Landless Activists Leave President’s Family Farm

Hundreds of peasants who invaded a farm belonging to the Brazilian president’s family abandoned the country estate under military guard after authorities agreed to address their demands for land reform.

Six busloads of about 450 members of Brazil’s radical Landless Workers Movement left the Corrego da Ponte ranch in east-central Brazil, which had been surrounded by more than 200 soldiers after a tense night of negotiations.

But movement members said they had been tricked into leaving after police arrested 16 of their leaders despite assurances that they would not be detained.

The government denied that it had made such a promise.