The global challenge of the pandemic brought about unprecedented responses from governments. There is now varying degrees of restriction of people’s mobility and near cessation of economic activity in almost all countries today. In this interview my focus is on Brazil, which recorded grim numbers of death cases recently. Cassia Bechara from the International Relations Collective, of the Movimento dos Trabalhadores sem Terra (MST) or the Landless Workers’ Movement shared with us how they are overcoming the restrictions imposed by current conditions in Brazil.
MST was formed at the height of the struggle against the Brazilian military regime during the 1970s and closely worked with the Partido Trabalhadores or the new Workers’ Party. While Brazil’s current president Jair Bolsonaro views the coronavirus as a mere flu the MST is mobilising and giving much needed services to their communities and settlements. It is running the MST cadre school, its own health service (with MST Doctors trained from Cuba) and giving health advise through their community-based health system. As a political organisation it is continuing its political and strategic work as a social movement with an explicit class movement and internationalist character.
