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	Commemorating the International Day of Peasant Struggle by Salena Tramel Via Campesina   April 17, 2014   Sadly, yet not unlike the inception of many commemorative days, the events that inspired the first International Day of Peasant Struggle were soaked with blood. It was April 17, 1996, a calm day in the northern Brazilian municipality of Eldorado dos Carajás, where the country’s most renowned social movement, the Landless Worker’s Movement (MST) had organized a demonstration against the federal appropriation of a vacant ranch where nearly 3,000 rural working families were living and cultivating the land. The protest turned violent when the secretary of public security ordered police to clear the roadway – “at any cost”. The operation was costly indeed: nineteen people lost their lives in that event that would come to be known as the Eldorado dos Carajás massacre.   Word of the massacre ricocheted throughout the world, particularly north to Mexico where the international peasant movement known as Via Campesina was gathered for its second conference in Tlaxcala. Via Campesina was only three years in the making at the time, but had already achieved much. The movement boasts a unique global base of farmers, fishers, and pastoralists, connecting labor movements, women’s organizations, and a host of underrepresented and mostly rural members.   The conference in Tlaxcala, Mexico would prove to be historic – it was there that Via Campesina solidified its groundbreaking framework of “food sovereignty” – redefining the fundamental right to food to the advantage of food-producing peasants themselves.   But when Via Campesina’s leaders and organizers learned of what had occurred in Brazil that fateful day, their world stood still. Anything that happened within MST struck a chord within Via Campesina – the two groups were intrinsically tied from the moment MST helped pen the international movement’s founding documents. Via Campesina simultaneously grieved the loss of its colleagues in Brazil and reflected on similar incidents of violence against peasant activists in Latin America and around the world. The movement quickly recognized a public awareness gap that it was convinced could be filled by education and advocacy by and for peasants. Via Campesina spared little time and declared April 17 an annual celebration of peasants everywhere in honor of those killed in Brazil.   Fast-forward, and Via Campesina has grown to 164 member organizations in 73 countries as it marks its 20th anniversary. Peasants today are still routinely sidelined and harassed – despite the fact that their work accounts for 70 percent of global food production. With that in mind, the International Day of Peasant Struggle continues to be one of the movement’s key days of organizing and action. This year, Via Campesina dedicates its day of action to the defense of seeds.   From the beginning, control over seeds has been at the top of Via Campesina’s list of critical issues. Its relevance has heightened as transnational corporations have tightened the grip on a world food system characterized by the commodification of basic resources. At present, just ten seed companies dominate 67 percent of the world’s seeds – with Monsanto and its patents controlling 23 percent of the global supply.   "Seeds for us signify the basis of food sovereignty because they determine how we cultivate the land, how we eat, and also reflect our cultures and tastes,” said Guy Kastler, a Via Campesina leader based in France. “Farmers face increasing criminalization when planting their native seeds, even though that practice has always been the foundation of agriculture,” he elaborated. Diverse member organizations within Via Campesina employ various tactics to preserve indigenous seeds, from local seed banking to international seed exchanges. In the same vein, its activists strongly protest the spread of GMOs, pushing the envelope of food system change and catalyzing actions far beyond Via Campesina’s original base.   The world’s largest agrarian movement has realized many victories in just over two decades of existence. With its efforts around seeds – and additional work on complex issues ranging from land and water grabs to trade and migration, Via Campesina’s base is no less threatened now than it was in Brazil nearly 20 years ago. While some view peasant agriculture as a bygone livelihood, and powerful political and economic interests are out to replace it, Via Campesina is taking calculated measures to ensure that today’s peasantry does not slip quietly into the night. Visit the related web page
	Slavery remains a problem in the contemporary world because we allow it to happen by Steve McQueen Anti-Slavery International & agencies   It was 175 years ago, on 17 April 1839, that a group of abolitionists gathered to found the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. Today that organisation is known as Anti-Slavery International; it is the oldest international human rights organisation in the world, and I am proud to be a patron.   At the time the society was founded, slavery had just been abolished in the British colonies and the plan was to campaign for the abolition of slavery in the rest of the world. But the founders soon realised that the formal abolition of slavery did not prevent people being forced to work against their will.   They knew that it took more than 50 years of campaigning to stop the transatlantic Slavery Trade, in 1807, then slavery itself in the British colonies in 1833, and then to ban slavery under its different name of apprenticeship in 1838.   But could they have imagined that, 175 years on, there would still be 21 million people in slavery across the world, and that Britain itself would not be free from its scourge?   Anti-Slavery has done some ground-breaking work down the years to protect people whose rights were denied by whoever the current ruler happened to be. The organisation"s efforts included exposing the atrocities of King Leopold in the Belgian Congo by using the work of the celebrated missionary Alice Seeley Harris to mount what was probably the first photography-based campaign in history (currently on exhibition in Liverpool"s International Slavery Museum). Anti-Slavery also revealed the forced labour of the Putumayo in Peru, and campaigned to end the use of "coolie" labour in British colonies.   They were instrumental in agreeing many global treaties against slavery: a League of Nations slavery convention of 1926 that, for the first time, obliged all ratifying states to end slavery, not to mention the UN supplementary convention in 1956 and the numerous ILO conventions and European treaties on trafficking.   Anti-Slavery continues to campaign on the most pressing slavery issues, including forced labour in the export-oriented industries of Thailand and in the cotton and chocolate industries, and the enforced servitude of domestic workers across the world. The organisation continues to undertake pioneering work: setting up schools for the children of formerly enslaved people in the arid lands of Niger, empowering child domestic workers to advocate for their own rights in six countries on three continents, and uncovering the role of international brands in slavery practices.   Fine work it might be, but it is far from over.   When I was making 12 Years a Slave, I was struck by the parallels it had with slavery today. Scenes of slaves picking cotton reminded me of the tens of thousands of Uzbek citizens forced to pick cotton every year by their own government. The beatings and floggings brought to mind recent stories of Indian brick kiln workers having their hands chopped off for refusing to work in inhuman conditions, or a 10-year-old domestic worker beaten to death by her employers. Slaves struggling in extreme heat make me think of enslaved migrant workers building venues for the World Cup in Qatar.   Slavery remains a problem in the contemporary world because we allow it to happen. Governments lack the political will and the moral courage to address its underlying causes: poverty, vulnerability and discrimination, and the failure of the rule of law to protect the vulnerable. Businesses remain faithful to the old mantra of maximising profits whatever the human cost. And we let them get away with that.   Even in the UK, there are urgent problems in relation to protecting the vulnerable from forced labour. Many people apparently trafficked to the UK are deported because the government seems to care more about their migration status than its responsibility to protect them.   Those people who founded Anti-Slavery 175 years ago still make us proud as human beings today. They achieved success because they managed to change the thinking of a large part of society.   But if we don"t change our way of thinking, and get fully behind modern anti-slavery campaigners, in 175 years time there will be someone else writing an article similar to this one. So let"s not celebrate, let"s get to work.   * Steve McQueen is a British film director and writer. His 2013 movie 12 Years a Slave won an Oscar for best picture.   http://www.antislavery.org/english/ http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2014/apr/17/steve-mcqueen-anti-slavery-international-175th-anniversary-nothing-to-celebrate http://www.iom.int/cms/en/sites/iom/home/news-and-views/press-briefing-notes/pbn-2014b/pbn-listing/colombian-chained-trafficking-vi.html http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/the-empire-of-necessity/5966540 Visit the related web page
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