Police Oust Activists from Tree Farm in Brazil

Via Campesina activists invaded a Stora Enso owned plantation in Brazil’s Rio Grande del Sul state, claiming that the Swedish-Finnish multinational paper company had violated Brazilian law in setting up so close to the nation’s border with Uruguay. The main beef of their complaints, however, was about social justice and ecology.

“Planting this green desert in the border zone is crime against our country, against the pampas ecosystem and against the food sovereignty of the state,’‘ Via Campesina said in a statement.

Stora Enso is becoming famous for creating “green deserts” made up of eucalyptus and pine trees – good for paper, terrible for the bellies of landless Brazilian farmers.

Via Campesina is justly famous, and admired, for resisting this.

Police used rubber bullets and tear gas Tuesday to remove 900 activists from a tree farm they had invaded to highlight allegations its Swedish-Finnish operators violated a law forbidding foreign companies from owning certain lands, media reported.

Via Campesina, the farm workers’ rights group that staged the invasion, said in a statement that dozens of its members were injured.

But police commander Paulo Mendes, who coordinated the ouster of the protesters, said he was unaware of any injuries suffered by demonstrators, according to UOL, the Web site of the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper.

Mendes confirmed that about 50 officers took part in the operation, some of them on horseback and others using police dogs to break up the occupation of the farm.

Posted by Szamko
Just tries to tell the truth.

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