The National Farmers’ Union of Canada has called on the French government to cease its violations of human rights, in particular the rights of farmers and peasants recognised in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other Rural Workers (UNDROP).
La Vía Campesina recognizes the enormous political, social and humanist legacy of our comrade Hugo Blanco, a Peruvian and internationalist, who died yesterday in Sweden. His militancy and commitment marked the organization of peasant farmers for agrarian reform in the 20th century, not only in Peru, but also throughout Latin America.
We call on the French Government to cease its violations of human rights, and in particular of the rights recognised in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other Rural Workers (UNDROP).
As a peasant-farmers’ union, we oppose mega-reservoirs that divert water for the benefit of a few, perpetuating an unfair distribution of water within the agricultural sector.
“We cannot accept the threats to dissolve the Soulèvements de la Terre movement. In view of the above, we urge the French authorities to honour their international human rights commitments, as recalled by the UN experts.”
Elsewhere, in line with capitalist injunctions to “decarbonise” economies, water-intensive mining and the construction of large dams are accelerating, destroying territories still populated by peasant and Indigenous communities. In 2020, water was even listed on the stock exchange in the US.
“We are experiencing a reorganization of the UDR”, defines Lucineia Durães, from the MST’s national leadership. She refers to the Ruralist Democratic Union (UDR), an entity of rural employers created to react organized and violently to the advances of movements in defense of agrarian reform in the 1980s and 1990s in Brazil.
More than 300 peasant, indigenous, environmentalist, feminist and trade union organisations from all over the world invite to support the struggle against megabasins and the struggles for water as commons.
La Via Campesina calls for international solidarity for the french social movement, against police violence and the authoritarian drift of the French government. We call for international mediation to restore social dialogue.
During the past year, the occupation established 25 settlements and 10 colonial outposts, confiscating an area of land estimated at 1,280 dunums. According to the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, since the beginning of this year, the occupation established two colonial outposts.
