More than 8,000 Brazilian landless activists surrounded the central bank on Thursday and threatened a big fight over land next year unless they get more public money to speed up land reform.

Joao Pedro Stedile, a leader of the radical leftist Landless Workers Movement, said peasants could stage more land occupations if Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva does not earmark more funds to expropriate and redistribute unused farmland, as the Brazilian constitution demands.

Lula, Brazil's first working class president, pledged to settle 400,000 families -- or around 1.6 million people -- during his four-year term. He has only created plots for 106,000 families nearly two years into office.

In April, the Landless Workers Movement staged its biggest wave of land grabs in five years and Stedile said next year's could be even bigger."In April and May there could be a big struggle in this country," Stedile told Reuters as he led the mile-long march of landless peasants through the heart of Brazil's capital.

Mounting pressure for massive land reform sparked Brazil's worst rural violence in years as activists occupied land and owners hired gunmen to defend it.Hooded "pistoleiros" killed five Landless Workers Movement members in Minas Gerais state on Saturday.

Stedile said land reform programs had been starved of money by Finance Minister Antonio Palocci and other officials, who have cut public spending to meet IMF fiscal targets.

Members of the Landless Workers Movement burned a U.S. flag with "IMF" written on it and chanted for the ouster of ministers like Palocci.Tomas Balduino of Catholic rural rights group CPT presented a list of demands to a central bank official.

At one point, 200 people chanting "Lula, we're going to shut down Brazil" broke into the nearby land reform agency. After smashing down doors and breaking windows, protesters occupied part of the building for about four hours until they were removed by police. Two police officers and two demonstrators were injured. One person was arrested.

(From Reuters, November 26, 2004)

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