MST CPIs lasted for years, were the stage for an ideological fight and had little practical effect – 01/05/2023 – Panel

Congress has already targeted the MST (Movement of Landless Workers) at least twice: in the first and second administrations of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT).

The first time was 20 years ago, and the application for installation was read the day after the PT posed for photos with an MST cap. The commission in the Senate, called CPI da Terra, had the objective of investigating “illegal actions, with successive and violent land invasions”.

Lula reacted to the measure, at the time, minimizing: “I must have already taken about 200 photos with an MST hat on my head: I’ll keep putting it on”.

The CPI broke 21 banking, tax and telephone secrecy of persons or entities under investigation, such as the UDR (União Democrática Ruralista) and two entities linked to the MST, the National Association of Agricultural Cooperation (Anca) and the Confederation of Cooperatives of Agrarian Reform in the Brazil (Concrab).

The report approved by the CPI, two years after its creation, was not that of Deputy João Alfredo (PSOL-CE), allied with the movement, but the substitute of the then Deputy Abelardo Lupion (PFL-PR). In his text, he called trespassing a “terrorist act”.

The former parliamentarian is the father of the current deputy and president of the FPA (Frente Parlamentar Agropecuária), Pedro Lupion (PP-PR), one of the main articulators of the current CPI of the MST in the Chamber, whose request was read this week by the president of the House, Arthur Lira (PP-AL).

The second time the movement was in the sights of Congress was in 2009. The CPI lasted a year and its rapporteur was deputy Jilmar Tatto (PT-SP). The author of the request was Onyx Lorenzoni (DEM-RS), who nine years later would be Jair Bolsonaro’s (PL) minister.

At the time, Tatto accused the opposition of having abandoned the CPI and said that the commission was unnecessary and did not even serve as a platform.

This time, the main name circulating for the rapporteurship of the MST’s CPI in 2023 is Ricardo Salles (PL-SP), Bolsonaro’s former Minister of the Environment and ally of the ruralists.

As Panel showed, Lira asked him to act with parsimony and balance if he is chosen as rapporteur. They had a meeting on the subject on Wednesday (26).

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