Urgent Actions

On July 14, 2009, 120 families were forcibly displaced. They are from the estate of Las Pavas, located in the administrative district of Buenos Aires in the municipality of El Peñón in the southern Bolívar province. Members of the National Police and the Anti-disturbance squads entered into the community, destroying 7 houses, sacking their belongings and removing the families, including 100 children, from their houses.

In November 2008 it was revealed that the Korean company Daewoo would have signed a contract for leasing 1.3 million ha for 99 years to produce maize and palm oil in Madagascar. The whole harvest was intended to be exported to Korea and the terms of the contract were skewed in favour of the company.

Last June 17, about 300 landless (the vast majority of them women, children and elderly) were forcibly evicted from two camps of the “Movimento de Trabalhadores Sem Terra” (MST), located on leased and private land -therefore legally occupied- in the vicinity of Fazenda Guerra, in Coqueiros do Sul, Northern region of the state of Rio Grande do Sul.

In response to the events of the past 21st of October, where armed guards contracted by Syngenta, a Swiss transnational corporation which produces genetically modified crops and seeds, invaded the Tierra Libre campsite of the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST) which is affiliated to the Via Campesina in Parana, Brazil. The armed men entered and shot dead Valmir Mota de Oliviera, also known as Keno, a leader of the MST, injured several others, and made death threats against the other land workers present in the campsite.

0716AHON 12.10.07

FA-007-2007: Extrajudicial killing; ineffective implementation of land reform; impunity

Letter to Governor

PDF 32KB

Letter to Syngenta

PDF 31KB

The multinational Syngenta Seeds is pressuring the Governor of the State of Paraná to expel the family farmers of the Via Campesina currently residing on the Free Land encampment with police force.

Emergency Network 0709AGTM 18-05-2007