April 17th was declared the “International Day of Peasant Struggles” in memory of the massacre that occurred in 1996 in El Dorado dos Carajás, in Pará, Brazil. When two troops of the Military Police attacked with machine guns, rifles, and pistols 1,500 families of rural workers, including members of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) who were marching towards Belém to protest the delay in land expropriation.

The Latin American Coordinator of rural organizations CLOC-Via Campesina International, in response to this historic event, declared April 17th as the International Day of Peasant Struggles to make visible and denounce the criminalization of protests, persecution, and violence that peasants face daily, suffering displacement and land dispossession due to the implementation of the neoliberal model and agribusiness in the countryside.

This April 17th, the Latin American Institute Florinda Soriano Muñoz – IALA Mamá Tingo, as part of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty, CLOC-LVC, and the National Peasant Articulation, visited the Chamber of Deputies in the Dominican Republic. They were received by the Agriculture Commission, the Human Rights Commission, and a large delegation of deputies for the formal delivery of the Declaration of Peasant Rights and Other People Working in Rural Areas approved by the UN, as well as the review of the draft Fisheries Law RD.

The national and global peasantry continues to affirm that our struggles are part of the defense of human rights and life, as stated in the UNDROP. Seize this great day and we say it’s not a day of celebration, but of struggle and resistance, and we join national and international demands:

• We join the struggle of the peasants of El Seibo who were dispossessed by landowners with the support of government officials in that area (WE WANT ANSWERS).
• We stand with the peasants of Monte Grande, involuntarily evicted from their lands due to the construction of the dam, and demand their relocation to productive lands.
• We express solidarity with the Haitian and Palestinian people for the political interference in their countries and for the killing of peasants within their political contexts.
• We condemn the assassination of peasant leader and farmer Francisco José Ortiz, who advocated for NO extraction of materials from the Tireo River in the municipal district of Tireo. We join the call for justice from the peasants of that hardworking community.
• Relocation of peasants evicted from national park areas to territories in the country.
• We support initiatives such as the implementation of the UNDROP, the Declaration of Peasant Rights and Other People Working in Rural Areas.
• Promote the creation of a new framework for local and global agricultural trade, from peasant fairs to national marketing programs.
• Promote and embrace peasant agroecology to achieve climate justice through joint actions in alliance with sectors aligned with our agendas.
• Review the proposal for food sovereignty as a legal framework and agenda for decision-makers (SSAN).
• Implementation of the national Campesino Family Agriculture plan as a public policy for the country’s peasantry.
• Promote gender policies with the participation of leading organizations in the country and from the sector’s coordination agenda.
• The country’s peasantry continues to join these slogans.

Let’s build solidarity, enough of genocides, evictions, and violence!

Signatories:

• National Peasant Articulation (ANC)
• Confederation of Women of the Countryside -CONAMUCA-
• Central Association of Farmers Luz y Esperanza (Nagua)
• Federation of Rural Women Mama Tingo de Nagua
• Movement of Working Peasants “Las Comunidades Unidas,” Los Haitices MCCU
• Federation of Peasants Mama Tingo de Azua -FEICAMAT-
• Federation of Dry Forest Producers -FEPROBOSUR-
• Peasant and Neighborhood Confederation Barahona, Bahoruco, Pedernales, and Azua. -EL RETOÑO

The cover image is representational.

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