Morales pushes through Bolivian land reforms

Bolivian President Evo Morales signed a bill into law at midnight on Nov. 28 for the expropriation of thousands of square miles of unproductive land from wealthy families, after political maneuvering that left the opposition dazed. At the same time, in the city of Sucre, the constituent assembly, in which delegates of the governing Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) and their allies hold 151 out of 255 seats, approved a controversial rule establishing that a simple majority of votes is needed to pass proposed amendments to the constitution, rather than the two-thirds majority demanded by the opposition parties. The opposition had boycotted the Senate, in which MAS does not have a majority, to block the bill. But after Morales threatened to impose the law by presidential decree, three opposition senators (including two alternates) joined with the 12 MAS senators to reach the 14-seat quorum needed to meet. The Senate then passed the new land reform law, the contracts in which the government negotiated the nationalization of Bolivia's natural gas reserves, which were signed a month ago by 10 foreign oil companies, a reformulated budget, and an economic cooperation agreement with Venezuela. On Nov. 20, the opposition pulled out of the 27-member Senate in an attempt to block the ambitious land reform bill that will involve the seizure of rural property left idle in the wealthier eastern lowlands region for redistribution to poor, landless farmers, and to protest the adoption of the simple-majority rule in the constituent assembly, which is rewriting the constitution. But the strategy fell through when the government negotiated behind the scenes to draw the three opposition senators–of the right-wing Podemos coalition and the center-right National Unity party–back to the Senate. At midnight, the agrarian reform bill and the natural gas contracts were approved with little debate, while the opposition maintained that bribes were paid to the three legislators who voted with MAS to form a majority, allegations that are denied by the governing party. Approval of the bills and contracts in the lower house of Congress was less complicated, because MAS holds a majority there. Some 4,000 indigenous people from the highlands and from the country's tropical jungle region marched on La Paz to press for passage of the new land reform law. Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous president, cut short a tour of several countries, returning from the Netherlands for 12 hours before heading out again to Nigeria. The indigenous protesters, wearing traditional multi-colored woolen ponchos, hats and worn sandals, poured into the government palace on Nov. 28, filling the central courtyard and waving Andean flags to the rhythm of traditional songs played on the bamboo flutes, charangos, guitars and drums that cheered them on their 22-day march. On signing the new law, Morales said: "The latifundium [large landed estate] is over in Bolivia. We now have the legal instrument to put an end to the large landholders of eastern Bolivia." The new legislation replaces law 1,715, passed in 1996, that only led to the redistribution and formal land titling of 10 percent of the country's 264.5 million acres of arable land, according to the latest statistics from the National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA). It is not yet clear what proportion of the country's arable land will be confiscated and redistributed, because first it must be determined which lands are unproductive. After that, a team of experts will inspect the redistributed parcels every two years to make sure they have not been sold off for profit. Article 28 of the new law states that land whose use goes against the collective interest will be confiscated without indemnification, while article 33 says the amount of compensation paid for expropriated land will take the market value into account. Between 60 and 70 percent of the country's farmland, located in the plains of the eastern provinces of Santa Cruz, Beni and Pando, are owned by a handful of families who are protected by business organizations, said Rural Development Minister Hugo Salvatierra. "Recuperating the land has a taste of justice," Minister of Justice Casimira Rodríguez commented just minutes before Morales signed the bill into law. Afterwards, the president immediately announced other measures like recovering state control over large tin mines administered under concession by private Bolivian companies and cooperatives. On May 1, the government decreed the re-nationalization of Bolivia's vast natural gas reserves–the second-largest in South America after Venezuela's–and in October it signed new contracts with 10 foreign oil companies and an agreement for supplies to Argentina, which authorities say will raise energy revenues up to $4 billion a year in the next three years. That is equivalent to nearly 50 percent of Bolivia's current gross domestic product of $9.3 billion, in a country where the minimum monthly wage is just $55. However, the amount of royalties and taxes that will flow into the state coffers depends on calculations of output, investment and repayments which have not yet been set by the contracts. The army was called out to back up the nationalization of the country's gas fields. But army chief Freddy Bersatti has announced that his force will not take part in the expropriation of land, which he said would be carried out peacefully under the new law. "The land will never again be sold over the internet," Deputy Minister of Land Alejandro Almaraz said emphatically, referring to the on-line sale of property already inhabited by Guarani Indians in the southeast. "The march has cost us sacrifice and tears," said Adolfo Chávez, a member of the Confederation of Indigenous People of Eastern Bolivia. He recalled the deaths of Macadeo Choque Arco, 26, and Betzabé Flores, 23, who were run over by a car in strange circumstances on Nov. 14 on the highway between Santa Cruz and Cochabamba in central Bolivia. Another woman was killed when she was struck by lightning while marching in the highlands region. Agribusiness interests "will never again dominate our territories. Their power to wrest so much land from indigenous people is finished," said Chávez. Indigenous people in the east were the first to demand amendments to the constitution that would enable them to recover their land when they marched 300 miles between the cities of Trinidad and La Paz in June 1990. Wearing traditional dress, indigenous leader Martín Condori said in a speech on Nov. 28 that the "decolonization" process had begun. "Now it is our turn to work the idle land in the east and live in harmony and happiness," he said, to applause and shouts of "jallalla Evo" (viva Evo, in Aymara). President of the Senate Santos Ramírez defended the strategy used to obtain a quorum and majority support for bills. "We are doing the right thing," he said in defense of the new law and the simple-majority rule in the constituent assembly, which he said would apply to the approval of each article, although the final text of the new constitution will require a two-thirds majority before it is adopted.