Land Grabbing breaches international human rights law: FIAN joins food producers’ mobilisation against land grabbing

FIAN welcomes the fact that food producers including peasants, pastoralists, fishers, indigenous peoples and their organizations have taken the lead in fighting against land and resource grabbing, and supports the newly created Alliance in putting pressure on national governments and international institutions to fulfil their human rights obligations to ensure and uphold peoples’ rights.

“Land Grabbing is a breach of international human rights law,” said Sofia Monsalve of FIAN International. “Forced evictions, the foreclosure of vast stretches of land and related resources, the introduction of models of land use and agriculture that destroy natural environments, the blatant denial of information, and the prevention of meaningful local participation in political decisions that affect people’s lives are all human rights violations.”

The strong mobilisation against land grabbing on the Day of Peasants’ Struggle also questions the de-facto ruling of the international governance of land and natural resources by a small group of institutions and rich countries defending the particular interests of business and finance.

“Despite the disastrous consequences of their actions, the International Financial Institutions (IFI) continue to pretend that they can decide over our lands and territories,” said Sofia Monsalve in the light of the upcoming World Bank annual conference on land and poverty on 19-21 April, and a consultation process by the International Monetary Fund about the best use of natural resources for boosting living standards in developing countries.

This de facto ruling role by IFIs has recently been challenged. In March, the UN Committee on Word Food Security (CFS) completed the intergovernmental negotiations of the FAO Voluntary Guidelines on the Tenure of Land Fisheries and Forests in the context of National Food Security. With the successful completion of negotiations after a participatory process lasting nearly three years, the CFS has proved its capacity to convene multilateral negotiations with broad social participation to discuss and propose solutions to one of the most pressing problems of our time. The Guidelines represent a first step to democratize the decision making processes related to food and agriculture at the international level.

FIAN activists will mobilise and join national mobilisations against land grabbing in many countries around the 17 April Action day, such as in Nepal, Colombia, Norway, Switzerland and the Netherlands. In concrete cases of land grabbing, FIAN supports communities and food producers’ organisations in Mali, Mozambique, Uganda and Honduras, among others.

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Further information:

Global Alliance against Land-Grabbing:

In November 2011, more than 250 farmers from 30 different countries participated into the first International farmers’ conference to stop land grabbing in Sélingué, Mali. At the close of the conference, the participants launched a Global Alliance against Land-Grabbing led by peasants in collaboration with a wide range of social movements and organisations. The event was organised by the Malian national confederation of peasant organisations (CNOP) and by La Via Campesina in response to the Dakar appeal against the land grab and in defence of food sovereignty, the commons and the rights of small scale food providers to natural resources.

In the conference declaration the participants commit to resist land-grabbing by all means possible, to support all those who fight land-grabs, and to put pressure on national governments and international institutions to fulfil their obligations to ensure and uphold the rights of peoples.

The Alliance is comprised of farmers’ organisations and local small-scale farmers’ groups who are directly involved in the struggle against land grabbing. NGOs and other organisations are invited to show their support by signing the Dakar Appeal and, depending on their capacity, provide physical, moral, material and/or financial support to the actions and strategies which respond to the concerns and projects of small-scale farmers’ communities and organisations involved in the hands on struggle. They can also help to make the fight visible and create, for example, a link from their website to the Alliance’s blog:www.stopauxaccaparementsdesterres.over-blog.com

Read the conference declaration and be part of the Global Alliance against the Land Grab: http://www.viacampesina.org/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1154:stop-land-grabbing-now&catid=23:agrarian-reform&Itemid=36
and send material to the blog http://stopauxaccaparementsdesterres.over-blog.com/