With a 495% increase in world production over the past 35 years, soy beans have become a caricature of an agri-industrial model that has raced out of control. Supported by international financial institutions, a few multinationals and firms in producer countries have been sharing a market oriented towards feed for intense livestock farming. This expansion is the source of countless violations of human rights and irreversible environmental damage. In Latin America genetically-modified soy beans have invaded millions of hectares, entailing the expulsion of thousands of families, extensive deforestation and large-scale use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. At both local and national level people are organizing to promote alternatives and denounce violations of their rights. This is the case in Santiago del Estero, the poorest province in Argentina, where the peasant movement MOCASE is confronting a firm which - in connivance with the police, paramilitaries and local judges - wants to get its hands on over 150,000 hectares.

On 6 January 2006 the families living in the municipal area of Santa María Salomé saw the bulldozers arriving, along with paramilitaries and 12 heavily-armed policemen. The company Madera Dura Del Norte had sent them to fell trees and fence off the land on which peasant families were living. It claimed to be acting on authorization of Judge Oscar Juárez from the Santiago del Estero court, but the peasants refused to budge, despite threats to mow them down. Eventually the bulldozers left.

But a few days later ten machines returned to carry out their destructive mission, under the watchful eye of 40 paramilitaries.

On Tuesday 7 February, in the municipal area of Sol de Mayo, the community was attacked by police while trying to stop the bulldozers just a few meters from the Santillan family’s house. The police (transported by the firm and acting on its orders) used tear gas and rubber bullets, and manhandled several people. Two members of the Santillan family were arrested and detained for ten days.

A new step was thus taken by Madera Dura Del Norte which has laid claim to some 156,000 hectares in Santiago del Estero province and has been harassing local communities for the past three years so that it can extend its agro-industrial model.

Who does the land really belong to?

Land ownership is a crucial problem in this part of the world, which for over a century has been subjected to the large forestry firms’ devastation. Argentinian legislation recognizes peasants’ right to own land when they have occupied it peacefully for over 20 years and when certain conditions are fulfilled [1] But in reality it is beyond the peasants’ means to ensure that this law is applied. Obtaining a deed of ownership is expensive and requires a lawyer. The procedures are complicated and the legal expenses inordinate. To make it worse, the authorities are more inclined to favour the interests of certain companies than to defend the rights of peasant communities.

Consequently, as in Santiago del Estero, peasant families are dispossessed of the land they have occupied for generations and where they have their homes, their dispensaries, their schools, etc.

Soya beans have worsened the situation

An Argentinian activist sums up the situation: ’Just a few years ago all these lands were essentially family farms. People grew maize, manioc, cotton [...]. Today, unfortunately, all that has changed. The state has sold these lands to large landowners, mainly for industrial production of genetically-modified soy beans’. [2] The same report is given by MOCASE, founded in 1990 to federate producer organizations and promote a differentiated land and agricultural policy that takes regional peculiarities into account. In Santiago del Estero province it is in the forefront of the movement to organize peasant families’ expression and mobilization. In 1998 MOCASE and the inhabitants of the village of La Simona, with the support of national and international mobilization, refused to give in to a large landowner’s claims and are still living on their lands.

Since then the peasant movement is confronted with multiple forms of repression. The soy bean entrepreneurs rely not only on paramilitary forces but also on police and judicial authorities that often defend the cause of the wealthy. Recent events attest to this and solidarity is once again needed to support Santiago del Estero’s peasants.

FURTHER INFORMATION:

’Soy beans against life’

The Catholic Committee against Hunger and for Development (CCFD), the Réseau Coherence, the Confédération Paysanne, the Sustainable Agriculture Network and the Groupe de recherché et d’échanges technologiques (GRET) launched the campaign ’Soy beans against life’ in February 2006.

This is a campaign not against soy beans but against the excesses and abuses of a productivist and specialized agricultural model which is supported by the international financial institutions (IFI), promoted by a few private firms, and linked to the industrialization and productivist orientation of European livestock farming.

The campaign is calling on the French authorities to use their influence within the IFI to halt the financing of operations related to the expansion of soy beans. It is also aimed at agri-food firms such as Cargill and Dreyfus.

To act: Site : www.sojacontrelavie.org
Report ’Le soja contre la vie’ Special file in Faim Développement Magazine (CCFD) n° 209-210.

Contacts: CCFD - Campagne - 4 rue J. Lantier, 75001 Paris
Tél. : 01 44 82 80 00 www.ccfd.asso.fr
Réseau Cohérence: www.reseau-coherence.org
Confédération paysanne: www.confederationpaysanne.fr
GRET: www.gret.org
Sustainable agriculture network: www.agriculture-durable.org

WHAT TO DO? By letter: copy the standard letter below or use your own wording; you can download the standard letter below by clicking on the attachment at the bottom of this page, or else use your own wording. Send your letter to the address indicated below, and remember to add your own name, address and signature. By email: gobernador@sde.gov.ar Reaction time: on reception but you can send the letter until the end of August 2006 in order to give the campaign more importance. In addition: participate in the soy bean campaign (below).

PROTEST LETTER:

Date :

Sr. Dr. Gerardo Zamora Gobernador de la Provincia Santiago de Estero Casa de Gobierno Rivadavia (N) 550 CP 4200, Santiago del Estero ARGENTINE

Fax: +54-3854221066

Estimado Gobernador Zamora:

He recibido noticias alarmantes de MOCASE-VIA CAMPESINA sobre las amenazas sufridas por las comunidades de Santa María Salomé a cargo de paramilitares que acompañan a la empresa "Madera Dura del Norte" con protección policial y en connivencia con el juez Oscar Juárez del juzgado de Santiago del Estero.

La empresa alega tener título de propiedad de varios lotes que suman un total aproximado de 156.000 has, donde viven gran cantidad de familias desde varias generaciones.

Esperamos de su gobierno:
  Que impida talas y desmontes indiscriminados e ilegales.
  Que defenda la población del lugar que depende de la riqueza de los bosques y la tierra para preservar el derecho a una sana alimentación.
  Que impida la asociación del poder judicial y de las fuerzas de policía con empresas privadas, haciendo uso del poder público en beneficio propio.

Atentamente.

English translation:

Dear Sir

Yours sincerely,

[1] The law requires peasants to have used the land to meet their own needs, to have improved it, to have built a well or reservoir, to have delimited their plots, etc. (Source: www.agirledroit.org/fr).

[2] Testimony by a member of the NGO Incupo, cited in the campaign document ’Soy against life’ (cf. below).