Brazil Assigns Soldiers to Guard President’s Farm

Soldiers were sent by Brazil’s government Friday to guard the president’s farm from peasants who have protested there for four days demanding land and money they say they were promised, officials said.

The decision was taken after a few hundred members of the radical Landless Movement--MST--”surpassed the limit” by looting a truck with fertilizer and beans leaving the farm, the president’s chief military aide, Gen. Alberto Cardoso, told a news conference.

“This threat is not only a threat against private property but also a threat against the symbol of authority of the Brazilian people,” he said. “The movement, throughout its history, broke limit after limit, disrespecting property.”

The protesters from the MST, which promotes invasions of unused farmland, have been encamped in makeshift tents on a dirt road outside the farm since Tuesday, many of them accompanied by their families and children.

MST leaders have said they would stay “indefinitely” at President Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s 3,200-acre farm near Brasilia until their demands for land and money are met. The soldiers arrived Friday and will guard the farm from any invasion.

The MST coordinator in Brasilia, Lucinio Ravanelli, said the movement was not backing down in the face of the 250 soldiers from the presidential guard.

“Whatever happens is not the responsibility of the workers, it is the responsibility of the land reform minister and President Fernando Henrique himself,” Ravanelli said.

He said there were 450 MST members outside the farm while police officials put their numbers at between 250 and 300.

Land Reform Minister Raul Jungmann, who cut short a trip to Italy with the president and returned to Brasilia, said the government would break off all negotiations with the MST as long as they remain outside the cattle ranch.

The president often spends weekends at the farm.

The MST, which has become Brazil’s most powerful social voice against the huge income inequality in Latin America’s largest country, has said the government has not met the demands for funds for families stuck in camps around Brasilia.