Rural unionism as an influence of the Araguaia Guerrilla: peasantry against agribusiness in Pará-Maranhão-Tocantins frontier

Abstract

The fight against the Araguaia Guerrilla is a turning point on the Pará-Maranhão-Tocantins border. After the arbitrary arrests and murders during the dictatorship, peasants, who lived with the communists, came together based on many ideas defended by the young clandestine people, with the centrality of agrarian reform, to fight against land concentration. Therefore, this project aims to reflect on the influences of the Guerrilha do Araguaia in relation to rural trade unionism. The focus is not just the guerrilla, exterminated and silenced by the Armed Forces, but its developments 50 years later, clear with the advancement of agribusiness and peasant resistance. In this way, it is clear that there is continued land tension even after the defeat of the guerrillas. To understand this phenomenon, it is essential to mention the militarization of the agrarian issue, as it was from the 1970s onwards that the Military Dictatorship's involvement with land became stronger. Megaprojects are installed to erase the resistance of the guerrillas. In more recent years, agribusiness is responsible for the expropriation of peasants. Therefore, understanding the ruptures and permanences, it is essential to highlight legacies of the guerrilla that have not been forgotten. To fulfill the objectives of this research, data is collected on CPT and IBGE bases, constant literature review is realized and field work is carried out, with the purpose of visiting both the materialities implemented by the Armed Forces during the guerrilla war as well as the settlements and rural workers' unions that oppose the commodity-based monocultures.