Brazil landless peasants threaten president's farm

BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) -- Thousands of poor rural workers occupied buildings across Brazil Tuesday and threatened to invade a farm owned by the president's family in the second nationwide protest demanding land since May.

Members of the radical Landless Movement (MST), which promotes invasions of unused farm land, launched occupations of public buildings a day earlier and raised the stakes Tuesday as 900 gathered outside the farm belonging to the family of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

The MST said 15,000 members were occupying public buildings in 14 states across the country demanding land and credits they say they were promised by the government.

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The government blasted the occupations and sent the military to guard the Cardoso family's 3,200-acre farm in neighboring Minas Gerais state, where the president often spends weekends.

"The time for blackmail is over," Agrarian Reform Minister Raul Jungmann said. "I am calling for common sense and that the MST backs down, because we are not going to back down."

Jungmann said a ministry engineer had been taken hostage by the MST in the central state of Mato Grosso do Sul.

MST launched the invasions because the government had failed to fulfill pledges it made during a meeting two months ago, said Gilberto Portes de Oliveira, an MST leader.

"We were completely tricked by (the Agrarian Reform Ministry)," Portes de Oliveira told Reuters.

"We are not playing any more," he said, adding it "depends on the government how long we stay."

MST members met with Cardoso in early July, when the government promised an unprecedented $1.1 billion package of land reform measures, including settling 250,000 families by 2002, building houses and providing public services to rural areas.

This followed a mass invasion of public buildings in May. Jungmann said Tuesday that all negotiations with the MST would stop until the latest standoff ends. All credits to workers taking part in the invasions would also be suspended.

The MST demands that more land be redistributed to address Brazil's huge social inequalities. Half of the country's 165 million people live in poverty, while a small group controls most of the land.

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