Good evening friends,

In the name of the national leadership and of the families of the MST, I salute the representatives of the entities that are here tonight, at the same time that we recognize the importance of the presence of each one of you and your organizations for the struggle of the workers in Brazil.

I compliment all of the invited entities and organizations, the international delegation of more than 28 countries, especially the organizations of Via Campesina from various continents, the friends of the MST, and the politicians: senators, congressmen, mayors and councilmen.

With great respect, I salute our activist membership for their persistence, dedication, spirit of sacrifice and responsibility in the preparation of our congress at the grassroots, throughout the various states and here at the gymnasium where they erected the city of the Landless.

And with much affection, I complement the almost 20 thousand delegates, the more than one thousand Landless children, companheiros and companheiras, true heroes of this nation, who are present from the 24 states where our movement is organized.

This Congress was postponed several times, for various reasons. Certainly, it is now taking place at the most timely moment in the history and alignment of power relations in Latin America.

Timely, because we are witnessing throughout the entire world imperialist intervention through wars and the invasion of countries for natural resources, and through international organizations such as the World Bank, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Monetary Fund.

Timely, because here in Brazil we are experiencing, through the structure of the bourgeois state in the Legislative, Executive and Judiciary branches, the maintenance of the privileges and protection of the interests of the elite.

Timely, because we see the Brazilian Government, in its second mandate, maintaining a consistent economic policy that adheres to neoliberal rules, maintaining high interest rates, a trade surplus in primary goods, and a trade policy, both monetary and tributary, that is export-oriented.

A government that makes reforms and projects that benefit international financial capital to the detriment of workers’ rights that have been hard won over time through popular struggles.

We see transnationals being favoured with incentives for monoculture production, and for the release and use of GMOs and pesticides, while Agrarian Reform is treated as a form of social compensation.

Timely, because we are experiencing in Brazil the new stage of economic dominance by agribusiness in the countryside, organized by the traditional landowners and by multinational corporations that want to secure control over our water, natural resources, biodiversity and seeds, and to loot our Amazon, constructing dams and implementing the transposition of the São Francisco River leaving Brazilians with only unemployment and misery.

For this reason, companheiros, our Fifth Congress has to be a landmark in working class history. A landmark against imperialism, a landmark against the neoliberal policies of this government, a landmark against the multinationals, a landmark in the struggle for legislation that limits the extent of private property. In the words of Florestan Fernandes: if we don’t allow ourselves to be co-opted nor divided, we will make gains for the people.

A landmark in the struggle and defense of Agrarian Reform as a way to democratize land, distribute income, create employment and jobs, and to combat the global warming that results from the model of creating a consumer society, which does not concern itself with the exhaustion of natural resources and the consequences that this has in the lives of the population. And above all a landmark in struggles for the maintenance and advance of rights that have been won by the working class, in unity, in the training of activists and leaders, in the elevation of the consciousness and culture of the people, and in defense of the environment.

And, more than anything, a landmark in the creation of a tool for struggle that reinvigorates movements of the masses, and enables a political project that is popular, revolutionary, and that resolves the social problems of the Brazilian people, of Latin America and of the world.

Without doubt, tomorrow, our Fifth Congress will be recognized as one of the largest events of campesinos in Brazil and the world. This will not only be due to the number of workers that we unite, but also for the quality of the struggles, because in the 30 years of our long march to confront and resist large estate owners and capital, we have conquered and built a great deal, and we have overcome challenges. Our strength is grounded in the number of people that have been organized, as we learn that a people who are organized are like an invincible wall.

Our struggle grew and multiplied, our organization spread and rooted itself throughout Brazil, we broadcast our proposals and our ideas throughout Latin America and in various parts of the world where we won allies and strengthened the collective utopia for a more just world. We cultivate solidarity amongst ourselves and with all peoples in struggle on four continents.

We have arrived where we never imagined we could arrive: in the early stages of our organization, building the Florestan Fernandes National School, founding schools on the encampments and settlements throughout our country, strengthening the struggle against ignorance, breaking down the fences around the large privately held areas of knowledge. Our national campaign is in progress for “Each and Every Landless Person to be Studying.” The fruit of this educational initiative is this Congress itself. Take note: in the past we had to contract artists; today, we have the capacity to paint our own mural.

We still have much to do, to confront many challenges, but right now we can honor ourselves in that we have and are training our own doctors, teachers, agronomists, lawyers, administrators, and activist membership at a high level of political and ideological consciousness. We are learning that no one is indispensable but rather that it is the collective that drives the organization of the masses.

Throughout our history of difficult challenges, we have suffered many disappointments. The arms of greed and the violence of large landowners, the endless greed of the exploiters, the arrogance of the oligarchies, the criminal actions and the assassinations by the private militia and policemen at their service. They have taken many lives from us, many of whom could have been here with us today.

Those that fell became our guides in building the future; we nurture their memory with all of our affection and respect, their blood strengthens us and gives us the assurance of the triumph that will come as we sing our anthem.

In the meantime, worse than physical death, the challenge that spurs us on and invites us to form fronts in order to confront and definitively overcome it, is the ideological frailty of our companions in this struggle. Our enemies know that to stop us, more efficient than death, would be the death of our values, the death of our belief in our profound solidarity, of our integral dedication to the construction of a new world for our sons and daughters and for future generations. Let us have no doubt that they can take everything from us, except for our socialist and humanist values. Capitalism and its ideology of the cult of egoism and money, of the veneration of private property, of the concentration of land, of the exploitation by one man of another, knows how to infiltrate hearts and minds.

Not even the heroes of our struggle are immune. It is in this moment that the defeat begins and where we can weaken collectively. For this, we need to reinforce our ideological resolve. It is fundamental that we profoundly understand, in our minds and in our hearts, the main reasons behind our struggle. That we know how to take up our dreams and human values, cultivating our spirit in order to always rise above challenges, to confront them and succeed, not leaving one single opening for the virus of capitalism. From the human and socialist points of view, the MST is already the patrimony of humanity, and therefore we need to nurture it.

Our Fifth Congress also has to be a landmark for us to continue overcoming our challenges, to be a landmark in the strengthening of the revolutionary way of being led. We need to strengthen the spirit of belonging, as did Oziel Alves, a youth of 17 years who gave his life defending our principles and Agrarian Reform.

It is necessary to strengthen our approach to democracy and participation. To break free from the fear of speaking out, to actively participate in the processes of decision-making. To guarantee that women and youth assume greater command of our organization, strengthening the areas of decision-making, respecting the decisions taken by the collectives and learning from the lessons of other organizations that have come before us.

We need to advance in organizing a place for children in the MST, because they too have rights, as they live on the settlements, as they study and as the community will assume the process of training Landless children. It is through education, in the preschools and the schools, that the upbringing of these little ones takes place: it is that which will make them aware early on of belonging to the working class organization. The future of the MST depends on what we do today with our children. As Mao Tse Tung taught us: “if we have a project for one year, we sprout grains. If we have a project for two years, we plant trees, but if our project is for an entire lifetime, we should educate and train people.”

We need, above all else, to care and value our greatest heritage, which is our MILITANCY. This militancy, even with all of the difficulties and problems, is what makes the MST exist, it cares for and builds the foundations of the movement, which are unity, discipline and participation.

Importantly, the greater the number of men and women in Brazil and in the world join this struggle, the more brilliant, more irreversible and more fecund our conquest will become. The more human qualities and human values that our actions, our attitudes and our revolutionary collective action have, the greater will be our victory will be and that much sooner.

In the meantime, the struggle of workers is international; we will not make the revolution alone; it is the strength of all struggles and the accumulation of these forces that will make us win. For this, the electoral victories that are occurring in various countries of Latin America signify the beginning of the end of the project of the elites and the international organizations that enforce structural adjustment and the reduction of state responsibilities. The election of these governments is of fundamental importance for the political, social and economic reorganization of these countries.

Social movements have the role of strengthening their organizations and the struggle, so that these electoral victories benefit the working class. And in the dispute over this project with the bourgeoisie, they must not diverge from the path of necessary changes that must be made, nor lose their political autonomy from parties and governments.

Despite these electoral victories, we must not forget the disastrous role that the conservative media are playing in every country. With the fear of losing power, they manipulate information in their attempt to shore up hegemony and to favor their project for society. We therefore demonstrate our full solidarity with the government and people of Venezuela for their courage in the struggle for media democratization, without which we will never have real democracies in Latin America.

In Brazil the media are so subservient that every day they try to criminalize social movements; but they do not succeed, because these movements are rooted in the core of society. They do not know our organization, our model of agriculture based on the principles of agroecology, our model of production. They do not recognize our organization, our project of education and participation. They call us “revolutionaries” as a way of reducing us to a mere figure of speech, as if the model of society that we defend is regressive and divergence from so-called modernity.

We should not be afraid to be called revolutionaries, because thanks to our struggle and organization we are seeing thousands of people who used to go hungry, who now have plenty of food every day. We are seeing hundreds of people that were illiterate, that never had the opportunity to sit at a desk in a classroom, today reading, writing, and many of us are attending university.

We are seeing people who were living at a high level of social degradation, today with values of love, solidarity, cooperation and care. People with dignity. All of this is revolutionary!!!!!!!

We continue struggling and singing, as the poet says: the true singer is the one from whose breast come the smell and the color of his land, the bloodstains of the deaths that he has witnessed and the conviction of the struggle of those who are alive!

- Therefore, in the name of the great fighters and ideologists of socialism in the world, such as Karl Marx and Rosa Luxemburgo;

- In the name of the fighters for socialism and revolution in Latin America, such as Che Guevara and Aidê Santamaria.

- In the name of the great Brazilian academics, intellectuals and socialists such as Josué de Castro, Madre Cristina, and Paulo Freire.

- In the name of the Brazilian poets, blacks and revolutionaries such as Maria Carolina de Jesus and Mario Lago.

- In the name of those that planted our seed such as the League of Campesinos, Contestado and Canudos.

- In the name of the martyrs in the struggle for land such as Sister Dorothy and Teixerinha.

- In the name of all of the movements that make up Via Campesina in Brazil

- In the name of the national leadership and of the families of the MST, with much love, with much happiness and with much hope for realizing agrarian reform: for social justice and popular sovereignty, I declare the Fifth National Congress of the MST now begun!!!!!!