ivate lands that are often being held by wealthy land owners as tax shelters or as ways to garner government subsidies. Essentially, the land is unused, unproductive and, in the eyes of the MST, should not be tied up in the hands of the oligarchy. Once the squatters establish a camp on the edge of the land in an acampamento (encampment), the MST petitions the government to begin the process of distributing land to the squatters. The handing over of land to the squatters involves the government's responsibility to compensate the landowner for the loss of the land. In the 14 years since the MST began, it has settled 200,000 families on 17 million acres of forcibly taken land, a figure unprecedented in Brazilian history (Epstein 13). Currently, there are about 50,000 families camped outside of idle plantations and tracts of unproductive land awaiting land grants (Epstein 3).During land occupation squatters begin to plant and grow crops on which they subsist, to "produce," to show the government that they are using the once idle land productively. Ideally, at this stage, there is little resistance from the landowner and much cooperation and efficiency on the part of the government, and the squatters might generally receive 60 acres of land per family if there is little opposition by the original landowner. Frequently, however, the landowner tries to forcefully remove the squatters from the land using hired, armed gunmen, or sometimes police, to flush the squatters out. If they are forced off they often return to "resist" again. This process of resistance often turns bloody, with the squatters occasionally having return to the same land again and again and defend themselves against armed gunmen controlled by the landowner or sometimes, it has been speculated, by the government itself. Despite the non-violent efforts of the squatters, over 1000 squatters have died during land invasions and the subsequent struggle between the wealthy...
