Starting at the presidential palace, about 1,000 protesters from the radical Landless Movement, or MST, marched past government buildings in Brasilia, while members of the group held similar peaceful protests in 23 Brazilian states.

A protester lays down on a Brazilian flag to protest against government labor policies in front of the presidency building in Brasilia September 4, 2001. Hundreds of labor unionists, students and members of Brazil's Landless Movement (MST) demonstrated against government labor policies and clashed with police just a stones' throw from President Fernando Henrique Cardoso's third floor office at Planalto Palace. REUTERS/Jamil Bittar

The group has set up makeshift camps on the large government esplanade in Brasilia where they will remain for 40 days to press their protests, said Joao Paulo Rodrigues, an MST leader in Brasilia.

The MST, one of Brazil's few strong social groups, advocates illegal occupation of unused farmland for poor rural workers in this country where a handful of the rich own the vast majority of arable land needed to make a living.

``We have almost 85,000 families camped out and waiting for land to work, while families that were already settled have no credits (funding) to cultivate anything,'' Rodrigues said. ''There is an explosive situation in the countryside.''

Rodrigues said leaders of the movement had met with Agrarian Reform Minister Raul Jungmann in recent days but he ''did not meet our requests, so we decided to protest.''

According to a statement from the group, the government has not freed up funds for settling the landless because of new commitments to meet strict fiscal targets agreed with the International Monetary Fund.

The MST said the government has cut the budget for land reform to $520 million last year from $1.12 billion in 1997.

Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso's government strongly defends its record on land reform, saying it is the government that has given most land to the poor since Brazil returned to democracy in 1985 after 20 years of dictatorship.

The government said it gave land to 482,206 families between 1995 and 2000.

Protests by Brazil's landless have periodically led to violent confrontations with the police. In the most violent in recent times, 19 rural workers were killed by military police during a land occupation in the Amazon in 1995.

Copyright 2001 Reuters Ltd

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