The Landless Workers Movement or MST fights for land property rights for small farmers in Brazil. The history of land reform in Brazil is a convoluted clash of ideologies, domestic policies and long-held social practices that have resulted in two wars - the Canudos War and the Contesto War (1912-1916). Also, the basis for MST’s continuing struggle is the “social interest” principle - that is, it claims that it's land occupations are legally justified by Constitutional Law interpreting a statute that land property should fulfill a social function. But more important, they struggle against pre-modern, old regime property politics that disfranchises the rural poor in a country twice the size of Europe where only 3% of the population controls over 70% of the arable land.

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