April 17th, 2019 – “The Declaration on Peasants’ Rights should become a political tool for Agrarian Reform and Social Justice”
by La Via Campesina
APRIL 17TH, 2019 – "THE DECLARATION ON PEASANTS' RIGHTS SHOULD BECOME A
POLITICAL TOOL FOR AGRARIAN REFORM AND SOCIAL JUSTICE"
17 APRIL 2019 FOOD SOVEREIGNTY [1], GLOBAL CAMPAIGN FOR AGRARIAN
REFORM [2], LAND, WATER AND TERRITORIES [3], PEASANTS' RIGHTS [4]
PRESS RELEASE – LA VÍA CAMPESINA.
(Harare, April 17th, 2019) Today, April 17th, 2019, the International
Day of Peasants' Struggle, the member organisations of La Via Campesina
are reaffirming the Declaration on Peasants' Rights as a political tool
to strengthen the global struggle for decent living and working
conditions in rural areas. The Declaration should also be a tool for the
worldwide promotion of urgently-needed agrarian reform programmes, as
essential components of public policies that countries should implement
in their respective territories. On this International Day of Peasants'
Struggle, we are also demanding full respect for our rights. The defence
of land and territory is not a crime. There must be an end to impunity
and an end to criminalisation, eviction, and killing. Today, when WE
REMEMBER THE "ELDORADO DOS CARAJÁS MASSACRE" [5], which took place 23
years ago in Brazil, and when we remember our other struggles in other
places, we are calling for Peasants' Rights with Agrarian Reform and
Social Justice.
As an international peasant movement, we are asking for agrarian reform
programmes within a process of developing food sovereignty. We are
asking for the strengthening of peasant family farming, which guarantees
the right of rural and urban workers to healthy food at fair prices and
makes possible the effective implementation of the PEASANTS' RIGHTS
DECLARATION [6] all over the world.
Our proposal for AGRARIAN REFORM NOT ONLY ENSURES THE DEMOCRATISATION OF
ACCESS TO LAND, BUT IT ALSO INCLUDES ALL OF THE FACTORS THAT ALLOW
PEASANTS – WOMEN AND MEN – TO LIVE WITH DIGNITY: education, health,
culture, infrastructure, as well as public goods such as water, the
seas, mangrove swamps and inland waters, seeds, and biodiversity as a
whole. It implies market regulation and an end to land grabbing,
evictions, and killings. It also includes the STRENGTHENING OF
AGROECOLOGICAL PRODUCTION as a way of farming that is consistent with
natural cycles and that can slow down climate change, maintain
biodiversity, and reduce pollution.
With the worldwide onslaught of capital, especially in Latin America,
"one of the principal challenges is the combined struggle for land, for
food that is free from poisons, and for social justice. This means that,
in order to guarantee respect for Peasants' Rights in our territories,
we need to build unity around a popular counter-offensive for regaining
ground in our continent and for demanding public policies that are
beneficial to us", states Diego Montón of the National Peasant
Indigenous Movement (Movimiento Nacional Campesino Indígena) of
Argentina.
In Asia, there are other problems and issues. Peasant women face many
obstacles to ensuring that their rights are respected. In particular,
women do not have the right to land, and they are unjustly treated both
within social organisations and in their communities. In addition,
peasants do not receive fair prices for their products, a situation that
has given rise to many protests in southern and south-eastern Asia
during the past year. The Asian region is also facing a series of
regional and multilateral free trade agreements. The Regional
Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is one of the largest of these
agreements; it covers 16 Asian-Pacific countries and poses a potential
threat to Peasants' Rights.
Agrarian reform in the Middle East and North Africa is interlaced with
occupation and colonialism; it is a key factor for attaining food
sovereignty in a context of war. For peasants, agrarian reform is an
imperative right; without that right, it is impossible to attain
autonomy and independence, to overcome exploitation, servitude and
erosion, or to confront the policies of direct and indirect colonisation
enacted by the regimes in power.
As member organisations of La Via Campesina, we are extremely worried to
note that, in every corner of the planet - Africa, America, Europe, and
Asia, we are confronted by capitalist interests that put the rush to
extractivism before life itself. We are confronted by changes in soil
use and by landgrabbbing on a massive and alarming scale that is in
direct contradiction with popular agrarian reform. This situation not
only threatens Peasants' Rights, but it also jeopardizes Food
Sovereignty the world over.
This is why, on April 17th, we are joining together, in solidarity and
struggle, to say: PEASANTS' RIGHTS NOW! WITH AGRARIAN REFORM AND SOCIAL
JUSTICE!
CONTACTS:
* Diego Montón, National Peasant Indigenous Movement (Movimiento
Nacional Campesino Indígena) of Argentina. - Spanish (+54 92615062)
* Marina Dos Santos, The Landless Movement of Brasil - Portugués/
Spanish (+55 21981850558)
* Henry Saragih, SPI, Indonesia - English
* Federico Pacheco - Andalusian Union of Workers, SOC- SAT. French
(+34 0690651046)
GLOBAL MAP OF ACTIONS THIS WEEK!
CLICK HERE FOR THE MAP [7]
Links:
------
[1]
https://viacampesina.org/en/what-are-we-fighting-for/food-sovereignty-and...
[2]
https://viacampesina.org/en/what-are-we-fighting-for/agrarian-reform/glob...
[3]
https://viacampesina.org/en/what-are-we-fighting-for/agrarian-reform/
[4] https://viacampesina.org/en/what-are-we-fighting-for/human-rights/
[5]
https://viacampesina.org/en/brazilian-peasants-organize-protests-to-deman...
[6]
https://viacampesina.org/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/UN_Declara...
[7] http://u.osmfr.org/m/312717/
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#17April | International Day of Peasant Struggles 2019: Peasants’ Rights NOW! With Agrarian Reform and social justice!
by La Via Campesina
#17APRIL | INT'L DAY OF PEASANT STRUGGLES 2019: PEASANTS' RIGHTS NOW!
WITH AGRARIAN REFORM AND SOCIAL JUSTICE!
4 APRIL 2019 GLOBAL CAMPAIGN FOR AGRARIAN REFORM [1], LAND, WATER AND
TERRITORIES [2], PEASANTS' RIGHTS [3]
CALL FOR GLOBAL ACTION, LA VIA CAMPESINA
(HARARE, APRIL 4, 2019) This April 17th - the International Day of
Peasant Struggle - with our living memory and rebellion inherited from
our 19 landless comrades murdered with impunity in the Eldorado do
Carajás Massacre in Brazil, we call upon our members, friends and allies
to come together with strong actions worldwide, affirming that the only
way to obtain Peasant Rights is with Agrarian Reform and Social Justice.
On 17 December 2018, the 73rd Session of the General Assembly of the
United Nations in New York adopted the UNITED NATIONS DECLARATION ON THE
RIGHTS OF PEASANTS AND OTHER PEOPLE WORKING IN RURAL AREAS [4]. The
Declaration is an international legal instrument. As Via Campesina we
must mobilize for its real implementation in our territories, and this
implies that the State guarantees access to the land, the protection of
seeds facing commercialization, putting a stop to evictions and deaths,
as well as creating measures against agrochemicals; social justice means
that those who feed the world live in dignified conditions and in peace
in the countryside, without being prosecuted for defending their rights
and territories.
In this current context of extractivism and the alarming rate at which
lands are forcefully grabbed from our people, the urgency of Agrarian
Reform proves strategic. Particularly so, since the neoliberal offensive
in the whole world is accompanied by the loss of the rights of the
working class and consequently of the peasantry.
This is why this April 17th we are mobilizing and calling for struggle
and resistance in all territories. We also invite other organized social
movements, unions, universities, media who are friends of the peasant
movements and governments that prioritize the welfare of its people to
join us in the worldwide actions of solidarity.
The rights of peasants cannot be substituted by public policies based on
the interest of the global market and agribusiness. We denounce this
model that not only marginalizes our peasant communities but also
appropriates our rights, common goods and lives, in the name of
productivity and for the development of the capitalist system in the
countryside.
So, we make a call to lift our fists in unity, in the country and in the
cities for Peasant Rights, Food Sovereignty and Agroecology, globalizing
the struggle and the hope of the people facing this model of death.
CONSCIOUS SOCIAL MOBILIZATION!
This #17April participate in the multiple actions organized worldwide,
organize actions in the territories in the form of protests, discussion
forums, seminars, farmers markets, film screenings. Use any of these
ways of expressing to demand the implementation of Peasant Rights with
Agrarian Reform and Social Justice.
During this day of Global Action, we say that an urgent global Agrarian
Reform guarantees Peasant Rights, and we denounce the concentration of
land into the hands of a few that we are witnessing at a global scale.
Share your plans with us on this email: lvcweb(a)viacampesina.org, and we
will add them to a global map of actions that we are building online!
Also please send articles, audios, pictures and videos of all actions to
be able to share them on our website and LaViaCampesinaTV.
FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL NETWORKS:
#PeasantsRightsNOW, #AgrarianReformAndSocialJustice, #LaViaCampesina
PEASANT RIGHTS NOW! WITH AGRARIAN REFORM AND SOCIAL JUSTICE!
Links:
------
[1]
https://viacampesina.org/en/what-are-we-fighting-for/agrarian-reform/glob...
[2]
https://viacampesina.org/en/what-are-we-fighting-for/agrarian-reform/
[3] https://viacampesina.org/en/what-are-we-fighting-for/human-rights/
[4]
https://viacampesina.org/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/UN_Declara...
5 years, 9 months
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