Via Campesina: Challenges for complete Agrarian Reform

07/12/2004
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We are members of the " Via Campesina International Organization", which represents over 160 millions of peasants and indigenous peoples. We are participating in the World Forum on Agrarian Reform (WFAR) with 120 delegates from America , Asia, Africa and Europe. We emphasise the importance of this forum in order to create a great alliance to improve and strengthen the way to Agrarian Reform, understanding this as a process to erase poverty and hunger, guarantee Food Sovereignty and develop our potential. At this Forum, we report the Neoliberal politics imposed by the World Bank (WB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), who are serving the capital and the transnational enterprises, which generate the following consequences: – The commercialization of the land in all the countries, except Cuba and Venezuela, increases the land area of a few owners, principally the big capitalist enterprises. This happens more intensively in poor countries but it is also happening in more and more in the rich countries. For us, land is a vital element for our work and to indigenous peoples it is the Mother Earth, the "Pachamama", and not a merchandise with which to make business. – The systematic seizing of the ancestral territory of the indigenous peoples to exploit and use indiscriminately their wealth. – The high migration from the countryside to the cities, mainly of women and young people, is dividing families, which is putting at risk the continuity of life, tradition, indigenous and peasant cultures, and rural development. Migrant people suffer the consequences of abuse, racial discrimination and humiliation in large cities. – The strengthening of the agro-export model, which is based on the intensive use of the capital, the "latifundio" (concentration of landholdings), the destruction of natural resources, and the elimination and subordination of farmers and indigenous peoples to their production model. – The increase of the violence against the Indians and peasants organizations all over the world. Capital wants to eliminate the fights and guarantee its economic interest. – The increase in violence against organizations of peasants and indigenous peoples all over the world. The capital seeks to silence people's fights and to guarantee its own economic interests. – The increate of world poverty. Although, theoretically, the policies of these institutions are aimed at fighting against poverty, in practice they are fighting against the poor, particularly against peasants and indigenous peoples. These perverse politics and activities have not managed to silence our voices, nor to destroy us. We keep resisting. The movements of peasants and indigenous peoples are more and more organized and united every day; we develop our own life and work alternatives, which are based on cultural diversity, the respect and preservation of natural resources, and ancestral knowledge. In Vía Campesina we have great expectations that this Forum will consolidate the bonds of solidarity between the organisations of peasants, indigenous people, societies, NGOs and others, so that we can advance united in common agendas, with the aim of strenghtening the fight to achieve Social Justice, Food Sovereignty, and the erradication of hunger and poverty in the world. With these objectives, we reiterate our pledge to continue promoting the World Campaign for a Complete Agrarian Reform, together with the Worldwide Seed Campaign: a Patrimony of the People in Service of Humanity. Agrarian Reform now! Valencia, Spain, 7 december 2004
https://www.alainet.org/en/articulo/110998
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