April 17th: International Day of Peasants' Struggles – Call for Action - CLOC VIA CAMPESINA
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- Published on Friday, 12 April 2013 05:02
On April 17th we commemorate the International Day of Peasants' Struggles, by remembering and honoring all the peasants who have sacrificed their own lives in the name of agrarian reform and food sovereignty, as well as to protect and care for nature, seeds and water. We pay tribute to them for sacrificing their lives so that we may have a better world.
On April 17th, 1996 in Dorado dos Carajas, Brazil, 19 peasants from the MST were murdered. Yet today, seventeen years after the fact, their assassins remain unpunished. Sadly, this type of impunity is far too common throughout out continent: we still face the attacks from transnationals, who with their capitalist thirst for the privatization and mercantilization of land, agriculture and nature. To confront them, we must ensure that peasant movements – whether of struggle or resistance – continue to grow and gain strength throughout all regions of the American continent.
These agrobusinesses, with their unbridled ambition, have reacted with violence, illegal actions and corruption, taking hundreds of peasant lives in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia and Paraguay. In all these countries we have witnessed how the police and the army partake in this violence by murdering and violating peasant rights.
Tunis 2013: If we rely on corporate seed, we lose food sovereignty
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- Published on Sunday, 31 March 2013 17:39
It has become crucial to defend seeds. In the past 20 or 30 years, what was once seen as normal – peasant farmers growing, selecting, saving and exchanging seeds – has come under attack from corporations seeking to control and commodify the very basis of agriculture.
This was the subject of the session at the World Social Forum in Tunis on Peasant Seeds jointly organized on March 28, 2013 by La Vía Campesina, GRAIN and the ETC Group.
Tunisia, Opening March of World Social Forum 2013
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- Published on Thursday, 28 March 2013 23:21
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Tunis, 2013: La Via Campesina in solidarity with the aspirations of the Maghreb and Makrech people
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- Published on Thursday, 28 March 2013 13:48
LA VIA CAMPESINA WORLD SOCIAL FORUM, MARCH 2013, TUNIS
Press Release
The global peasants and food sovereignty movement -La Via Campesina organized a press conference on the 27th March, at the Media center in the El Manar university at the inaugural day of the World Social Forum in Tunis.
The speakers at the press conference were Josie Riffaud of the Confederacion Paysanne in France, Ibrahima Coulibaly of the Coordination Nationale de Organisations Paysannes of Mali, Nandini Jairam of the Karnataka State Farmers Association of India and Angel Strapazzon from the Indigenous and Peasants Movement (MNCI) of Argentina.
LVC has come to Tunis in a large delegation of more than 50 women and men peasants from around the world. “we come in solidarity with the aspirations of the Maghreb and Makrech people. We are here to start a dialogue about defending peasant agriculture. The majority of the worlds people are small peasants, but there is a corporate assault on their resources – land, seeds, markets and water. It is crucial for us to build unity between peasants around the world and defend peasant agriculture to feed the world and provide dignified livelihoods,” said Josie Riffaud.
