SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
SOCIAL MOVEMENT
 Collective action
 Civil society (ordinary people) confronting authority to bring
about social change
 By people who do not have access to mainstream sources of
power
 Not a single event / demonstration
 Goal is to create CHANGE and to put issue in public eye; on the
agenda
TWO CASE STUDIES:
1. Landless Workers Movement , Brazil
2.Las Madres y Abuelas, Argentina
1. LANDLESS WORKERS MOVEMENT (MST)
 Rural workers fighting for land reform and social equality in rural areas, Brazil
 Strategy: Occupy latifundios
 Since 1984:
 2500 land occupations, 370,000 families
 Currently:
 900 encampments holding 150,000 families
MILITARY DICTATORSHIP 1964 - 1985
Coup led by Armed Forces, backed by US
New Constitution; repressed free speech and political opposition
censored media, tortured and disappeared (murdered) dissidents
Nationalism, economic development and anti-Communism were main
themes of dictatorship
Created a model adopted by
other dictatorships in LA (Chile,
Argentina): military’s actions are
justified in the name of “National
Security”
AFTERMATH OF
DICTATORSHIP
 Concentration of power (= LAND in countryside)
 50 % of land owned by 1 % of population
 Modernization of agriculture
 Mass exodus to cities from rural areas
 Of salaried farmworkers, shareholders, renters
 In various states of Brazil, rural workers began to organize
to reclaim their rights to work the land
 Became part of push for democracy across the country
 “Land for those who work it”
 “Without land reform there is no democracy”
BRAZILIAN CONSTITUTION
 challenges notion of “private property” rights
 Article 184: All land should serve a social function. The constitution requires the
Brazilian government "to expropriate for the purpose of agrarian reform, rural property
that is not performing its social function."
 Article 186 the social function means : (1) rational and adequate use; (2) adequate
use of available natural resources and preservation of the environment; (3)
compliance with the provisions which regulate labor relations; and (4) exploitation
which favors the well-being of the owners and workers."
MST occupies unproductive, unused rural land that it does not believe is meeting its
social function to remind the federal government of its constitutional responsibility.
Then a legal process starts to expropriate the land and grant title to the landless
workers. The landowners usually try to evict the families.
2. LAS MADRES, ARGENTINA
DIRTY WAR
 Lasting legacy on Argentine society
 Silent; secret; unknown for many years
 Began before the military dictatorship by junta
 Under National Reorganization Process:
 Kidnapping, torture, murder were legal
 For purpose of restraining subversives
Ideological war:
• asked citizens to give up individual rights to “cleanse” the country of
subversives and achieve peace for “God and country”
• steady propaganda campaign: enemy is unknown; enemy is among you
 350 detention centers
 Size: 30 – 1500 prisoners
 Abducted day or night; family members beaten; children kidnapped
 Local police assisted
 Used psychology of fear
OPERATION CHARLY

1977-1984; covert
 Junta shared methods of repression and torture with governments/groups in
Central America
 Encouraged by US
IN DETENTION….
 Blindfolded
 Nicknames
 Tortured
 Sexually abused
 Burned with cattle prods
 Hitler’s speeches broadcast
 Many died and were buried in mass graves
 Many were drugged, transported in planes, and dropped over ocean alive
 Many disappeared: no records
LOS DESAPARECIDOS
 30,000 in Argentina in 7 yrs
 Not including those released
 Families desperately searched
 400 babies born in captivity
 88 found true identities (as of 2008)
MADRES Y ABUELAS DE LA PLAZA DE MAYO
 Began in hope that children would be released
 Met in secret; learned of enormity of situation
 Meet in Plaza de Mayo on Thursdays
FALKLANDS/MALVINAS
 Battle with British for control; lost to British in 1982
 Final test of the dictatorship
 Raúl Alfonsin came to power in December 1983
 3 days after election, passed Decree #158:
 Legal proceedings against 9 military officials of 3 of 4 military juntas
 (4th junta had passed a self-amnesty law)
ALFONSIN
 1983 Created CONADEP: National Commission on
the Disappearance of Persons
 Investigate human rights violations during
dictatorship
 Released report 1984 (Nunca Más):
 458 assassinations; 600 disappeared
 Trial of junta
 Life imprisonment of 9 members of junta
Alfonsin also felt pressure to pacify military
1. 1986 Ley de Punto Final (Full Stop Law)
 Mandated end of investigation & prosecution for
those facing charges for political violence under
dictatorship up to 1983
2. 1987 Ley de Obedencia Debida (Law of Due
Obedience)
officers cannot be punished for political violence
during dictatorship because they were following
orders
CARLOS MÉNEM 1989
 Pardoned officers who had been indicted
 Human rights groups sought justice, testimony from victims,
loopholes in law
 Mid-level officers began confessing to atrocities
 Pressure from Madres & civil society for “truth trials”
 Courts had right to subpoena and investigate but not to convict
 International pressure
 1999 Inter-American Commission on Human Rights settled with Argentina to
guarantee “right to truth by obtaining clarification of what happened to
disappeared persons”
 Full Stop Law and Law of Due Obedience did not pertain to baby
theft
 Ménem created National Commission for Right to Identify 1992
 Some military generals (e.g. Videla)were found guilty of kidnapping
babies
 Spent 1 month in jail; released to house arrest for health reasons
 Other countries (Italy, Spain) called for extradition of military junta
members so they could be tried abroad
 President Fernando de la Rúa signed Decree 1581
 Argentina refused to allow Argentines to stand trial in other countries
 Full Stop and Due Obedience Laws were found unconstitutional by
Supreme Court 2005
 2006 cases were reopened
 Those previously pardoned could not be retried
 1 early case led to calling dictatorship’s actions “genocide”
 Earlier pardons were therefore unconstitutional
 2007 Argentine federal court struck down Ménem’s pardons and
reinstated human rights abuse allegations
CIVIL SOCIETY HAS BEEN RALLYING
FACTOR IN THIS STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE
 Change has been made due to their fight and pressure
 Proyecto Desaparecidos (Project Disappeared)
 Several human rights organizations “with the purpose of recovering and maintaining
memory, understanding what happened in Argentina during the dirty war and fighting
against impunity”
 Monuments to remember the dead
 Monument of the Victims of State Terrorism
 Began in 1999 with 1 stone
R
S