AP: Bolivia's Morales to Push Land Reform

[Eugene]

Bolivia's Morales to Push Land Reform
Bolivia's Morales vows to pass land reform by decree if blocked by Senate

LA PAZ, Bolivia, Nov. 27, 2006
By DAN KEANE Associated Press Writer

(AP) Bolivia's president will impose his sweeping land-reform bill by decree
if conservative lawmakers refuse to end their boycott of the Senate by Tuesday
afternoon, a government spokesman said.

President Evo Morales' ultimatum on Monday came as thousands of Indian marchers
from across the country began arriving in the capital city of La Paz to support
the bill, which would grant Morales' government the power to seize unproductive
land for redistribution to Bolivia's landless poor.

Presidential spokesman Alex Contreras said senators from Podemos, the conservative
opposition party, had until 2 p.m. Tuesday to return to their desks or Morales
would use his presidential authority to circumvent Congress and declare the law
in effect.

"When the Senate tries to place obstacles in the path of these advances, the
government has the authority to issue presidential decrees," Contreras said.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/27/ap/world/mainD8LLNIPO1.shtml

[nerddem]

1. thank you

all the chavez/castro/evo fans always ask me for links showing how evo has hints of authoritarianism in his governing style

[Taverner]

2. I wouldn't call this authoritarianism per se

He's calling their bluff...

Besides - this is straight out of John Locke - take the unproductive lands and give it to peasants who are willing to work it. Life, liberty and property...

[nerddem]

13. but the thing is it's not just fallow land

the exact words that came out of his mouth were "latifundismo productivo" which is an oxymoron

[Taverner]

20. I still wouldn't define this as "Mugabe-ism" (my choice of words)

At least I think that is your fear - correct?

Clarification is needed...

[1932]

4. He was elected by a majority of the people to do this.

[nerddem]

12. he did get a majority

and he did have a good voter id system in place with presumably led to good turnout, but there were also a lot of people that voted for him that didn't really support him but wanted him to see how hard it really is to govern bolivia--they wanted him to see things from the other side of the protest signs, if you will, and by now he certainly has.

[1932]

14. See post 8.

[1932]

15. By the way, have you seen the documentary Our Brand is Crisis?

http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?movieid=70038841&trkid=64596

In this documentary about the Bolivian elections Morales lost, there's a scene where Goni, the guy who won, implements some terrible tax policies (at the bequest of Wall Street, no doubt) and the people go crazy.

The smartest person in the whole documentary -- not Carville, not anyone from his firm, and not the filmmaker either, by the way -- is the woman who translates for the Americans. She is shocked Goni would implement the policy. She has to explain to the Americans that the tax is ridiculously high and really hurts a lot of people who can't afford it. To her, what Goni did wrong was completely obvious.

I don't think it is hard to do what's right for your own citizens.

[Judi Lynn]

17. 1932, thanks for the recommendation.Either HBO or the Sundance Channel

is running this currently. I just saw the title in the last couple of days in the tv guide. It will be repeated multiple times in this cycle, undoubtedly.

Not knowing anything about it, I passed on it the first time. I'll be sure to get it when it comes around again. I appreciate the information, and the advice to pay serious attention to the translator.

[1932]

32. Another powerful scene that I think completely went over the head of the director

(judging from the director's commentary) is the contrast between a scene where Goni has lunch with a bunch of women journalists and a scene later in the film where an indigenous/non-European-looking reporter asks him a question.

For the most part, the women journalists are smug, uninformed, biased and fawn over Goni. The scene is disturbing. Later in the film, at a campaign event a journalist who looks a little unkempt, darker-skinned, working class, asks Goni a very fair question about a policy that was really hurting working people. Goni's response is incredibly callous. The reporter looked like he was going to cry.

The contrast between those two scenes (which the director doesn't emphasize at all, IIRC -- you have to be on your toes to catch it) is amazing. On the one hand you have a group of people letting their biases overrun logic and who could care less about how people farther down the ladder experience life. On the other hand, you have someone who feels the implications of bad government policy so acutely that you can see the exact moment when a policy idea tears his heart in two.

[Judi Lynn]

33. Thanks for the tip. It sounds so sadly realistic. I'll be looking for it. n/t

[nerddem]

18. sweet i'll add it to my queue, thanks nt

[Say_What]

19. Thanks. Just added this to the top of my NetFlix queue...

Also, but off topic, there is another that I saw in the theater a few years back and NetFlix has that as well. In addition to the description below, it gives a good overview of the role of the School of the Americas and in some parts is very difficult to watch and hear a woman's description of what the paras did to her husband:

Plan Colombia: Cashing in on the Drug War Failure

Ed Asner narrates this documentary about U.S. involvement in Colombia's drug trafficking and civil unrest. The film examines the impact of chemical spraying and military funding and reveals alternate U.S. interests. Features interviews with Noam Chomsky, the late Senator Paul Wellstone, Colombian Presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, Congressmen John Conyers and Jim McGovern, U.S. State Department officials, guerilla leaders and others.

[IntiRaymi]

28. You make no sense:

...but there were also a lot of people that voted for him that didn't really support him but wanted him to see how hard it really is to govern bolivia

This makes absolutely no sense. I know these people quite well, and this is not that mentality in the least bit. Perhaps you've been duped by the Comite Pro-Santa Cruz, and the rest of the fascist Hugo Banzer followers?

[Say_What]

5. What about 'Presidential Authority' don't you understand??

From the article:

Presidential spokesman Alex Contreras said senators from Podemos, the conservative opposition party, had until 2 p.m. Tuesday to return to their desks or Morales would use his presidential authority to circumvent Congress and declare the law in effect.

"When the Senate tries to place obstacles in the path of these advances, the government has the authority to issue presidential decrees," Contreras said.

Morales has also used presidential decrees to nationalize the country's oil and natural gas fields as part of his effort to redistribute wealth in South America's poorest country.

Senators with Podemos said they had no intention of ending their boycott, called last week to protest the land bill as well as Morales' absolute control of the assembly called to rewrite Bolivia's constitution.


Indigenous Bolivians march towards La Paz, Bolivia on Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2006. Bolivia's president will impose his sweeping land-reform bill by decree if conservative lawmakers refuse to end their boycott of the Senate by Tuesday afternoon, a government spokesman said. President Evo Morales' ultimatum on Monday came as thousands of marchers began arriving in La Paz to support the bill, which would grant Morales' government the power to seize unproductive land for redistribution to Bolivia's landless poor. (AP Photo/Dado Galdieri)

[IndianaGreen]

9. Thank you for supporting the parasitic ruling class

In Venezuela, the Chavez government took over idle factories and turned them over to the workers, who proceeded to manufacture goods and products, such as school uniforms. In America, our ruling class shuts down factories and move production to countries with cheap labor and no labor and environmental laws. What if we did the same thing here and turned those factories to the workers?

There is more of us than there is of those that you defend. It is the workers that produce all the wealth, not the capitalists.

Thanks to Bush for putting the military in the Iraq quagmire. This has saved the lives of millions in Latin America who would otherwise become victims of American imperialism.

A red tide is sweeping Latin America, a rejection of neoliberalism and the oppression of IMF bankers.

[nerddem]

11. you're welcome!

of course i say one bad thing about chavez and i must be the son of a rich oil tycoon, partying up everyday on the trust fund that came at the cost of exploiting poor, uneducated brown people somewhere far off.
well, i can't say that's true. i wouldn't mind the money, this school isn't cheap! but no, my middle-class, being-educated, brown ass is studying and partying off my part-time wages and my dad's tips (he does banquets in dc)--but he serves a lot of that ruling class you automatically associate me with, so maybe that puts me in?
i would love to see more manufacturing in bolivia, but the reason so many national industries fail is because of all the cheap contraband brought in. it's become a cyclical malaise that bolivians now see foreign products as higher quality, just because they're foreign. now, we've found this to be untrue. when my parents got married, for example, they bought all of their appliances from a now long-defunct bolivian manufacturer, fensa, and 20+ years later they still work fine, yet here we've gone through at least 2 whirlpools and 2 ge's, but i don't have to tell you that a more successful business model is one that gets you to keep buying replacements.
and speaking of uniforms it's a goddamn shame, because our textiles are very high quality, yet when my sister was in school this year, they made her get this chilean or argentinian shit--or hell, maybe it was venezuelan, it was definitely foreign though--that was wal-mart quality at best and ridiculously expensive, might i add.
anyway, the thing is, despite the demagoguery, i still had hope for evo and mas. i figured, that without needing to put to together a coalition we'd see some fresh faces rather than the ideologically vacant traditional party coalitions of the 80s and 90s. and i'm not saying he's completely dropped the ball, but right now in bolivia things are just as bad as when before he took power. the guy that blocked roads and led protests is now the victim of his own crippling medicine.
the real thing though, is i can't speak for any other country, maybe peru, they are perhaps the most similar to bolivia, but not even, because they have a coastline and we have oil and gas. but i can say, that bolivia definitely needs a change that is consistent and persistent, and the weirdness of the past two hundred years has led to a place where ideological rigidity doesn't really work anymore. we can't just say "let's put in a communist government" (the red tide you so fondly hail), because we know communism doesn't work; even china doesn't really like communism. we can't say "let's put in a liberal government," because obviously we've been shafted by the liberal governments of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
we need something that is truly homegrown, something that is uniquely ours, because we've tried everything else and it hasn't worked. i would like to see evo step out of chavez's shadow and be his own man. i would like to see a bolivian leading bolivia with a bolivian mindset, and the last time that really happened was back in the 30's, and the pressure drove him to commit suicide.
so with all due respect, when you say "there is more of us," i don't know your credentials in speaking for/to bolivians, so i can't say that us blue-collar bolivians would really like to be included in your assessment of the situation.

[High Plains]

3. You're really reaching...

Morales has bent over backwards to accomodate the minority rightists in Podemos, but Podemos is doing everything it can to stall Morales and his popular MAS (Movement Toward Socialism) agenda. It is trying to block the highly popular constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution and it is trying to stall the land reform.

Morales is using legal political manuevers, not extra-constitutional means, to move his agenda forward. People who see this as evidence of Morales' "authoritarianism" are wearing ideological blinders of a sort I'm surprised to see on DU.

[noamnety]

6. I wonder if he could successfully govern Bolivia

and Detroit at the same time.

[mom cat]

7. Viva Evo!

[Eugene]

8. AP: Bolivian Senate OKs sweeping land reform

Posted on Tue, Nov. 28, 2006

Bolivian Senate OKs sweeping land reform

DAN KEANE
Associated Press

LA PAZ, Bolivia - Bolivia's Senate approved President Evo Morales' far-reaching
land reform law on Tuesday, ending a weeklong boycott by opposition lawmakers
who attempted to block passage of the bill.

The impasse ended after thousands of Indian demonstrators from around the country
marched on the capital La Paz to support Morales' proposal to seize unproductive
land held by wealthy elites and redistribute it to the landless poor.

Conservative leaders walked out of the Senate last week to block the land reform
bill. Morales had threatened to circumvent Congress and impose the law by
presidential decree if the Senate did not reconvene by Tuesday afternoon.

-snip-

The bill passed 15-0 with the remainder of the 27 senators absent from vote.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/16118882.htm

[Judi Lynn]

10. Such good news! From the article:

"It is not possible, my friends, to have so much land in so few hands, and so many hands without land," Morales told about 10,000 supporters in a plaza in La Paz before the vote.
(snip)

But Tuesday night, one Podemos senator returned to the chamber to vote for the land reform, joined by assistants filling in for two other opposition senators.
(snip)

"We're exhausted, sure, but we are here to reclaim our rights from those speculators who have taken our lands all over the country," said Natalio Izaguirre, who hiked 18 days from his small village near Potosi, about 260 miles south, in sandals made from leather and old car tires.
(snip)

Morales has said the government will not seize productive land, but rather large tracts of Bolivia's sparsely populated east held by a handful of wealthy families.

The government has publicly accused some of Bolivia's most politically powerful families of large-scale land fraud, adding a layer of personal animosity to an already charged issue.

On Monday, an opposition senator from a prominent landowning family was caught on camera making an obscene gesture to pro-Morales demonstrators heckling him outside the Senate - an act since replayed repeatedly on Bolivian television stations.
(snip/)Thanks to DU'er Eugene.

[Say_What]

16. Some great photos to go with that excellent article...

Bolivian President Evo Morales signs a document containing a new land reform bill at a midnight ceremony in the presidential palace in La Paz, Bolivia on Wednesday, Nov.


Thousands of indigenous demonstrators shout "Land Reform" as Bolivian President Evo Morales addresses the crowd in La Paz, Bolivia on Tuesday, Nov.


Supporters of Bolivia's governing party MAS (Movement Towards Socialism) carry a mock coffin representing opposition party PODEMOS during a rally in La Paz, Bolivia on Tuesday, Nov.


Bolivian President Evo Morales waves to thousands of indigenous demonstrators during a rally demanding a land reform in La Paz, Bolivia on Tuesday, Nov.

[Judi Lynn]

24. Here's another one:

In Bolivia, hundreds of indigenous supporters of President Evo
Morales celebrate as he signs a land reform bill into law.

[Judi Lynn]

21. As a reminder of how the elite HAVE been running Bolivia, here's an article

from February, 2002, well before Evo Morales was elected. A good search can open any DU'ers eyes to this information which usually just doesn't quite make it to our line of vision in the States:

Coca Grower Killed in Bolivia

Andean Information Network
February 7th, 2002

January 30, 2002 -- At approximately 5:15 p.m. yesterday, January 29, an Expeditionary Task Force patrol dispersed a group of coca growers attempting to block the Cochabamba-Santa Cruz highway in Shinahota. According to eyewitness testimony, members of the forces shot directly at a group of farmers on a market road perpendicular to the highway.

The forces shot Marcos Ortiz Llanos (34 years old) in the left side. The bullet exited his right side, apparently passing through his heart and remained lodged in his right arm. He died soon afterwards in the Villa Tunari Hospital. The forensic specialist of the Justice and Human rights Center is performing the autopsy at this time and will issue the corresponding medical certificate.

Multiple eyewitness testimonies state that Cnl. Aurelio Burgos Blacutt (School of the Americas Graduate, 1974) aimed and fired directly at Ortiz. Burgos is easily identifiable because he is missing his left forearm.

Several other people were wounded in the incident. Members of the Expeditionary Task Force continued to beat coca growers with nightsticks and kick them after the shootings.

On December 6, 2001 a member of the Expeditionary Task Force, Juan Eladio Bora, shot and killed Chimore Union Leader, Casimiro Huanca, during a peaceful protest. Another member of the Force shot Fructuoso Herbas, who had to have his leg amputated above the knee as a result.

This irregular mercenary force receives salaries from the Narcotic Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy and has been credibly implicated in a significant portion of the human rights violations committed during the last five months in the Chapare region. Off the record, security force commanders told AIN that clearly the Expeditionary Task Force let things "get out of hand" last year.

Human Rights monitors express their concern that the killing of Marcos Ortiz Llanos will also be investigated and tried through military tribunal rather than the civil justice systema pattern that has provided impunity for Expeditionary Task Force members and other security forces in cases of gross human rights violations.
(snip/...)

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=1753

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From May 9, 2002:

Enron's Pipe Scheme

Energy giant bulldozed over environmental, human rights concerns to build Bolivian pipeline -- with U.S. government backing
by Jimmy Langman, Special to CorpWatch
May 9th, 2002



Pipeline construction in the
Pantanal wetlands. Derrick
Hindery,
Ph.D, Amazon Watch



Chiquitano Forest, June 2000.
Photo: Amazon Watch

San Miguelito, Bolivia -- Enron's Cuiaba natural gas pipeline passes just 200 yards from San Miguelito, an indigenous village in Bolivia's Chiquitano Dry Tropical Forest. When Enron sought approval for the controversial pipeline in 1997, the company offered money to local residents and pledged to help them secure land ownership titles. Today, says village leader Bolnino Socore, the community has received 50 cows and a water well, but little else.

"The company says they will do no more to help us. But we have to live with the consequences of their pipeline for at least another 40 years," he said. Socore has cause for concern. The access roads Enron cleared in the Chiquitano are already attracting timber poachers and illegal cattle ranchers to the forest. He is also concerned about spills; another Enron pipeline in Bolivia burst on January 2000, leaking 30,000 barrels of oil into a river in the Andean highlands.

Ever since the Houston-based energy giant imploded in the midst of scandal last year, the name Enron has become synonymous with corporate corruption, accounting tricks, influence peddling, and environmental negligence. The company's record in Bolivia is no exception. Now, Enron faces government investigations and lawsuits as Bolivia tries to deal with the social, environmental, and economic damage inflicted by the company.
(snip)



Bolivia: Cuiaba Pipeline, June 2000.
Photo: Amazon Watch

In September 2000, protesters shut down Enron's pipeline work camp near San Miguelito. More than a hundred Chiquitano men, women and children from three nearby communities peacefully blocked the entrance. Within hours, indigenous communities nearby occupied two other Enron work camps. The protest, which lasted 16 days, ended after negotiations between Enron and indigenous leaders. At issue was a May 1999 agreement between Enron and 36 indigenous communities from the surrounding areas. The agreement required Enron to pay $1.9 million for an "Indigenous Development Plan" and to fund efforts to secure land titles for local residents. But as the pipeline neared completion, indigenous groups said they had only received about one-third of the promised funds, and they were no closer to owning their land.

Carlos Cuasace Surubi, president of the Chiquitano Indigenous Organization, said they had no choice but to fight the company: "We told them that as indigenous people we still believe in a person's word. You have put the pipeline in the ground, but you have lied to us. We demand you comply with the agreement or we will not go."

After further negotiations, Enron did release the rest of the promised funds, but the dispute over the land titles persists. According to indigenous advocacy groups, no titles have yet been issued. But the government says that 30 percent of the indigenous communities have received their titles so far. According to Ivan Altamirano of the government's National Institute for Agricultural Reform, the other 70 percent of the titles require still more technical and legal work -- and therefore more funding. Enron maintains it has already fulfilled all of its commitments. "The land titling has been done, what we are waiting on right now for the majority of it is the signature of the president of the republic and we can't make him sign this stuff," said Laine Powell, manager of Enron's Cuiaba project.
(snip/...)

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=2528

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You'd have to say it's about time the indigenous people had SOMEONE looking after their interests, and it surely isn't going to be the oligarchy.

[Judi Lynn]

22. A reminder of what DU'ers were discussing before the Bolivian election,

during the time Rumsfeld was making clearly understood threats to Bolivians considering electing Morales:

Bolivia has been placed on the National Intelligence Council's list of 25 countries where the United States will consider intervening in case of “instability.”

This is scary talk for Latin American countries. Would the United States invade Bolivia? Given the present state of its military, unlikely.

Would the United States try to destabilize Bolivia's economy while training people how to use military force to insure Enron, Shell, British Gas, Total, Repsol, and the United States continues to get Bolivian gas for pennies on the dollar? Quite likely.
(snip)

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=HAL20051124&articleId=1322

[Judi Lynn]

23. More on land redistribution, from earlier this year:

Bolivia Plans to Redistribute Idle Farmland

By Monte Reel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, May 18, 2006; Page A20

~snip~
Government officials have said that many properties in the region were acquired illegally or given free to wealthy landowners by the dictatorial governments of the 1970s. If current owners of those lands do not pay the government to legalize their deeds, the state would inherit the properties for redistribution.
(snip)

Efforts at land reform in Bolivia date to 1953 and as recently as 1996. But current government officials said those programs were inefficient and did little to help indigenous people.
(snip/...)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/17/AR2006051701947.html

[Judi Lynn]

25. This info. may help some DU'ers concerning land redistribution:

COLONEL HUGO BANZER
President of Bolivia
In 1970, in Bolivia, when then-President Juan Jose Torres nationalized Gulf Oil properties and tin mines owned by US interests, and tried to establish friendly relations with Cuba and the Soviet Union, he was playing with fire. The coup to overthrow Torres, led by US-trained officer and Gulf Oil beneficiary Hugo Banzer, had direct support from Washington. When Banzer's forces had a breakdown in radio communications, US Air Force radio was placed at their disposal. Once in power, Banzer began a reign of terror. Schools were shut down as hotbeds of political subversive activity. Within two years, 2,000 people were arrested and tortured without trial. As in Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil, the native Indians were ordered off their land and deprived of tribal identity. Tens-of-thousands of white South Africans were enticed to immigrate with promises of the land stolen from the Indians, with a goal of creating a white Bolivia. When Catholic clergy tried to aid the Indians, the regime, with CIA help, launched terrorist attacks against them, and this "Banzer Plan" became a model for similar anti-Catholic actions throughout Latin America.
(snip/)

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html





Banzer with fellow monster,Chilean dictator Pinochet,
with _Bush Spanish friend, José María Aznar

Banzer is also the genius who sold Bolivia's water supply to _Bush business interest, the Bechtel Company, until there was too much violent upheaval in the country.

[Say_What]

34. Sounds just like what the US government did with Native Americans

here during the 1800s. The government nearly succeeded in anahilating them just like they did the buffalo. Demographics for Pine Ridge, Navajo Nation, and other reservations that we confined them to read like Haiti. Just another shining example of the *free and democratic* USSA. :sarcasm:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

26. For those who are opposed to land reform:

You may not be aware that in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the U.S. actually mandated or encouraged land reform in Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea.

Yes, back in the days when the U.S. administrations still had veterans of the New Deal era in place, land reform was considered a good thing. They realized that raising the living standards of the rural people was an essential part of national development.

And you can see how much land reform has hurt those East Asian countries... :sarcasm:

[Judi Lynn]

27. Also, as in the programs of Nixon-supported dictator Hugo Banzer,

beloved of the U.S. right-wing, native Bolivians were driven off their own lands and that land was given to the white South Africans in the early 1970's in an effort to build a large white population of landowners in Bolivia.

God only knows how much of the land in question actually belonged to the Native Bollivians as recently as when it was stolen from them in the 1970's by the Banzer dictatorship.

[praeclarus]

29. South/Central American land reformers have a short ...

... life span. Or at least tenure span.

Start with Quatemala in the 50s and work forward
in time. Especially bad if they take land from
banana corporations.

[Judi Lynn]

30. Bolivia passes major land reform

Bolivia passes major land reform

Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent
Wednesday November 29, 2006



The Bolivian president, Evo Morales, shakes hands with
Martin Condori, one of the peasants' leaders, after
signing the land reform bill. Photograph: Aizar Raldes/AP

The Bolivian president, Evo Morales, has secured a sweeping land reform bill with the help of thousands of indigenous peasants who marched on the capital, La Paz.

To the jubilation of his supporters, Mr Morales signed the bill into law at a midnight ceremony last night after overcoming fierce resistance from senators representing large landowners.

The law is intended to reverse centuries of discrimination against the indigenous majority by seizing 77,000 square miles of land - an area around three-quarters the size of Britain - deemed unproductive or illegally owned and redistributing it to the poor.

This is the struggle of our ancestors, the struggle for power and territory," Mr Morales said. "Now, the change is in our hands."
(snip/...)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1959937,00.html

[Judi Lynn]

31. Bolivia Senate OKs gas nationalization

Bolivia Senate OKs gas nationalization
Posted on : Fri, 01 Dec 2006 12:20:01 GMT

New ( News Alerts by Email click here )

LA PAZ, Bolivia, Dec. 1 (UPI) The Bolivian Senate's approval of nationalization contracts with foreign oil companies fulfills President Evo Morales' election pledge.

Lawmakers from the president's Movement Toward Socialism, with support from minor parties, approved the legislation despite criticism from opposition groups and foreign investors.

The approval of the 44 contracts will complete Morales' plan of making new investments in the area of gas nationalization.
(snip)

In late October, Bolivia completed the controversial effort to nationalize its gas industry. At the time, Morales signed a deal with eight foreign companies whereby Bolivia would increase its take in two of the country's most lucrative gas fields from 50 percent to 82 percent.
(snip/...)

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/11007.html