League of Poor Peasants
The League of Poor Peasants (Brazilian Portuguese: Liga dos Camponeses Pobres, LCP) is a left-wing farmer organization based in Brazil. The LCP was formed in 1995 in reaction to the Corumbiara Massacre, when landless activists in Rondônia were killed by police and armed mercenaries. Much of the League was drawn from the Landless Workers' Movement (MST) after dissatisfaction with its agrarian reformism. The LCP takes a radical approach to the peasant situation, supporting the occupation and transformation of large estates into productive collectives structured under People's Power Assemblies. These assemblies determine both short and long-term planning and development for the collectives, as well as its conduct. Although not a guerrilla organization, the militancy of the LCP has brought it into much conflict with the Brazilian government, which often coordinates police interventions towards occupied camps and associated activists. The group also has faced death threats and selected assassinations from hired gunmen which the League claims is a collaborated effort between the government and landowners. Ideology According to the LCP's publication Nosso Caminho (Our Path), the organization's general program outlines the goals for an agrarian revolution in the Brazilian countryside to replace latifundia with collective production and structure. The general program is