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On a 12,000-acre cotton plantation in Rio Grande do Norte owned by a rich and powerful Northeast politician, a poster sets the rules: "All residents of this property are prohibited from 1) carrying arms of any type, 2) drinking aguardente or any other alcoholic beverage, 3) playing cards or any other game, 4) spending their free time anywhere except on the property, 5) hunting or allowing strangers to hunt, 6) fighting with their neighbors or anyone else, 7) attending sick friends, 8) holding a dance without permission of the owner, 9) spreading gossip, 10) feigning illness to avoid work. Any who do not comply have 24 hours to get off."
Soup of Life. The underfed peasants succumb easily to TB, gastroenteritis and chistosoma, a debilitating liver parasite that infects one-fifth of the rural population. Average life expectancy in Brazil's Northeast is 30 years, and in Rio Grande do Norte, 463 of every 1,000 babies die in their first year. Most infants are fed a diet of manioc flour mixed with molasses, never taste milk and sometimes do not even get enough water. In Cruz de Armas, a village in Paraiba, the government operates an infant "rehydration station," which dispenses a watery soup to hundreds of children carried in by their parents. In one Rio Grande do Norte town, the local priest reports that his church bells, which toll for the death of every child, toll all day long.
"With good will," says a weary priest, "everything could be solved." But if anything, the landlords of the Northeast, who fear a peasant revolt, are growing tougher. To Caio Lins Cavalcanti, president of the "Recuperation Center of Agricultural Landlords" formed as a sort of mutual protection society, the hungry peasants demonstrating in the towns last week were "packs of thieves and Communists." Adds Landlord Joacil Pereira of Paraiba state: "We are generous men. If a peasant dies, or his wife dies, or his child dies, who pays for the funeral? The landlord."
Communists & Catholics. Many Brazilians fear that it is only a matter of time before simmering discontent boils over into outright revolution. In 1955 Francisco Juliāo, a youthful, self-styled Marxist messiah, founded the Northeast's first peasant league. Today there are 98 peasant leagues in six states, some Marxist, others not; they have 40,000 members and uncounted sympathizers, have taken over 12,350 acres of rich coastal land, have fought pitched battles with the landlords' hired gunmen, and brought Brazilian infantry troops double-timing to the Northeast in regimental strength. What holds back the revolution is lack of arms and the Communists' own blunders. As in Castro's Cuba, the old-line party members regard Juliāo as "an opportunist" and seek to undercut his popularity with the peasants.