete camp. Source: https://anovademocracia.com.br/nem-que-a-coisa-engrossa-essa-terra-e-nossa-lcp-emite-comunicado-sobre-luta-no-acampamento-mae-bernadete/

An article in the revolutionary and democratic Brazilian newspaper "A Nova Democracia" summarized the activities of poor peasants and their struggle for land in the Brazilian state of Pernambucano in November and December.  We already reported at the end of November on the legal struggle of poor peasants from the revolutionary region of Jose Ricardo in which it was possible to prevent the land of peasant families organized by the LCP from falling into the hands of large landowners.

The political tactics used are as follows. Many of the poor peasant families in Pernambucano live on land that once belonged to now disused factories. To prevent the land from changing hands under false pretenses and being ripped out of the hands of the peasant families who work on it day after day to feed themselves with the yields of the land, the peasants are trying to prevent any kind of new auctions and private leases of their land through the courts. However, they are under no illusions that the overall struggle for land is primarily about the peasants themselves reclaiming the land.

An example of this clear political line is the struggle of the poor peasant families to occupy the old "Frei Caneca" factories. On December 6, after a positive interim court decision, these families began to defend their occupation by continuing to develop the struggle and not hoping for correct decisions by the courts of the old state. So the activists started to measure their land independently and put up markers to make it clear to the public that the land is owned by the poor peasants.

The peasants measure their land in order to better defend their property. Source: https://anovademocracia.com.br/pe-luta-camponesa-agita-o-estado-com-defesa-de-terras-e-atividades-pro-palestina/

On December 10, there was another case of deadly police violence by Brazil's notorious military police. During a popular festival of the indigenous Xakriabá people of the municipality of Aldeia Tenda in the north of the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, armed military police officers in the presence of two soldiers attacked the celebrating crowd with pepper spray. Among other things, this resulted in injuries to small children. One of the military policemen then reportedly drew his weapon and shot 25-year-old Alisson Lacerda Abreu at close range. This first incident is said to have taken place shortly before midnight. The Xacriabá also report that at 5 a.m. a larger group of military police returned with reinforcements and acted even more aggressively against the celebrating community by, among other things, illegally entering houses and beating nine people at random with great brutality and then having them arrested.