La Via Campesina | e-newsletter | June - July 2020
This edition of the newsletter is the result of a collective effort of organisations, which are part of La Via Campesina movement worldwide.
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LA VIA CAMPESINA #TIMETOTRANSFORM 

Sow the seeds of struggle and resistance, and cultivate our rights! – #TimeToTransform

The world is currently living through a different and intense context and historical moment, with a much-accelerated change in the balance of forces and the political struggle. Taking into account the peculiarity of each country or territory, as the working-class and peasants in the countryside, we face two great enemies of the people; (i) A visible enemy like Covid-19 ...  Read more ...

#The winds of change are blowing harder: COVID-19 update on peasants, rural workers and other marginalized groups!

Within the framework of our strategy of formation/training, information and political analysis in defense of Food Sovereignty and Peasant Agriculture, with the slogan "Sow the seeds of struggle and resistance, and cultivate our rights!", we share a second report on the COVID-19 and the situation of the peasantry.

It has been five months since most countries imposed lockdown measures, including travel restrictions both within and across borders, to control the spread of COVID-19 pushing millions of hungry people over the edge. During this period, tens of millions of people have contracted COVID-19, and over half a million people succumbed to death. ...  Indeed, COVID-19 has shown that we can no longer return to business as usual, that we have to change how we live and interact as a society. It is time to transform. Read more ...

FEATURED ARTICLES 

La Via Campesina condemns the colonialist annexation plan in Palestine

(Harare, July 2, 2020) Steadfast in our solidarity with all those who struggle for Food Sovereignty and the full realization of peasants' rights, La Via Campesina expresses our unwavering support for the Palestinian people and peasant movement united against U.S.-backed Israeli attempts to annex the vital lands, waters, and territories of occupied Palestine's Area C.  Read more ...

Sign the Call for German EU Council presidency to stop the EU-Mercosur Agreement

Negotiations between the EU and Mercosur countries (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay), underway for over 20 years, culminated in a political agreement in June last year. The European Commission has since been preparing the EU-Mercosur Free Trade Agreement for signature. But the agreement is highly controversial. Read more ...

MST's Internationalist Brigades and the fight against COVID-19 and for life in Africa and Latin America

The world is currently undergoing a serious health crisis and is possibly facing the biggest social and economic crisis of the 21st century. While scientists strive to find ways to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic, hypotheses about the origin are being made. The fact is that there is a high probability that the virus that caused this pandemic may have originated from the environmental crisis we are also facing and the actions of the capital, especially in agriculture. Read more ...

India: KRRS farmers protest in different districts across Karnataka against amendments to land law

Since the time Karnataka government announced that it would bring amendments to the Karnataka Land Reforms Act-1961, thousands of farmers organized under the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha, and Hasiru Sene (KRRS) are protesting against the government's move throughout the state. Read more ...

Say Their Names! Anti-Racism Statement; Honoring Our Black Farmworker 

Say Their Names! George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and all the others, whose lives have been lost senselessly, needlessly and tragically because of an ever-pervasive and inherent racism that infects our country....like a pandemic. Read more ...

Union leader protest the treatment of migrant workers

On Tuesday, June 16, the USB unionist Aboubakar Soumahoro chained himself near Villa Pamphilj, in Rome, where the "General State of the Economy" are underway , a series of meetings organised by the government between the government itself, international institutions, trade unions and trade associations. Read more ...

Nepal: Now is time for Socialist Economic Reforms

The COVID-19 pandemic has given a few messages to the world. The countries with centralised public services, public healthcare system, planned economy, and better public policies such as China, Cuba, Vietnam, and Kerala state of India are dealing it more effectively than the capitalist countries like the USA, the UK, France, Spain and Italy. Read more ...

Millions forced to choose between hunger or Covid-19

The Quilombo Campo Grande camp is currently resisting an attempted eviction which began early on Wednesday August 12. The camp located in the municipality of Campo do Meio, in the state of Minas Gerais, is home to 450 landless families. Dozens of police officers and vehicles have been brought in from neighboring cities to carry out the action. Read more ...

Indonesia: SPI calls for urgent solidarity with imprisoned peasant leader

Serikat Petani Indonesia, one of the country's prominent peasant unions and a member of La Via Campesina, has issued a letter seeking solidarity from social movements and civil society, in connection with the imprisonment of one of their leaders.  Read more ...

La Via Campesina Mexico issues letter in defense of seeds and peasant and indigenous agriculture

We, La Via Campesina Mexico, claim our right, as peasants and indigenous people, to conserve, use, exchange and selling seeds and other propagation preserved in the production units peasant and indigenous production units  Read more ...

 

"Protect peasant and agroecological production." La Via Campesina at the meeting of the UN Decade for Family Farming

On 27 July, Elizabeth Mpofu, General Coordinator of La Via Campesina, reminded everyone who attended the global exchange meeting in the framework of the UN Decade for Family Farming that the COVID 19 Crisis reveals to us the limitations of the industrial food system. Read more ...

UAWC's Report on Israeli Occupation Violations against Palestinian Farmers in the West Bank during June 2020

Palestinian LVC and agricultural committees documented more than 81 violations against farmers in various areas in the West Bank mostly classified as C. including, setting up fires where 55 dunums were burned, destroying and confiscating crops where 40 Stacks of wheat hay and 3 tons of fodder were stolen, Bulldozing More than 1080 dunums, cutting down more than 116 productive trees, and confiscating more than 50 dunums. Read more ... 

Colombia is militarising its territories instead of promoting peace

States must respect, promote and guarantee human rights; however, it seems necessary to remind Duque's government of the existence of these international obligations.

Since 2016, when the Peace Agreement between the Colombian State and the extinct FARC-EP guerrillas was signed, violence against human rights defenders, land restitution leaders, social leaders, people in reincorporation process and, in general, rural communities, has gradually increased. Read more ...

The Gaza blockade is entering its fourteenth year

In solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza and the rest of Palestine, La Via Campesina's Arab and North Africa region is calling for the immediate lifting of the brutal blockade.
As on June 14, 2020, thirteen years have gone by since the Israeli occupation first imposed this brutal blockade on our brave people in the Gaza Strip. In this period, 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza have lived in a virtual prison, under the weight of a land, sea, and air blockade. Read more ...

What kind of Africa and world should emerge from this crisis?

The COVID-19 pandemic is perhaps the biggest global event in recent decades. The crisis is highlighting and exacerbating existing inequalities in the globalised neo-liberal and patriarchal socio-economic system. Read more ...

 

Millions forced to choose between hunger or Covid-19

GRAIN
On the eve of May Day 2020, in full coronavirus pandemic, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) released some hair raising statistics. About 1.6 billion workers from the informal sector are in dire straits because of the lockdowns governments have imposed to stop the spread of the virus. Read more ...

Featured Publication

Dignity for migrant workers and the movement for food sovereignty are the same struggle!

Land is the basis for social life. It is a foundation not only for agricultural production, but also shapes and is shaped by societies' political, economic, and cultural dynamics: power affects land access, and land access grants power.

Given land's central role to human society, it is unsurprising that it has also been central to profit accumulation in the expansion of global capitalism. Download here.

Featured Video

Globalize Hope (1h 13 mins)
New film on the history of La Via Campesina
This film chronicles how La Via Campesina was born more than 28 years ago, as an alternative that brings together struggles, dreams and challenges to build solidarity and secure our collective human future.
Important Note: Select English, French or Spanish subtitles by clicking on the "CC" button on the Vimeo player.
 

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