Soriano was here representing the MST at a conference on the international struggle to end poverty. During her visit, she spoke at a November 19 Militant Labor Forum in the New York Garment District.

Soriano works in an MST-organized farm settlement in the state of Sao Paulo and is involved in political education. From a rural family, she worked as a schoolteacher before being laid off. Soriano joined the MST because she was attracted to the power of a movement of working people fighting for land reform and standing up to the wealthy rulers of Brazil.

The government of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Soriano explained, "has carried out the neoliberal policies dictated by imperialist interests through the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. It has opened the Brazilian economy to foreign investors. Brazil has been a bonanza for them."

Under the current administration, "39 state-owned companies have been sold off at ridiculous prices" to foreign and domestic capitalists. "The telecommunications industry was divided up between U.S. and European companies. The two remaining major state-owned companies they are targeting are the oil company, Petrobras, and the national bank. "The government is selling off Petrobras piecemeal to try to avoid debate or resistance," she continued. "There has been a lot of resistance to this move. In 1995 the oil workers went on strike and occupied some of the refineries to oppose this privatization, and the government responded by militarizing the plants."

Working people are also being squeezed by the foreign debt, which now stands at $212 billion. "Between 1989 and 1997, Brazil paid $216 billion--just in interest payments--to the international banks. So we have already paid more in interest than the entire debt," Soriano commented. "The debt will continue to be paid and repaid, but it will not go away--it's a form of dependence created by international capital."

Conditions in the countryside are particularly critical. "In Brazil today, half the land is held by the richest 1 percent of the population. And 5 million families are without land," Soriano reported. In response to protests, the Cardoso government has given lip service to demands for a land reform. "They claim that in the last four years, 400,000 have been given plots of land, but the actual figure is much lower. Meanwhile, 400,000 peasants have been driven off the land, so there is no progress."

The MST has organized scores of land takeovers, especially on the vast expanses of idle lands owned by big absentee landlords. They take advantage of the fact that many landlords don't have proof of ownership of much of their landholdings, so the landless farmers occupy unused land, settle and cultivate it, and press for legal recognition by the government.

In 1999 alone, more than 25,000 families occupied unused land. There are currently 71,000 families in MST-organized camps throughout the country fighting for legal recognition.

"We understand that the struggle for land is a political one. We have been organizing demonstrations and protests against the government's policies, including takeovers of the offices of INCRA, the state land reform agency. That's the only way we even get the government to the negotiating table."

In response to the stepped-up struggles by farm workers and landless peasants, the wealthy landowners and the government have unleashed repression. Over the past decade, more than 1,000 people have been killed by cops and hired goons in the course of conflicts over land.

Last April, Soriano said, MST leader José Rainha was acquitted of trumped-up murder charges in the death of a landlord. Rainha had been convicted and sentenced to 26 years in jail in a 1997 trial, but under public pressure a retrial was held that led to his acquittal.

Soriano pointed to the November 13-16 strike by 60,000 auto workers in Sao Paulo as a current example of resistance by working people to the assault on their livelihoods by the employers. The auto workers shut down major assembly plants--General Motors, Ford, Toyota, Mercedes Benz, Honda, Volkswagen, and Scania--and won a 10 percent wage increase.

Elena Tate, a member of the Young Socialists in New York, contributed to this article.  
 
 
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