SIGN THE SUPPORT LETTER TO DANDARA SQUAT

Comrades,

SIGN THIS LETTER SHOWING YOUR NAME IN THE "COMMENTS". PLEASE INFORM IF THE SUPPORT IS INDIVIDUAL OR INSTITUTIONAL.
SUPPORT LETTER

The morning of the last ninth of April in Belo Horizonte dawned with the announcement of a new moment for the popular struggles in our country. Ocupação Dandara was born. The result of an alliance between MST (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra), Brigadas Populares and the Fórim de Moradia do Barreiro, the initial action counted with the support of approximately 150 homeless families, that multiplied themselves into more than one thousand. Today, there already are, besides the ones mentioned above, around 300 families in the waiting list. The so often mentioned world economic crisis seems to have reached Brazil and Belo Horizonte, and it is no small issue. Its effects have already been felt by the poor people of the periphery, that go out to fight for their rights – for the crisis is not, after all, to be blamed on the poor, but rather on the rich capitalists.
Ocupação Dandara was organised based on a real demand in our society: the Urban and Land Reforms. An alliance that seeks to present alternatives to the excluded populations of the city and of the fields, that face, day after day, the obstacles for surviving in this sea of inequalities. Where property is valued more than the human being, it could not be different: just in Belo Horizonte, there are approximately 80 thousand unoccupied buildings, and 55 thousand homeless families. It is an easily solvable equation, were it not the protection to the interests of the elites. The total housing deficit in Belo Horizonte is close to 200 thousand units, between quantitative and qualitative values. In Brazil, this figure reaches 8 million!
The 400 thousand square meters that are abandoned for more than 40 years go on maintaining tents and the dreams of millions of workers. The members of Dandara want to employ of all this land as a system of urban housing that involves agricultural and non-agricultural productive systems, in a cooperative and associative regime. We are calling this system rururban. However, the State, fulfilling its role of supporting, first and foremost, the capitalist interests, continues to deter the action and to impose difficulties to the dreams of the workers.
On the last Tuesday (14/05), a decree of recovery of the terrain was conceded to Construtora Modelo, the alleged owner. The terrain has got many tributary irregularities, which did not stop the courts favouring the civil construction company. In face of the importance of this struggle now being fought, we, representing movements, organisations and various other entities, show our support and solidarity to Ocupação Dandara, upholding its demand for the social function of property and for the fundamental rights of the more than on thousand camped families.

Belo Horizonte, 17 April 2009.

SIGN THIS LETTER SHOWING YOUR NAME IN THE "COMMENTS". PLEASE INFORM IF THE SUPPORT IS INDIVIDUAL OR INSTITUTIONAL