To mark World Food Day on October 16th and to draw attention to the shortcomings of the Federal Constitution in the week of its 25th anniversary, around 1,000 activists, including many small-scale fishers under the banner of the Brazilian Movement of Artisanal Fishermen and Fisherwomen (MPP), occupied the Ministry of Agriculture offices in Brasilia, the nation’s capital.
The MPP’s demands include:
an end to privatization of marine and inland water bodies, rivers, lakes, lagoons and streams;
an end to the Federal Decree that adversely affects the rights to organizational autonomy of the colonias and other bodies that represent fishermen and fisherwomen and their free association;
an end to the closure of the General Registry for Fishermen and associated obligatory annual re-registering
levels of financial support for small scale fisheries proportional to their importance; and
regularization of Traditional Community Territories.
This month of October Brazil celebrates the 25th year of the Federal Constitution, also known as the citizens’ constitution. Thanks to this, and other democratic achievements, Brazil has already witnessed the impeachment of a president and parliamentarians, the approval of popular initiative laws and experienced the mobilization power of social networks.
The Brazilian Movement of Artisanal Fishermen and Fisherwomen (MPP) was born out of such a mobilization, in 2009/10. Thanks to the provisions of the Federal Constitution it was able in 2012 to launch a National Campaign for Regularizing the Territories of Traditional Fishing Communities. This aims to get a Citizens’ Initiative Law approved, which would recognize and demarcate the areas of land and water on which these communities depend. The recognition of the right to these territories and to the resources that are present within them is considered to be a basic condition to guarantee the sustainability of artisanal fisheries and the maintenance of the traditional livelihood of their communities. The struggle to obtain this is an exemplary struggle of Brazilian artisanal fishers to resist the exclusionary development model pushed by the government in recent years.
But angered by adverse Government policies, the MPP decided mark World Food Day (16 October) and this 25th anniversary with protests. Together with other social movements associated with Via Campesina they mounted a dawn raid and occupied the Ministry of Agriculture building in the nation’s capital, Brasilia. Whilst the Federal Constitution may recognize citizens’ rights, the MPP feels that it does not respect them. This is a particular bone of contention for the traditional and indigenous communities, and communities of African descent, as regards their food sovereignty and their right to life and livelihood in their territories.
But as well as an occasion for struggle, it is also very much an occasion to celebrate their different identities, with joy and feasting. Within the movement they will sing and dance until they are received and their claims are dealt with. They have hope in their hearts which shows in the faces of the men, women, adults and children engaged in the various movements.
They believe in their struggle, in unifying the people and in creating greater justice in Brazil for rural communities who live from the soil and from the waters.