Land reform in Brazil turns violent

[bemildred]

Brasilia - More than 8 000 Brazilian landless activists have surrounded the central bank on Thursday and have threatened a big fight over land unless they get more public money to speed up land reform.

Joao Pedro Stedile, a leader of the radical leftist Landless Workers Movement, said peasants could stage more land occupations if Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva did not earmark more funds to expropriate and redistribute un-used farmland, as the Brazilian constitution demands.

Lula, Brazil's first working class president, pledged to settle 400 000 families - or around 1,6 million people - during his four-year term. He has only created plots for 106 000 nearly families two years into office.

n April, the Landless Workers Movement staged its biggest wave of land grabs in five years and Stedile said land grabs in 2005 could be even bigger.

IOL