VENEZUELA: THE GREENING OF THE REVOLUTION

Urban Gardening and Self-Sufficiency in Caracas

by April M. Howard, Toward Freedom

In the middle of the modern, concrete city of Caracas, Norali Verenzuela is standing in a garden dressed in jeans and work boots. She is the director of the Organopónico Bolivar I, the first urban, organic garden to show its green face in the heart of the city.

One afternoon while international crowds swarmed the city for the World Social Forum, I visited the “organoponic” garden to talk with Verenzuela about the garden’s place in the city and Venezuelan politics. To Verenzuela, the garden represents a shift in the ways that Venezuelans get their food. “People are waking up,” she had recently told the press. “We’ve been dependent on McDonald’s and Wendy’s for so long. Now people are learning to eat what we can produce ourselves.” [1]

Busy commuters might miss the corner of green between busy sidewalks at the Bellas Artes metro stop and the shiny skyscrapers of the Caracas Hilton. At the edge of the garden, a squat concrete shed has a window onto the sidewalk. Inside, shelves display bunches of lettuce and carrots for sale to the public at much cheaper prices than found in the grocery stores.

This 1.2-acre plot tucked into what was an empty lot is part of a plan led by the government of President Hugo Chavez to shift the Venezuelan economy toward what it calls “endogenous development.” Defined by its roots, the word “endogenous” means “inwardly creating,” which is what the leaders of the Bolivarian Revolution would like to make the economy of Venezuela.

Since 1998, the government of President Hugo Chavez has embarked on wide-ranging projects to redistribute Venezuelan resources and services. He has promised radical change to the 83% of Venezuelans who live below the poverty line in a country that is one of the world’s largest exporters of oil. [2] Chavez has redirected oil income from a large and wealthy management class to a multiplicity of projects designed to improve social welfare. The scope of these projects range from programs aimed to address health and educational needs to the gardens, which are designed to change the modus operandi of the Venezuelan economy

In theory, an endogenous Venezuelan economy would be more self-sufficient and would favor products made in Venezuela by Venezuelans. “We have been exporters of raw materials and consumers of manufactured goods. One of the first objectives…is to put a stop to that game,” says Carlos Lanz, an endogenous strategist for the Bolivarian Revolution. [3]

The Organopónicos are inspired by similar projects that sprung up in Cuba after the fall of the Soviet Bloc. Under this model, Venezuelans would buy and consume food grown in Venezuela, as opposed to the current situation in which, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Venezuela imports about 80% of the food that it consumes. The FAO maintains that this has meant trouble for the poorest sections of society, and small farmers in particular. [4]

The garden that I visited has been called a showcase for the endogenous program. Director Verenzuela tells me that the garden was created in 2002 as a cooperative. However, there were organizational problems, and many left the cooperative. It was then converted into a government project and inaugurated in 2003 as the Organopónico Bolivar I by President Hugo Chávez. Now the garden is supported by a variety of governmental and international agenices that make up Venezuela’s Special Program for Food Security (SPFS).

The Venezuelan SPFS is one of 71 international food security programs initiated by the United Nations since 1996—but Venezuela’s in in many ways distinct. “Venezuela’s SPFS is nationally owned and is one of the largest in Latin America… [and] has been designed, planned and implemented by the Venezuelan government and the country’s rural communities.” [5] The main foci of the program are: management of water resources; intensification of crop production; production diversification and analysis of constraints faced by small farmers.

The program is funded mainly by the Venezuelan government, with a significant contribution by the FAO, and a small amount from the Cuban government. As a part of the SPFS, Chavez and the program directors have set a target of supplying 20% of Venezuela’s vegetable production from the new urban gardens. [6] The Agriculture Ministry is planning to plant 2,470 more acres of organic urban gardens this year. [7]

The Cuban government has also sent support in the form of agricultural specialists. The program also holds workshops to show people how to grow vegetables in raised beds or pots in their yards or houses for their own consumption.

Inspired by the Cold War

The modern urban gardens that inspired the Organopónico Bolivar I were not initiated by a government, but by Cuban citizens who desperately needed food.

After the collapse of the USSR, Cuba no longer had access to much of the 57% of its food that it had imported, mostly from the Soviet bloc, or the fertilizers, pesticides and cheap fuel it needed for large-scale industrial farming. [8] In the ensuing economic crisis, Cubans in the city began to create their own organic urban gardens out of necessity, which came to be called organopónicos.

“Cuba’s agricultural scientists had been researching organic farming before the Special Period, but the government was caught off guard when organopónicos started sprouting spontaneously,” reports American farmer Peter Rosset, co-director of Food First and the Institute for Food and Development Policy in Oakland, California. [9] The government jumped on board when it became evident how successful the small gardens were, and now the Cuban scientists try to keep up with these backyard farmers. Eventually, most of Cuba’s large-scale, mono-cropping, export-oriented farming system was converted to an alternative food production system using low-input, sustainable techniques. [10]

The Cuban government now states that 50% of the vegetables produced on the island come from urban gardens. [11] By the end of 2000, food availability in Cuba had reached daily levels of calories and protein considered sufficient by the FAO. In Havana, 90% of the city’s fresh produce now comes from organic local urban farms and gardens. By 2003, consumption of diesel fuel was down by more than 50% of 1989 levels, and chemical fertilizers and synthetic insecticide use were both less than 10% of former levels. Instead, bio-pesticides, soil treatments and beneficial insect breeding are used to protect crops. Scientists and farmers are feeling so confident in the garden program that they claim even should the blockade fall, they will not shift their methods back to industrial monoculture. [12]

In Venezuela, any sanctions imposed by the socialist-wary US government could result in similar problems; thus President Chavez’s interest in Cuban methods of self sufficiency. During Chavez’s presidency, he has used Venezuelan oil as an offering of solidarity to many allies, including Cuba. An energy agreement he created now supplies the island with up to 53,000 barrels of oil per day, and has made Venezuela Cuba’s most important trading partner. [13] In exchange, the clinics, schools and technical projects initiated by the Chavez government are all visited, advised and staffed by Cuban doctors, engineers and technicians.

The gardens are just a small part of Chavez’s work to rectify larger land problems in Venezuela. Currently, less than 2% of the population owns 60% of the land. Because of the success of the oil industry, Venezuela’s agricultural sector has been long neglected. This is not to say that there is a lack of arable land, but production accounts for only 6% of the GDP, and “Venezuela’s agricultural sector is the least productive in all of Latin America.” [14] This has created the “exogenous” situation that Venezuela finds itself today, importing 80% of food consumed. [15] In contrast, the United States’ agricultural imports account for 13% of total food consumed, though the percentage is rising. [16]

Part of Chavez’s program has been to officially give the land to the people who need it, and in many cases are already using it. He has worked actively to redistribute land in the cities by giving squatter communities the titles to their land, and has promised to redistribute more rural land. His most notable action has been the seizure of unused foreign-owned ranches without offering to pay the previous owners. One of the first to be transferred to squatter ownership was a British-owned cattle ranch called El Charcote, which was given to farmers in early 2005. [17] Chavez has also moved to ban genetically modified seeds, and to create a seed bank for the preservation of indigenous crops around the world. [18]

Creating the Garden in the City

For Norali Verenzuela, the story of the Organopónico began when she was studying social work and went on a two-month government-sponsored trip to Cuba in 2003. She was impressed by the garden programs she saw in Cuba. When she got back, she was excited to hear Chavez talking about public organic gardening as a possible solution to Venezuela’s food importation problem. When she heard about the Cuban-inspired project at Bellas Artes, she immediately asked to join.

Now neat rows surround a water tank in concentric circles of companion planted beds. As we walked between the rows I saw lettuce, peppers, bok choy, beets, carrots, a green called verdolaga (similar to purslane), eggplants, Chinese cabbage, and a variety of herbs. Chives and calendula were interspersed decoratively. For such an international collection of plants, the weeds were staunchly Venezuelan. As we walked around the garden translating plant names and uses back and forth from Spanish and English, Verenzuela pointed out a slim stalk of amaranth in the bushes on the side. The ancient native grain locally called “Caracas grass” was the main sustenance of the indigenous people—and was therefore burned by the Spanish. Though the garden doesn’t cultivate it, she says that it is a powerfully nutritive plant, and that the healthiest seniors she knows all eat it faithfully.

Before the garden was there, the open lot was a security concern for its owner, the government-owned Anauco Hilton hotel. Five security guards were hired to monitor the space, and the walls around the garden still sport the barbed wire that was used to keep purported vagrants and drug dealers out. Now the Anauco Hilton pays the garden workers’ salaries and one security guard to monitor the territory. The garden is also home to two tranquil guard dogs which have been well trained not to dig up the beds. When I asked several veteran street vendors nearby about the security concerns, they all agreed that the area was less dangerous. They liked being able to buy the cheap vegetables, too.

The seeds, tools and supplies used in the garden are paid for by the government. In addition to the regularly paid staff, the garden accepts drop-in unemployed workers from nearby barrios, such as Caricuao, who can work and take home vegetables. Much of the recent barrio population in Caracas has migrated to the city from the countryside, and know how to perform agricultural work. According to Verenzuela, the climate allows for the gardens to be productive year round. When crops are harvested, the beds are empty several days at most before new crops are planted.

Verenzuela herself returned to Cuba in 2005 to study the urban gardens and find systems to emulate back in Caracas. She was intimidated by what she saw as a monumental success. “But we are still young,” she says, “We can’t help it if their beets are twice as big, we’ll get there.”

Cuban agricultural scientists often visit and help the Bolivar I garden. Among the gardeners, two are Cuban agricultural engineers.

However, program directors are quick to insist that the gardens are made for a Venezuelan, not Cuban reality. “It’s not a Cuban model,” said Cojedes state governor Jhonny Yanez, a Chavez ally leading the land reform charge. “It’s a Venezuelan model based on an oil economy that can feed itself.” [19]

Opposition to the Garden

Although the Organopónico Bolivar I has become an established part of the city, Caracas hasn’t always met it with open arms. The garden project has been criticized as a hypocritical publicity stunt by both Caracans and international environmentalists. While the garden might be seen by environmentalists as a nice gesture, they cite Chavez as a threat to the environment, due to his program’s dependency on the oil industry and the refining of Venezuela’s sulfur-heavy crude. Government contracts with oil companies Petrobras and ChevronTexaco have focused on drilling in the Amazon. [20] However, the most direct assaults on the garden have come from anti-Chavez Caracans.

The Opposition, as it is generally known, meet all government projects with distrust and derision, if they admit that the projects are happening at all. While Chavistas are stereotyped as poor Venezuelans from the barrios, the Chavistas call the Opposition los esqualidos, or the squalid people, and portray them as wealthy oligarchs. During my time in Venezuela, I found that the situation is not that simple. I spoke with people in the barrios who were skeptical of Chavez, and a businessman flying to New York City who was very supportive of Chavez. Talking to a range of Venezuelans is a dizzyingly inconsistent experience. Both Chavistas and those in the Opposition that I met believed that they were in the majority and that the other side was completely corrupt.

Still, the claims made by the Opposition are more difficult to swallow. All of the Opposition supporters I spoke with believe that they are the majority, and that Chavez has very little support in the country. This is in spite of the fact that elections (deemed fair by international observers) show that Chavez consistently receives 60% of presidential votes. Chavez has won 9 elections and a recall referendum, and was reinstated by massive popular protest after he was kidnapped in an attempted coup in 2002. I was told that Chavez’s endogenous economic policies are driving out foreign investment and that he will bring the country to economic ruin. In some cases, Opposition supporters tried to convince me that Chavez is embezzling the oil money that is supposedly going to social programs, and that there are no social programs going on at all. During my visits to the barrios, it was clear that schools, medical clinics, government-subsidized markets and community radio stations were in construction or full swing.

Ingrained in the culture of the wealthy opposition is a sense of entitlement to the resources that they have always had control over, and a belief that poor Venezuelans live the way that they do because they are lazy and racially inferior. Some of the wealthiest Opposition supporters are concerned that their property might be taken away, as has happened to foreign owners of unused countryside. One man approached me on the subway and missed his stop to tell me that he was being secretly banned from government jobs for voting against Chavez in the 2004 referendum.

One of the most ridiculous claims of the Opposition (and the most repeated in the US) is that Chavez is restricting freedom of the press. Most media in Venezuela is owned by the Opposition. The television stations and newspapers ridicule and rail against the government on a daily basis, and some stations seem to dedicate themselves to it. This is not to say that the pro-government papers and TV station are less biased, but they are the minority. [21]

The garden hasn’t been immune to this political divide either. In the first few months of its existence, the garden saw some sabotage (from the Opposition, according to Norali Verenzuela), in which some plants were robbed. At other times, people stood outside the gardens and protested, and the workers ended up calling the police. Some Caracans have also complained about the smell of the manure imported from the country. The press ran stories saying that the vegetables were contaminated and unsafe to eat. Late last spring, workers found a huge snake, which someone had slipped into the garden at night. The gardeners have taken these attacks in stride, partially because it has become evident that the organopónicos represent much more than simple gardens. “As a pilot project,” Verenzuela noted, “it [the garden] can’t be allowed to fail.” [22]

In some cases, workers even found practical uses for the weapons of attack. In November, workers found some very destructive goats, which were let in to the garden by the Opposition, according to Verenzuela. Before the goats were able to do too much damage, workers caught, killed, roasted and ate them as an afternoon barbecue. Perhaps this is the organoponic interpretation of “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”

Recently, according to Verenzuela, the attacks have stopped, and the garden has become an accepted part of the landscape. In fact, Verenzuela says that some of their most faithful customers are opposed to Chavez. “We are making food, and food is not political,” claims Verezuela. “Besides, they know that our food is better.”

Snakes in the Garden

Cynics of the endogenous and organoponic programs have asked why so much energy is being focused in urban gardening when there is so much fertile, unused farming land available in the rural areas. The national farmers’ federation Fedeagro says it is not opposed to the urban food program, but it is concerned about what it perceives as a lack of governmental support for the farming sector. “The problem is that it looks as though the government is concentrating all its efforts on these city farming plots, and yet the national sector remains in the state it’s in,” said Fedeagro’s technical adviser Nelson Calabria. [23]

According to the FAO, 92% of Venezuelans currently live and work in urban centers and a mere 8% in rural areas, [24] which means that, were Venezuela to need to feed itself, the vast majority of the population would be in better shape if cities were also a viable option for food production.

At the Organopónico Bolivar I, Verenzuela pointed out that the idea of urban gardens was a radical one for many Venezuelans. Journalist Magdelena Morales writes of the “the derision of critics,” who scoff at Chavez’s suggestions that barrio residents “should raise crops and chickens on their balconies and rooftops.” [25] As Verenzuela explains, “We are showing people that a garden is possible in a city.”

Another concern that skeptics have had about urban gardens is the very real question of pollution. Some opposition-experts have claimed that the exhaust-laden air of the center of the city center “contains concentrations of carbon monoxide and lead that could contaminate growing plants.” [26] This idea crossed my mind as well, and I asked Verenzuela what their response at the Bolivar I had been. She led me over to a white machine mounted on a post in the middle of the garden. This, she told me, was the garden’s pollution meter (catalizador de contaminación), and a technician comes every 15 days to take a reading. She didn’t tell me what the acceptable levels were, but indicated that they hadn’t had any concerns so far.

A Better Alternative

In Havana, where most of the produce available is grown in organoponic gardens, some residents have complained about quality and availability of produce. [27] Luckily, the Bolivar I is under a little less pressure, because at this point gardens are only one of many options for Caracans. Verenzuela says that many Caracans choose to buy their food there because it is fresher and cheaper. Local supermarkets don’t offer a large variety of organic vegetables, and what is there is very expensive compared to the produce at the Organopónico Bolivar I.

The availability of fresh produce is even credited for a change in local dietary habits. When the garden took to growing bok choy; at first, Venezuelans had no idea what it was, but after they saw how many local Asians were buying it, they started to try it as well. Now lettuce and bok choy are big sellers, and the garden market often runs out. Nearby residents weren’t big vegetable eaters; the traditional meals are big on meat and fried starches. However, like their Cuban counterparts, the presence of cheap green produce has led Caracans to eat more greens, says Verenzuela. In Cuba, the increased vegetable consumption has reportedly contributed to a 25% decline in heart disease. [28]

According to Verenzuela, Venezuelans are beginning to realize the risks that agricultural pesticides present. Chemicals are used indiscriminately in Los Andes, the main agricultural region. Verenzuela stated that commercial farmers in Los Andes don’t always follow directions for chemical usage. Farmers sometimes treat their crops and harvest them on the same day, which has led to cancers and infertility in the region. Still, when I asked some street vendors buying their vegetables from the little store by the metro exit if they were happy to be buying organic vegetables, they raised their eyebrows. “Sure,” said a jewelry maker, “but we like these vegetables because they are cheap!”

More than a Garden

At the Organopónico Bolivar I, there are big plans for the future. Verenzuela would like to sell rabbits, make pickles, and sell potted ornamental and medicinal plants. As it is, Verenzuela regularly provides tours and hosts study groups of university students at the garden. Students studying agriculture at the newly formed Bolivarian University are required to visit and work in the organopónicos.

The garden has also become a safe haven for some local kids. One young girl played quietly in the garden while I visited. “Her father is a street vendor,” explains Verenzuela. “There were some problems, and she started hanging out here. She has her toys here, and we take her to school, and she does her homework here afterwards. She likes it here.”

I take a last deep breath of fresh air before going back onto the crowded street. “Sometimes the people in the city look twice at us if we go out in our farming clothes to do some errands,” Verenzuela says in her oasis of green. “Working here has really changed my life. I’m kind of out of touch with the soap operas and the news, but I like it.”

NOTES

1. Adams, David. “Venezuela’s new revolution centers on land.” St. Petersburg Times, Jan. 24, 2005.

2. Myrie, Clive. “Revolution on Venezuela’s Estates.” BBC News. Aug 23, 2005.

3. Adams, David. “Venezuela’s new revolution centers on land.” St. Petersburg Times. Jan. 24, 2005

4 “Feature: FAO in Venezuela,” Food and Agricultural Organization, 2002.

5. “FAO in Venezuela,” op cit

6. Lamb, Jon. “Food, poverty and ecology: Cuba & Venezuela lead the way,” Green Left Weekly, Feb. 2, 2005.

7. Morales, Magdalena, “Cuba exports city farming ‘revolution’ to Venezuela,” Reuters, April 22, 2003.

8. Lamb, op cit

9. Perkins, Jerry, “Organic farming flourishes in Cuba,” The Des Moines Register, March 16, 2003.

10. Perkins, op cit

11. Morales, op cit

12. Lamb, op cit

13. Morales, op cit

14. Lamb, op cit

15. FAO, op cit

16. Jerardo, Alberto, “The US Ag Trade Balance…More Than Just A Number,” Amber Waves, USDA Economic Research Service, February 2004.

17. “Venezuela to speed up land reform.” BBC News, Sept. 26, 2005.

18. Lamb, op cit

19. Adams, David, “Venezuela’s new revolution centers on land.” St. Petersburg Times, Jan. 24, 2005

20. Vargas Llosa, Alvaro, “Why the Left Should Cringe at Chavez,” RealClearPolitics.org. Feb, 2006; Dahlstrom, Hanna, “Macho Men and State Capitalism: Is Another World Possible?” UpsideDownWorld.org,. Jan. 17, 2006

21. Parma, Alessandro. “Chavez Los Tiene Locos (Chavez Drives them Crazy): A First- Hand Impression of the Venezuelan Opposition.” Venezuelanalysis.com, Nov. 24, 2005

22. Adams, David, “Venezuela’s new revolution centers on land.” St. Petersburg Times., Jan. 24, 2005

23. Morales, op cit

24. FAO, op cit

25. Morales, op cit

26. ibid

27. ibid.

28. Lamb, op cit

——

This story first appeared in Toward Freedom, Aug. 10
http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/869/

See also:

“Peak Oil Preview: North Korea & Cuba Face the Post-Petrol Future,”
by Dale Jiajun Wen
WW4 REPORT #123, July 2006
/node/2149

———————–
Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Sept. 1, 2006
Reprinting permissible with attribution

Continue ReadingVENEZUELA: THE GREENING OF THE REVOLUTION 

THE NEW AGRARIAN REFORM IN BOLIVIA

by Stefan Baskerville, Diplo

Rusty buses lined the wide road, their roofs packed with men, sitting, crouching and lying down.

Families sat and stood in the back of old pick-up trucks. The people arrived in droves, by truck, bus or on foot, carrying banners and flags. The Wiphala, a flag composed of multi-coloured squares, was held aloft, draped around shoulders and hung from the small trees in the grassy central divide of the road. It represents the indigenous people of Bolivia who make up nearly two thirds of the population, those descended from the people who inhabited the land before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors. Not only the majority, they are also overwhelmingly the poorest. As one of their leaders said, they are often condemned to work as “peons” or serfs for wealthy landowners, “latifundistas.” This is a situation generations have faced for five hundred years.

On Saturday June 3, 2006 thousands of indigenous campesinos, peasants and agricultural laborers, congregated around a small stage in the eastern Bolivian city of Santa Cruz. Representatives of three communities were presented with the legal titles to their land by President Evo Morales, a former union leader of coca growers and now the first indigenous president of the most indigenous country in Latin America. In total, sixty sets of papers were received by communities from different parts of Bolivia, from the departments of Beni, Cochabamba, La Paz, Oruro, Pando, Santa Cruz and Tarija. The land titles represented over 7.5 million acres of land, for farmer communities as small as 103 acres, and designated native lands as large as 1.1 million acres.

The campesinos were largely poor, with beaten up old sandals, dirty clothes and rough calloused hands, the result of a life of hard labor. With one hand Leon Jeremi Debasces waved the blue and white flag of MAS, the coalition party led by Evo Morales, whilst his other limp arm hung by his side. “It is our right to own land” he said. “We live on the land; our parents lived on the land. This is our life ˆ to work, to produce from the land for our families and for the city. We have to work to survive.”

The legal titles given out by Morales were lying dormant in the government offices of INRA, the National Institute for Agrarian Reform, for up to ten years—a sign of the snails’ pace at which agrarian reform has taken place in Bolivia. They do not represent a large redistribution of state land chosen after Morales took office. The significance of the ceremony at Santa Cruz lies mostly in the symbolism of an indigenous president working for his people, and in the signaled intention of the government to implement existing land laws to benefit the poor indigenous majority.

The event followed Morales’ announcement on May 1 that his government would redistribute millions of acres of state land to the landless, and appropriate those lands held illegally or left idle. Under present Bolivian law land belongs to the state if it doesn’t fulfil an economic or social function. The government has since stated it will redistribute 48 million acres, nearly a fifth of Bolivia. At the event in Santa Cruz, Morales launched an “agrarian revolution”—in contrast to the “reform” of 1996 that has proceeded slowly with minimal benefits for Bolivia’s poorest, allowing the continued existence of large latifundios despite their prohibition by law. Land reform was first enacted into law in 1953 after the Bolivian revolution. Whilst that radical reform was implemented in the western altiplano (highlands), the best arable land in the fertile lowlands of the east has remained in the hands of the few.

Jacinto Herrera Huanca is twenty nine years old, a father of three, and works full time for the FSUTC-SC [Federación Sindical Unica de Trabajadores Campesinos], the union representing the landless and poor campesinos of Santa Cruz Department. They amount to around 200,000 people, although the numbers are uncertain because many do not have identification or even birth certificates. “We have been fighting for ten years to get the titles to land” he says. “The people are very happy because until now there have only been promises. The government used to promise and not deliver.”

A few days earlier in a business complex, a large warehouse was filled with around eight hundred people, many dressed in shiny leather shoes with sunglasses clipped to the collar of their shirts. Nowhere were the pervading divisions of race and inequality of wealth more obvious. Waiting staff, many with dark skin, were dressed in bow ties and neat pinafores serving fizzy drinks. It was a meeting of the Camara Agropecuaria del Oriente (CAO), the main federation of landowners in the east of Bolivia, and they were planning opposition to Morales’ plan. Those present were overwhelmingly of European descent and visibly wealthy. The banner above the stage read: “To preserve our model of production”—that is, one built on cheap labor, poverty and sometimes nearly feudal serfdom. Many speakers talked of forming “self-defense committees,” and one man who took the stage said, “I am here like a soldier of the militia, I will fight for my lands, and I say welcome to the Defense Committee of Bolivia.” The calls were repeated by Jose Cespedes, president of the CAO, a few days later.

Whilst the latifundistas talk like victims, they have benefited hugely from the misery and poverty of millions of campesinos. Statistics from the United Nations Development Program demonstrate that while just over 12 million acres of Bolivian land are shared by 2 million campesino families, over 60 million acres are owned by less than 100 families. Among these latifundistas are ex-ministers, foreigners, and influential families, many of whom benefited from the corruption of previous Bolivian governments, notably that of the brutal dictator Hugo Banzer. Most of the illegal handouts took place in the 1970s and 1980s, but manipulations of the law continued into the 1990s.

The overall effect was, in the words of Santos Mumuni, was that “the law has been manipulated so that the land is not for those that work it but for those that pay the taxes. It benefits the rich.” Santos is a law student in Cochabamba specializing in the law of land ownership and agrarian reform. His parents are campesinos in the department of La Paz with “small parcels” of land, and like his president, Santos lost several of his many brothers in childhood—a common occurrence in poor families where malnutrition and disease can be the norm.

Jacinto Herrera Huanca has “a lot of hope about this indigenous government because it understands what it is to live a poor life and to work hard. The people we represent sell what they produce and it is just enough to survive. They produce corn, potatoes, yucca, tomatoes and carrots. They live as peons, they have a lot of children and they earn enough to feed themselves. It is a hard life. Each family has between one and five hectares [two to twelve acres] of land, which represents, for example, two trucks of rice per year, worth US$400-500 each year. Now with their own land things are going to be a little better because before most had to pay rent to work and live there.” Another indigenous leader adds that three days after the event that his people were still making barbecues and celebrating their receipt of land titles. For them, this is a life-changing moment, time for a fiesta.

The issue of land reform in Bolivia will not be resolved for years or possibly decades to come. Land ownership distribution as it stands is unsustainable—divisive, unproductive and unjust, built on centuries of exploitation and corruption. The oppressed people at the bottom of the pile are organized and have hope. Santos says, “I have seen the fight of my parents and it inspired me to join the struggle. Governments did everything they could to help their own people, but the campesinos fought against that and we can now see the results of that fight.”

If Evo and MAS, pushed by Bolivia’s powerful social movements, can prevail, the people of Bolivia will get their land back. The colorful Wiphala flag will continue to fly.

——

This article appears in the September 2006 edition of Diplo, an international monthly current affairs magazine based in London
http://www.diplo-magazine.co.uk

It is also online at Upside Down World
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/376/1/

See also:

“Constitutional Reform in Bolivia:
Between Electoral Theater and Revolution”
by Ben Dangl
WW4 REPORT #124, August 2006
/node/2261

“Bolivia: conspiracy against constitutional reform?”
WW4 REPORT, Aug. 14
/node/2331

———————–

Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Sept. 1, 2006
Reprinting permissible with attribution

Continue ReadingTHE NEW AGRARIAN REFORM IN BOLIVIA 

ECUADOR: OIL PROTESTS CONTINUE

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

Some 22,000 residents of the northeastern Ecuadoran province of Orellana began a “progressive strike” on June 28 to protest environmental damage by the French oil company Perenco and repression by the military. The protest began with residents of the provincial capital, Francisco de Orellana, blocking roads leading to one of Perenco’s installations and threatening to block all the roads in the province, where much of the country’s oil production is concentrated. “The number [of protesters] will grow with the actions, because the communities will no longer put up with disrespect from the government and the oil companies,” Orellana province prefect Guadalupe Llori told the media.

Confrontations between the protesters and some 300 soldiers increased after protesters seized the area around the Coca airport and blocked the roads leading to it. Llori charged the military had violated the law by entering Francisco de Orellana, where it had no jurisdiction, and using rubber bullets and tear gas “against an unarmed civilian population”; two people were wounded. “[T]he soldiers made an attempt on my life,” Llori said. “They nearly killed me when they aimed a gun at me; the truth is, I don’t know how I escaped.” Later the soldiers deployed outside Coca municipality, where residents said they detained three local people.

The protesters were demanding that Perenco leave the province and pay for the damage they say it has caused. They also wanted the military to end a “state of exception” (state of emergency) it had enforced in the province for 105 days and to release human rights activist Wilmer (or Wilman) Jimenez Salazar.

According to human rights groups, the police seized Jimenez near a Perenco facility on June 19 when he was acting as a human rights observer at a protest by some 200 local campesinos, who were blocking access. Jimenez was one of two people wounded by rubber bullets. The police turned him over to military authorities, who held him for two days before notifying his family and defense attorneys. Joint Task Force #4 commander Gonzalo Meza denied a habeas corpus petition, saying Jimenez was “encountered in a fragrant act” (an error for “flagrant act”). The army says he will be tried for sabotage before a military tribunal. (El Comercio, Guayaquil. June 28; Prensa Latina, June 29; Univision, June 28 from EFE; El Universo, Guayaquil, July 1)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, July 2

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Weekly News Update on the Americas
http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html

See also WW4 REPORT #123
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Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Aug. 1, 2006
Reprinting permissible with attribution

Continue ReadingECUADOR: OIL PROTESTS CONTINUE 

PERU: TRADE PACT PASSES, CAMPESINOS PROTEST

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

In the early morning of June 28 Peru’s Congress voted 79-14 with six abstentions to ratify the Andean Free Trade Agreement (AFTA, known locally as the Free Trade Treaty, or TLC), a trade pact Peru signed with the US in December. Some 1,000-2,000 protesters began a march in the streets of Lima to reject the TLC, which they said will destroy Peruvian agriculture and industry through competition with US products. The night before, as Congress was debating the ratification, a group of political leaders from the party of nationalist former presidential candidate Ollanta Humala pushed their way into the Congress building and forced legislators to suspend the session for a half hour.

At the June 28 march, Congress member Javier Diez Canseco, leader of the Socialist Party, said that “struggle and social pressure” were ways of attacking the accord but that he would work on legal action to have the ratification declared unconstitutional.

Other politicians pushed for legislation to mitigate the effects of the TLC. Congress has approved bills providing $171 million worth of compensation for the agricultural sector, and other measures are under discussion. Legislators from the social democratic Peruvian Aprista Party (PAP) voted for the TLC, but PAP leader Alan Garcia, who takes office as president on July 28, has promised to renegotiate parts of the accord. (Punto de Noticias, Venezuela, June 28 from AFP; Univision, US, June 28 from EFE; Prensa Latina, July 1)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, July 2

Peruvian campesinos blocked roads and held street demonstrations on July 4 to protest the TLC. In the southern city of Pisco, police used tear gas to disperse protesters who were blocking the Panamerican South highway with stones. Campesinos in the south said on July 5 they would continue an open-ended strike and road blockades to protest the TLC.

Some 500 people marched on July 4 through the center of Lima to protest the TLC. The protesters later rallied peacefully outside the bunker-like home of US ambassador James Curtis Struble, which was guarded by 1,000 police agents, while inside the complex President Alejandro Toledo praised the TLC at an event honoring US independence day. (El Nuevo Herald, Miami, July 5 from AP; AFP, July 4; Prensa Latina, July 5; Adital, July 5) Toledo flew to the US on July 9 to begin lobbying members of the US Congress to approve the trade pact. (El Comercio, Peru, July 9)

The US hopes that AFTA will eventually include Colombia and Ecuador.

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, July 9

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See also WW4 REPORT #123
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Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Aug. 1, 2006
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Continue ReadingPERU: TRADE PACT PASSES, CAMPESINOS PROTEST 

PARAGUAY: U.S. MARINES BACK PARAMILITARIES?

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

Thousands of Paraguayan campesinos continued to occupy estates and block roads during the week of July 17 to demand that the government of President Nicanor Duarte Frutos address the problems they face. The protests began on July 12 as part of a National Campaign for Integral Agrarian Reform.

On July 19, at least 800 campesinos from the National Coordinating Committee of Campesino Organizations (MCNOC) blocked Route 8 at a crossroads in Numi district, on the border between Guaira and Caazapa departments. Police responded with violent repression: in a communique issued the same day, MCNOC reported that eight people were badly hurt and taken to the hospital in Villarrica, Guaira, including a man with a serious head injury; 51 people were detained at the Villarrica police station, including children, a pregnant woman and two MCNOC leaders; and 200 campesinos, men and women, “were savagely tortured for more than two hours, naked, face down,” by police and possibly soldiers. (MCNOC communique, July 19 via Minga Informativa de Movimientos Sociales; Adital, Brazil, July 20; La Nacion, Paraguay, July 20)

The Paraguayan daily La Nacion reported that 38 people were arrested–including nine infants and children, detained with their parents–and 12 people were injured in the police crackdown at Numi. Villarrica prosecutor Perla Caceres de Bataglia issued the order to forcibly remove the protesters, and police from Guaira and Caazapa carried it out. Caceres is threatening to bring charges against the campesinos for organizing the blockade of the route, and to charge parents for allegedly using their children as “shields.”

In Itapua department, campesinos said they would blockade Route 6 in the area of Maria Auxiliadora to impede participation in a mayoral primary election for the ruling Colorado Party. Between 300 and 1,000 campesinos have been blocking Route 6 intermittently on a daily basis near the 8 de Diciembre settlement in Tomas Romero Pereira district. There have also been intermittent blockades of Route 7 in Jose Domingo Ocampos district, Caaguazu department. (LN, July 20)

Also on July 19, some 3,000 campesinos from the MCNOC marched along Route 10 in Capiibary, San Pedro department, to protest a police attack on protesters there the previous week which left several people injured. Among those hurt was Fidelina Aquino, who was eight months pregnant and lost her unborn child as a result of the attack. (LN, July 20; Prensa Latina, July 20)

Meanwhile, more than 300 indigenous people from the Mbya Guarani nation have been camped out since July 6 in the main plaza of the city of San Juan Nepomuceno, Caazapa department, demanding “land and freedom” as well as autonomy for indigenous peoples. The protesters are from Karumbey, Kokuere Guazu and other communities in Caazapa. They are also demanding the removal of missionaries from their communities. (Adital, July 21)

From Weekly News Update, July 23

The occupations began on July 12, when some 5,000 landless families invaded 20 estates owned by Paraguayans and foreigners in seven of Paraguay’s 17 departments, in a coordinated action to demand a speedy agrarian reform. “The occupation of private properties is a legitimate action; it may not be legal, but it’s the only way to get the attention of the authorities,” said Luis Aguayo, a leader of the MCNOC. (AP, July 12)

The owners’ claims to the 20 properties occupied by MCNOC members on July 12 are of “spurious origin,” said Aguayo, since the lands were “adjudicated to characters connected with the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989),” and many lack legal titles. The occupied estates are located in the departments of Caaguazu, Caazapa, Itapua, Canindeyu, Misiones, San Pedro and Paraguari. The date of the land invasion was chosen because July 12 marks the 20th anniversary of the murder of two campesinos by soldiers, Aguayo noted. (Notimex, July 12)

Aguayo said that a year ago the MCNOC presented President Duarte Frutos with a plan for expropriating large tracts of idle lands owned by foreigners. “We did the same with the legislators, but we haven’t received a favorable response, so we have no other option than to occupy the lands,” Aguayo explained. There are 300,000 landless families in Paraguay, according to Aguayo. (AP, July 12) Official statistics show that 80% of the land in Paraguay is in the hands of less than 10% of the population. (Adital, July 14)

Duarte reacted to the land occupations on July 12 by holding a meeting with Agriculture Minister Carlos Santacruz; Santacruz then announced that the government would increase a credit line for campesino cotton producers who had suffered drought losses. (Notimex, July 12)

Virgilio Barboza, chief of public order for the National Police, said his agency was implementing “dialogue as a way to avoid frictions or violent actions; through conversations with the campesino leaders we are trying to persuade them to start leaving the private properties peacefully.” Barboza said the police had managed to peacefully end two of the occupations so far.

“We won’t use force because it won’t be the solution, besides which the National Police doesn’t have enough agents to control all the invasions,” said Barboza. (AP, July 12) However, according to press reports, some 100 police agents intervened to remove a group of 3,000 campesinos from the MCNOC who were blocking a highway in Capiibary, San Pedro department. Two people were arrested and nine injured. The campesinos have camped out nearby and say they will invade other estates. (Adital, July 14)

U.S. MARINES BLAMED FOR DEATHS

On July 12, Paraguayan campesino groups and social organizations held a press conference to announce that US Marines and special groups acting as paramilitaries “are responsible for more than 30 disappearances and deaths” since April of workers and campesinos in Paraguay. “In less than three months there were more than 30 disappearances and several deaths, all at the hands of the landowners of each place,” Nicolas Barreto of the Paraguayan Campesino Movement (MCP) told the Argentine news agency Telam. (Telam, July 12)

Paraguayan armed forces spokesperson Col. Elvio Antonio Flores Servin told Telam the charges were untrue: “There is not a single US Marine here in Paraguay,” he said. But according to Barreto, “in Paraguay, the army and the paramilitary groups act in the evictions with brutal repression against campesinos, leaving people wounded, dead and disappeared, with the direct control and intervention of [US] marines. (Territorio Digital, Posadas, Misiones [Argentina], July 14)

“Recently the boy Silvino Talavera died in Itapua from toxic agrochemicals, his mother reported it and in vengeance they dismembered her brother and threw him out there so everyone could see what these people are capable of doing,” Barreto explained. That incident apparently took place in Mariscal Estigarribia, where activists charge the US Southern Command has posted a force of 2,800 Marines. In the same area, the Paraguayan government has created a Citizen Security Guard, a special group that acts as a sort of legalized paramilitary group. Barreto said the paramilitary groups recruit their members from among the children of the campesinos. When human rights groups recently called on the government to dismantle the groups, deputy interior minister Commissary General Mario Agustin Saprisa responded: “in the United States and Colombia [similar groups] exist and have had good results.”

Barreto said the violence has emerged in response to stepped-up campesino struggles. “With his announced zero tolerance policy, President Duarte Frutos militarized the struggle and gave it a framework of unusual violence,” said Barreto. “To such a point that the Marines participate in the repression and even occupy agricultural schools. That is, they act like a true occupation army.” (Telam, July 12)

“The Marines are the ones who are instructing the Paraguayan forces for repression, linking campesino organizations with terrorist cells whose existence has never been proven,” agreed Vidal Acevedo of the Peace and Justice Service (SERPAJ) of Paraguay. Acevedo said the repression consists of “a joint action to stop campesino organizations.” (TD, July 14)

The US Southern Command had permission to stay in Paraguay until the end of 2006, but Vice President Luis Castigilione announced that the permission has been extended for an additional year. In Mariscal Estigarribia, a 3,800-meter-long airstrip has been built to handle large planes. Mariscal Estigarribia is in the Chaco region of northwestern Paraguay, close to lithium mines in Argentina’s Salta province and the largest gasfields in the region, across the border in the Bolivian department of Tarija. (Telam, July 12)

The US embassy in Asuncion responded to the criticisms on July 12 with a communique, insisting that the US soldiers in Paraguay are carrying out “humanitarian and medical assistance to poor communities as well as military training,” and that the US “has no intention whatsoever to establish a military base anywhere in Paraguay.” (Agencia Periodistica del Mercosur, July 13) US Embassy press attache Bruce Clainer told Telam the accusation about the military base “is a complete myth.” (Telam, July 12)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, July 16

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Weekly News Update on the Americas
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See also:

“Paraguay: march against US troops,” WW4 REPORT, June 21
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Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Aug. 1, 2006
Reprinting permissible with attribution

Continue ReadingPARAGUAY: U.S. MARINES BACK PARAMILITARIES?