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To compete with the Reds, a small band of anti-Communist revolutionaries—chiefly crusading Roman Catholic priests and a few exceptional politicians—are organizing "rural syndicates" to seek rapid reform instead of violent revolution. In Rio Grande do Norte, tall, dynamic Bishop Eugenio Salles, 42, has organized rural syndicates in 23 townships, signed up 22,000 members. At his headquarters in an old office building in Natal, Salles receives eight to ten complaints a day against landlords, carries them to court. One damage suit is against Landlord Antònio Moreira (2,470 inherited acres of sugarland), a 28-year-old tough who recently burned the house and all the crops of Sharecropper Antònio Avelindo Acea because he had planted an unauthorized banana tree. The sharecropper wants $30 damages and Moreira refuses to pay.
What may be in store for him was described in a recent fiery sermon by Father Emerson Negreiros, a rotund padre who runs the busiest rural syndicate in the cotton town of Santa Cruz, and preaches a do-it-yourself justice to his peasant flock: "You should raise a goat to give milk to your children. If the landlord comes to kill your goat, he is threatening the lives of your children. Do not let him kill your goat! Kill him first!"
Green for Hope. Working with the priests are a few politicians such as Rio Grande do Norte's Governor Aluizio Alves, 39, himself a rehabilitated tubercular who has embarked on a self-help program to develop his state's unexploited resources. Brazil's Congress has still not passed a modern land-reform law, but in the certainty that any such agrarian reform will be useless without other development, Alves has constructed scores of rain-catching water reservoirs, is starting a state seed bank, is bringing in cheap power by tapping into a federal hydroelectric plant. On huts across the state, many peasants display Alves' campaign symbol, a green flag signifying hope.
Self-help can carry the Northeast only so far, and aid from the outside is needed on a massive scale. Six weeks ago, the U.S. made its first major Alliance for Progress loan of $131 million for the Northeast. Out in the hungry land, the peasants view the alliance with wary cynicism. Governor Alves does not. Says he: "If the alliance does not work in the Northeast, there will be no alliance."