• People of the South Inaugurate a TV Station Letter from the Landless
• Workers´ Movement Regarding the Current Political Crisis

People of the South Inaugurate a TV Station

Telesul is a new continental television station that hopes to recover Latin American history and break with the large media corporations. "For more than 500 years, we have been blind to ourselves. We always look at things with the eyes of the North," stated Aram Aharanoriam, general director of Telesul, during the inauguration of the channel on July 24. The date was chosen on purpose. Simon Bolivar, the liberator and independence hero of a number of Latin American countries was born on this same date in 1783. Telesul initiated experimental transmissions on July 24 with the support of the governments of Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay, and Cuba. The programs will deal with struggles for social transformation, the democratization of communication, and the integration of Latin America. Transmissions by satellite NSS 806, the station will open up space for popular/social movements, emphasizing Latin culture, and information that is not manipulated by neo-liberal interests of the large oligarchic networks of communication.

The new station intends to base its information and focus on the Latin American perspective. According to President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, "the challenge of Telesul is to enter in harmony with the soul and mind of the people and to seek the truth." Thus, the content of the programs fundamentally depends on the participation of a network of collaborators, such as independent producers and community TVs, considered to be the pillars of the new channel. "If the idea is for us to know and value ourselves, it would be arbitrary to anticipate what we will transmit. That will depend on what the people want," states Gabriela Fuentes, the director of the program. All of the content will be bilingual. There will be captions or translations in Portuguese as well as Spanish. Discussions are being held with cable station operators in many countries as well as with television channels of local communities, universities, educators, and the public in order to expand even more this television station.

An investment of about U$ 400 includes the installation of equipment with a digital receptor and parabolic antenna to tune into the wave length of the satellite. A number of community TVs in Brazil have already installed the receptor and are transmitting the station. The North American reaction to this TV station was immediate in the United States House of Representatives, which approved an amendment that permits the initiation of radio and television transmissions coming from the U.S. to Venezuelans. Congress justified the decision as necessary in order to counteract the supposed wave of "anti-Americanism" of Telesul. Airplanes from the U.S. already invade the electromagnetic space of TV transmitters in Cuba with anti-Castro propaganda.

The station´s program, Telesurgentes, provides space to show the struggles of the landless in Brazil, the indigenous in Bolivia, and mothers seeking justice in Argentina. For now, Telesul will transmit four hours daily of unedited programs that can be rerun throughout the day. Plans are to increase the transmissions up to 8 hours by September

Source: Adriana Santiago, Adital August, 2005 and Brazil de Fato, August 4, 2005 


Letter from the Landless Workers´ Movement Regarding the Current Political Crisis

The following excerpt is from a recent letter written by the National Secretary of the MST (Landless Workers´ Movement) about the current political crisis

1. Political Position of the Landless Movement

Corruption, an endemic element of the privileged classes, takes possession of public resources in a state that is hardly democratic. In our current evaluation of the present crisis, illegal corruption exists and it generally benefits personal interests, using immoral and illegitimate practices that involve the appropriation of public resources by an economic group representing the dominant, elite class. Interest rates in Brazil and the transference of public resources to the banks (more than $R100,000,000 a year) are a prime example of this. Another important issue relates to the media. Do the media and the elites protect the corrupt and impede us from identifying those who are truly guilty? Who are the owners of the millions of dollars and resources diverted to electoral campaigns? Whose/what interests are benefiting from the millionaire investments made in political campaigns?

2. The Lula government

The Brazilian people elected President Lula and his government to make changes. They voted for the platform of changes that the Workers´ Party proposed in its campaign. In a Letter to the Brazilian People, the elected government committed itself to bring about these changes. However, the government has destroyed the trust of 53,000,000 people who voted for Lula. There has been a perverse composition of political forces, including the right and conservative sector, that assumed important positions in the Central Bank, the Ministers of Treasury, Agriculture, Development, Industry, and Commerce.

Last July, in the middle of a profound political crisis, the government promoted a ministry reform that reinforced even more the alliance with the conservative sectors. Because of this, we say that the government is disfigured and altered. We are not dealing with the same government that we elected in 2002. We do not have a leftist government, not even a left-center government. We are living with a government of the center, since the right control the economic policies.

We´ve said goodbye to the government of the PT and its historic commitments. We have suffered the consequences of an ambiguous government, composed of political forces of the society that go from the right to the left and have very little to offer to the people. The government lost an opportunity in the midst of its mandate to consult the people about strategic societal issues, such as the external debt, interest rates, transgenic products, the autonomy of the Central Bank, the transposition of the São Francisco River, etc. Clearly, the people want changes and would have given support to the government, who preferred to listen only to traditional politicians.

3. The Government and Agrarian Reform

We believed that the election of President Lula and his government represented a change in the correlation of forces and favored agrarian reform. The National Plan of Agrarian Reform was elaborated. It called for the settlement of 400,000 families in the period of four years, changes in the administration of INCRA (National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform) , legal qualification of the settlers, and the marriage of agrarian reform with agro-industry. Two and a half years of the Lula government have passed and agrarian reform is moving at a turtle´s pace. The government was incapable of implementing its own plan. There has been no courage to confront the issue of agrarian reform because the state is administratively organized to meet the needs of the rich and not the poor. The government believes in the false idea that agribusiness will be the solution to poverty in the rural areas. We see that agribusiness benefits only the exporters and agricultural transnationals. The government did not clearly see that the maintenance of a neo-liberal economic model impedes the accomplishment of any agrarian reform program.

Because of our discontent, we organized a National March this year that united 12,000 people from various parts of Brazil for a 17-day protest. At that time, we succeeded in getting the government to renew its commitment to accelerate agrarian reform. Little has happened. The commitment to settle 115,000 families this year has resulted so far in the settlement of only 20,000. Another 120,000 families continue encamped in subhuman conditions. Simple administrative acts promised by the government have not been fulfilled. We are tired of hearing government officials speak of a lack of resources, while the banks swim in billions of reais (Brazilian currency) transferred to them by the state. The Lula government has an immense debt to the landless people and Brazilian society regarding the issue of agrarian reform.

In light of this political and social crisis, we call on popular and social movements to join together and participate in mobilizations in the month of August that will culminate on September 7 in the annual march of the Cry of the Excluded. Let´s work together for a new Brazil!

Source: MST News Bulletin, August 2005


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