THE leader of the
Landless Workers' Movement (MST) in Brazil has been shot dead as he
was cycling home.
Cicero Guedes, aged 54,
was killed near a former sugar-plant that members of the MST had
occupied.
The MST campaigns for
land reform and the rights of landless workers. Activists are
frequently subjected to death threats.
The country manager for
Christian Aid in Brazil, Mara Luz, said: "Cicero Guedes is one more
peasant leader murdered in recent years only because he was
defending the distribution of land and resources in one of the most
unequal countries in the world." A service in his memory will be
held on Sunday.
A report by Christian Aid on inequality in Brazil says that
three per cent of the population owns two-thirds of all arable
land.
