The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.61/No.25           July 7, 1997 
 
 
Justice For José Rainha  
 José Rainha, Jr., a central leader of the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST) in Brazil, has been framed up on trumped-up charges of killing a landlord and a military police officer. He was condemned in a split vote by a jury that included relatives of the cop and the landowner. He was framed for political reasons: because he has been leading the struggle for land by millions of landless peasants and rural workers against the landlords and capitalists of Brazil.

Now is the time for class-conscious workers in the United States and around the world to join our brothers and sisters of the MST in waging the broadest possible campaign demanding Rainha's conviction be overturned and the charges against him dropped. Now is the time to organize public meetings, press coverage, and distribution of informational materials to tell the truth about the frame-up and the fight for agrarian reform in Brazil. Now is the time to reach out to trade unionists, working farmers, farm workers, antiracist fighters, defenders of women's rights, supporters of immigrant rights, students and other youth, elected officials, religious figures, and all advocates of democratic rights and ask them to send messages of support to Rainha's struggle for justice.

The tour of MST leader José Brito in the United States has already generated interest and publicity in this fight. Those who took part in the tour can take the initiative to form ad-hoc committees to help spread the word for the defense campaign.

Thousands of workers, youth, and others in the United States know the distinctive stench of a police frame-up from their own experiences - from fighting to free trade unionist and socialist Mark Curtis from prison and now end his parole, to demanding the release of imprisoned Native American leader Leonard Peltier, to the 27-year fight against the frame-up of Geronimo Pratt, to pressing for the freedom of Puerto Rican political prisoners. The MST has a proud record of fighting for others; that's why they can wage an effective fight to defend themselves. The MST's unstinting international solidarity with Curtis's fight for freedom, for example, was important to winning his release from jail last year.

The MST's struggle - for the right of the tillers to the land they work, and to cancel the imperialist imposed foreign debt of more than $180 million in Brazil alone - is part of the worldwide resistance by working people to the demands of the capitalists and landowners to "sacrifice" for the false promise of a better tomorrow. Any victory in the battles of Brazilian peasants and rural workers is a victory for all working people.

Join the fight to end the frame-up of José Rainha!  
 
 
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