The Assembly of the Poor and the Northern Peasant Federation in Thailand marked the International Day of Peasant Struggles (17 April 2022) by issuing solidarity statements. The statements are reproduced below.
Assembly of the Poor Solidarity Message on the International Day of Peasant Struggles April 17, 2022
April 17th is the International Day of Peasant Struggles which is an important day for our collective struggles in La Via Campesina. It is the day to commemorate the Eldorado do Carajás Massacre in Para State of Brazil. On April 17, 1996, approx. 1,500 peasants from MST Brazil, who occupied the deserted and unproductive private ranch, marched on the highway to the capital city of Para State to demand the rights to land. The state government ordered the armed force to attack them. The MST peasants were killed, injured and disappeared.
The origin of this important day is the peasant struggles for the rights to land. It is not only in Brazil, but everywhere in the world, including Thailand, peasants have faced severe problems about land such as landlessness, insufficient agrarian land, deprivation of land rights and security, and land grabbing in all forms. These demonstrate the perpetual problems such as inequality in land tenure, commercialization and financialization of land, land speculation and marginalization of peasants in all development policies.
Peasant Struggles are expanding everywhere. We are fighting threats to all our means of production. Our land, forests, water resources, native seeds and animal breeds, biodiversity, knowledge and technology even the climate are robbed from our hands. The threats are not caused only by the violence or exploitative laws and policies of the state. Also included are transnational corporates, international and intergovernmental organizations that are the instruments of the neoliberalism to attack us at all fronts and all levels.
Assembly of the Poor, as a member of La Via Campesina, realize that, our struggles, ultimately are the struggles for food sovereignty. Food sovereignty is our emancipation in production, our power to made decision in the food and agriculture system on our own. We must struggle to reaffirm our rights as peasants to continue to produce in the agroecological way, to feed people and our rights to be free from oppression, exploitation, harms and criminalization.
On the occasion of the International Day of Peasant Struggles and the Songkran Thai Traditional New Year Festival, Assembly of the Poor extends our solidarity of the peasant class to all comrades worldwide. Keep on fighting. Until victory.
Brief Statement of Solidarity from the Northern Peasants’ Federation (NPF), Thailand
Today, 17 April, 65, 30th anniversary of the fight. We, Northern Peasants’ Federation (NPF),, Skon. (NPF) on behalf of members of La Via Campesina
We still affirm the long-standing structural and state power issues that have suppressed farmers.
We must set a resolution to continue the struggle of farmers.
– We will protect our ancestral soil and fight for community rights.
– We, as farmers, support the demands of farmers, farmers, to solve the problems, reduce inequality, create justice in society.
– Pushing the oath of peasants’ rights to ensure respect and protection of the soil.
– Protect the traditional seeds which are the core foundation of food sovereignty.
– Protect our livelihoods, food sovereignty and heritage for the future children.
“Land must belong to those who plow it”
