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05/13/2005:

"Brazilians' long march to land reform"

It's still dark when Juarez Santana Rocha tumbles off of his mattress, woken by music suddenly blaring from the truck carrying a noisy sound system.

He and more than a thousand others from the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia have half an hour to gather their backpacks, grab some bread, gulp a coffee and form a line on the BR-060 motorway.

Ahead of them the day will bring yet another leg of their epic 130-mile walk to the capital, Brasilia, calling for agrarian reform. At the same moment thousands of others are whooping their colleagues from slumber in 22 other giant tents in the camp, each from a different state, for the 17-day haul.

By first light there are 11,000 landless farmers, members of the Movimento Sem Terra, or MST, lined up in three strict columns along the motorway, a thin red line stretching for more than two miles.
Full: guardian.co.uk