We, members of the U.S. Food Sovereignty Alliance, express our solidarity with Via Campesina International and allies in the US and worldwide in this day of April 17, the International Day of Peasant Struggle.
On April 17, 1996, nineteen landless peasants, members of the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST) were brutally murdered in El Dourado dos Carajás, state of Pará by the police. From 1980 to 2003, 212 peasants and rural workers’ union leaders have been killed in the same state in Brazil and justice has been served only in a small portion of those cases.
Along with our brothers and sisters, the US Food Sovereignty Alliance pays homage to the victims of the massacre of El Dourado dos Carajas and many others who have fallen to the repression and criminalization of the peasant and indigenous peoples’ struggle for land rights.
The struggle for justice, land rights and food sovereignty from Detroit, Michigan to Oakland, California to Immokalee, Florida is ever present in our lives. Today, on April 17, we join Via Campesina International and the MST in a day of action to defend peasants’ rights to land and food sovereignty.
Globalize the struggle, Globalize the hope.
Actions, events, and campaigns YOU can support for April 17, International Day of Peasants’ Struggles
