Article on Agrarian Reform
Here is an article on Agarian Reform:
Bolivian Congress Passes Agrarian Reform Legislation in Spite of Heightened Regional Tensions*
December 1, 2006
Prepared by the Andean Information Network
On November 29 the Bolivian Senate approved the law modifying Bolivia’s 1996 Agrarian Reform law. The lower house of congress, where President Evo Morales’s MAS party has a clear majority approved the law quickly, but MAS needed 3 votes from opposition parties who hotly contested the initiative. The vote took place after a week of heightened tensions and public protest.
During his campaign Morales promised to redistribute 23 million hectares
within five years. The new law stipulates that land that is not currently
serving an economic or social function may be allocated to indigenous or
campesino communities with insufficient or no land. The legislation follows
the basic land tenure principles specified in the existing Bolivian
constitution, which does not legally recognize massive landholdings
(latifundia) and grants the state the right to expropriate and redistribute
land.[1]The law provides economic compensation to landowners. Bolivian
officials clarify that the initiative will primarily focus on properties
larger than 120 acres. Although the U.S. mainstream press has
characterized it as “radical” and MAS has made repeated statements attacking
the landholding elite, the law passed this week simply modifies the 1996 law
of the Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada government, and does not represent a
dramatic change in land policy.[2] What concerns the political opposition
and large-scale landowners, though, is that it appears that this government
will actually implement the policy, which had been ineffectual and subject
to corruption and favoritism in the past. The initiative’s success will
depend on the Morales administration’s’ capacity to transparently and
objectively implement and interpret the law, and the ability of all parties
to put aside their fondness for inflammatory rhetoric and polarized
positions in favor of a transparent, just policy.
Land debate occurs in heated political context
In early November, members of indigenous groups launched a march from the
lowlands and other rural areas to La Paz to demand passage of the agrarian
reform law, supporting the MAS initiative. Although participation
fluctuated, the march had over a thousand members at its peak. Lowland
agricultural interests led counter protests and opposition senators from
Jorge Quiroga’s PODEMOS and Samuel Doria Medina’s UN party boycotted
congressional sessions for a week.
The battle over land reform occurred at the same time that the Morales
administration proposed accountability legislation and a mechanism to
censure the actions of the independently elected departmental prefects. Six
out of nine prefects, or governors, represent opposition forces and the
traditional political elite, and have been consistently at odds with the
administration. These officials and their supporters said they would reject
any attempt to control their actions from the central government.
Preexisting tensions also soared over the Constitutional Assembly, as
several hundred opposition representatives, assembly delegates, and civic
leaders launched a hunger strike to demand that each article of the new
constitution be approved by a two-thirds vote. The law structuring the
constitutional assembly vaguely states that “the new constitution must be
approved by a two thirds vote.” MAS officials have pushed an initiative
through the assembly stating that individual constitutional articles can be
passed by a simple majority of over fifty percent. (MAS controls 54% of the
Assembly’s seats). As a result of frustrations over the simple majority
decision and heightened regional disputes, a crowd heckled and threw stones
at Morales after a presentation at Santa Cruz’s public university.
Furthermore, civic leaders and prefects called for a nationwide civil strike
on December 1, but only six departments partially complied while the others
operated normally. In Cochabamba, MAS followers tried to break up planning
meetings for the strike and were stopped by the police, under the command of
the regional governor. During the meeting MAS supporters and opposition
members had fistfights and shouting matches in the city’s main plaza.
The pitched battle over agrarian reform
Land reform is one of the most contentious political issues and one of the
focal points behind the regional rift between the highlands and eastern
lowlands. Although the mainstream press characterizes most lowland
residents as descendents of Europeans, the great majority of this region’s
population is indigenous or migrated from the highlands. A significant
portion of the small economic elite, who consider themselves white, whom
benefited from unscrupulous gifts of land by previous military or
traditional party governments, staunchly oppose the land redistribution
initiative.
During the past week statements by both sides have exacerbated the conflict.
On November 23, government press officer, Alex Contreras, published a list
of fourteen families, many linked to traditional political parties,
ex-ministers and current PODEMOS representatives, who he said owned a total
of 7,732,090 acres of unused land with no productive use, and claimed that
over 90 percent of the nation’s land suitable for agriculture had been given
away by political elites between 1953 and 1992. (El Diario 11-24-06).
According Contreras, Walter Guiteras, minister in the government of
ex-dictator Hugo Banzer and current PODEMOS senator, extended family owns
121,208 acres in the Beni Department. Guiteras gave journalists the finger
when they inquired about his holdings. Large-scale Santa Cruz agricultural
interests also vehemently rejected the bill. The head of the National
Agricultural Federation (Confeagro) stated that the new law would “cause the
destruction of the nation agricultural system by breaking the productive
cycle, unemployment and confrontation” (El Diario 11-23-06).
The Bolivian press reprinted information that Santa Cruz agricultural elites
sent two representatives to Spain to hire mercenaries to defend their
interests and overthrow Morales (Los Tiempos 11-24-06).
As tensions heightened, opposition senators boycotted congressional sessions
in protest, provoking threats from Morales to pass the agrarian reform
legislation by Supreme Decree. The central government avoided this
potentially disastrous political move by passing the reform through the
senate in a late night session. Three opposition votes, two from legally
elected alternates, joined the MAS block to pass the new law. The three
representatives were the only opposition party members present for the vote.
The opposition immediately claimed that MAS had bribed the three senators
into voting to pass the laws, but the government expressly denied the
accusation. The shift in position of these three opposition
representatives highlights a lack of cohesion in opposition parties, which
are a conglomeration of defunct traditional parties and other interests.
Their surprise decision to facilitate the law’s passage averted potential
acute social conflict.
Key Aspects of the New Legislation:
* As in the 1996 law, land without a social or economic use is subject
to expropriation.
* The definition of economic and social use includes areas left fallow
for crop rotation, ecological reserves and areas and projected growth of
agricultural enterprises.
* Although opposition, foreign government officials and others
expressed concern that the requirement that land have a socio-economic
productive use would eliminate environmental protection on nature reserves,
like the 1996 legislation, it includes ecological functions and conservation
as valid land uses, even if they do not have an additional social economic
function.
* Small properties, campesino farms and indigenous communities are
exempt from property taxes.
* The newly conformed national agrarian council will determine
landholding and expropriation policy The council includes indigenous
federations, government agencies and ministries, and CONFEAGRO, the Santa
Cruz agricultural organization representing large-scale landowners
* There will also be departmental councils.
* Grants the government the ability to expropriate or revert land by
eminent domain or for incompliance with the required social economic
function and established a detailed administrative process to carry this
out.
* Grants the government the right to expropriate land identified as
illegally obtained as a result of the survey process.
* Allows the government to expropriate land without compensation when
its use violates existing constitutional norms.
* Establishes an appeal process for expropriations, owners must be
paid in full a monetary (or if the owner prefers, land) compensation
calculated based on the market price and taking into account improvements
and investments that the owner has made. Land cannot be expropriated before
full payment. Also part of a property can be reverted back to the state.
* Protects small properties and indigenous communal lands from
expropriation.
* Provides due process guarantees for affected landowners and if the
land is mortgaged, the lending individual or institution has a right to
participate in the process.
* Prohibits land grants to government and agrarian reform officials,
their families, and government contractors.
* Expropriated lands will be granted exclusively to indigenous or
native communities with insufficient land based studies.
* The on site inspection process will take place every two years after
the title has been granted. This gives all those large landowners time to
create an economic or social function for their property, such as buying
cattle. These inspections will focus on properties larger than 120 acres.
* Creates an additional 0.25 percent surcharge to the tax base already
set for agricultural land. The law mandates that municipalities must use at
least 75 percent of these tax revenues for improvements in rural basic
infrastructure and healthcare.
In spite of fiery political rhetoric from both sides and misrepresentation
in the Bolivian and U.S. press, the text of the law merely updates and
modifies the 1996 Agrarian Reform Law passed during the first Gonzalo
Sánchez de Lozada government, and provides clearer guidelines for its
implementation. The desire of the Morales government to enforce the
stipulations of pre-existing constitutional and legal norms for land reform
and to attack decades of corruption and land speculation could dramatically
improve the lives of Bolivia’s rural poor. Bolivia has one of the smallest
populations per square mile in Latin America, theoretically facilitating a
more equitable land distribution. In order to successfully carry out this
objective, MAS officials, opposition parties, and large-scale landowners
will have to put aside past resentments and avoid inflammatory and
accusatory posturing. Bolivia’s capacity to grow and develop as united
nation depends a great deal on the peaceful resolution of this potentially
violent issue.
* Spanish version of the Law is included as an attachment.
[1] Constitución Política del Estado. Bolivia. Articles 22, 165, 167.
2For background information on Agrarian Reform efforts in Bolivia see Doug
Hertzler. “Bolivia’s Agrarian Reform Initiative: An Effort to Keep
Historical Promises.” Andean Information Network. 28 June 2006.
http://www.ain-bolivia.org/Updates/2006/June28%20land%20reform.htm
Please Distribute Widely
For more information or to remove your name from this list please write to
kledebur@ain-bolivia.org.
_____
[1] Constitución Política del Estado. Bolivia. Articles 22, 165, 167.
[2] For background information on Agrarian Reform efforts in Bolivia see
Doug Hertzler. “Bolivia’s Agrarian Reform Initiative: An Effort to Keep
Historical Promises.” Andean Information Network. 28 June 2006.
http://www.ain-bolivia.org/Updates/2006/June28%20land%20reform.htm
Bolivian Congress Passes Agrarian Reform Legislation in Spite of Heightened Regional Tensions*
December 1, 2006
Prepared by the Andean Information Network
On November 29 the Bolivian Senate approved the law modifying Bolivia’s 1996 Agrarian Reform law. The lower house of congress, where President Evo Morales’s MAS party has a clear majority approved the law quickly, but MAS needed 3 votes from opposition parties who hotly contested the initiative. The vote took place after a week of heightened tensions and public protest.
During his campaign Morales promised to redistribute 23 million hectares
within five years. The new law stipulates that land that is not currently
serving an economic or social function may be allocated to indigenous or
campesino communities with insufficient or no land. The legislation follows
the basic land tenure principles specified in the existing Bolivian
constitution, which does not legally recognize massive landholdings
(latifundia) and grants the state the right to expropriate and redistribute
land.[1]The law provides economic compensation to landowners. Bolivian
officials clarify that the initiative will primarily focus on properties
larger than 120 acres. Although the U.S. mainstream press has
characterized it as “radical” and MAS has made repeated statements attacking
the landholding elite, the law passed this week simply modifies the 1996 law
of the Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada government, and does not represent a
dramatic change in land policy.[2] What concerns the political opposition
and large-scale landowners, though, is that it appears that this government
will actually implement the policy, which had been ineffectual and subject
to corruption and favoritism in the past. The initiative’s success will
depend on the Morales administration’s’ capacity to transparently and
objectively implement and interpret the law, and the ability of all parties
to put aside their fondness for inflammatory rhetoric and polarized
positions in favor of a transparent, just policy.
Land debate occurs in heated political context
In early November, members of indigenous groups launched a march from the
lowlands and other rural areas to La Paz to demand passage of the agrarian
reform law, supporting the MAS initiative. Although participation
fluctuated, the march had over a thousand members at its peak. Lowland
agricultural interests led counter protests and opposition senators from
Jorge Quiroga’s PODEMOS and Samuel Doria Medina’s UN party boycotted
congressional sessions for a week.
The battle over land reform occurred at the same time that the Morales
administration proposed accountability legislation and a mechanism to
censure the actions of the independently elected departmental prefects. Six
out of nine prefects, or governors, represent opposition forces and the
traditional political elite, and have been consistently at odds with the
administration. These officials and their supporters said they would reject
any attempt to control their actions from the central government.
Preexisting tensions also soared over the Constitutional Assembly, as
several hundred opposition representatives, assembly delegates, and civic
leaders launched a hunger strike to demand that each article of the new
constitution be approved by a two-thirds vote. The law structuring the
constitutional assembly vaguely states that “the new constitution must be
approved by a two thirds vote.” MAS officials have pushed an initiative
through the assembly stating that individual constitutional articles can be
passed by a simple majority of over fifty percent. (MAS controls 54% of the
Assembly’s seats). As a result of frustrations over the simple majority
decision and heightened regional disputes, a crowd heckled and threw stones
at Morales after a presentation at Santa Cruz’s public university.
Furthermore, civic leaders and prefects called for a nationwide civil strike
on December 1, but only six departments partially complied while the others
operated normally. In Cochabamba, MAS followers tried to break up planning
meetings for the strike and were stopped by the police, under the command of
the regional governor. During the meeting MAS supporters and opposition
members had fistfights and shouting matches in the city’s main plaza.
The pitched battle over agrarian reform
Land reform is one of the most contentious political issues and one of the
focal points behind the regional rift between the highlands and eastern
lowlands. Although the mainstream press characterizes most lowland
residents as descendents of Europeans, the great majority of this region’s
population is indigenous or migrated from the highlands. A significant
portion of the small economic elite, who consider themselves white, whom
benefited from unscrupulous gifts of land by previous military or
traditional party governments, staunchly oppose the land redistribution
initiative.
During the past week statements by both sides have exacerbated the conflict.
On November 23, government press officer, Alex Contreras, published a list
of fourteen families, many linked to traditional political parties,
ex-ministers and current PODEMOS representatives, who he said owned a total
of 7,732,090 acres of unused land with no productive use, and claimed that
over 90 percent of the nation’s land suitable for agriculture had been given
away by political elites between 1953 and 1992. (El Diario 11-24-06).
According Contreras, Walter Guiteras, minister in the government of
ex-dictator Hugo Banzer and current PODEMOS senator, extended family owns
121,208 acres in the Beni Department. Guiteras gave journalists the finger
when they inquired about his holdings. Large-scale Santa Cruz agricultural
interests also vehemently rejected the bill. The head of the National
Agricultural Federation (Confeagro) stated that the new law would “cause the
destruction of the nation agricultural system by breaking the productive
cycle, unemployment and confrontation” (El Diario 11-23-06).
The Bolivian press reprinted information that Santa Cruz agricultural elites
sent two representatives to Spain to hire mercenaries to defend their
interests and overthrow Morales (Los Tiempos 11-24-06).
As tensions heightened, opposition senators boycotted congressional sessions
in protest, provoking threats from Morales to pass the agrarian reform
legislation by Supreme Decree. The central government avoided this
potentially disastrous political move by passing the reform through the
senate in a late night session. Three opposition votes, two from legally
elected alternates, joined the MAS block to pass the new law. The three
representatives were the only opposition party members present for the vote.
The opposition immediately claimed that MAS had bribed the three senators
into voting to pass the laws, but the government expressly denied the
accusation. The shift in position of these three opposition
representatives highlights a lack of cohesion in opposition parties, which
are a conglomeration of defunct traditional parties and other interests.
Their surprise decision to facilitate the law’s passage averted potential
acute social conflict.
Key Aspects of the New Legislation:
* As in the 1996 law, land without a social or economic use is subject
to expropriation.
* The definition of economic and social use includes areas left fallow
for crop rotation, ecological reserves and areas and projected growth of
agricultural enterprises.
* Although opposition, foreign government officials and others
expressed concern that the requirement that land have a socio-economic
productive use would eliminate environmental protection on nature reserves,
like the 1996 legislation, it includes ecological functions and conservation
as valid land uses, even if they do not have an additional social economic
function.
* Small properties, campesino farms and indigenous communities are
exempt from property taxes.
* The newly conformed national agrarian council will determine
landholding and expropriation policy The council includes indigenous
federations, government agencies and ministries, and CONFEAGRO, the Santa
Cruz agricultural organization representing large-scale landowners
* There will also be departmental councils.
* Grants the government the ability to expropriate or revert land by
eminent domain or for incompliance with the required social economic
function and established a detailed administrative process to carry this
out.
* Grants the government the right to expropriate land identified as
illegally obtained as a result of the survey process.
* Allows the government to expropriate land without compensation when
its use violates existing constitutional norms.
* Establishes an appeal process for expropriations, owners must be
paid in full a monetary (or if the owner prefers, land) compensation
calculated based on the market price and taking into account improvements
and investments that the owner has made. Land cannot be expropriated before
full payment. Also part of a property can be reverted back to the state.
* Protects small properties and indigenous communal lands from
expropriation.
* Provides due process guarantees for affected landowners and if the
land is mortgaged, the lending individual or institution has a right to
participate in the process.
* Prohibits land grants to government and agrarian reform officials,
their families, and government contractors.
* Expropriated lands will be granted exclusively to indigenous or
native communities with insufficient land based studies.
* The on site inspection process will take place every two years after
the title has been granted. This gives all those large landowners time to
create an economic or social function for their property, such as buying
cattle. These inspections will focus on properties larger than 120 acres.
* Creates an additional 0.25 percent surcharge to the tax base already
set for agricultural land. The law mandates that municipalities must use at
least 75 percent of these tax revenues for improvements in rural basic
infrastructure and healthcare.
In spite of fiery political rhetoric from both sides and misrepresentation
in the Bolivian and U.S. press, the text of the law merely updates and
modifies the 1996 Agrarian Reform Law passed during the first Gonzalo
Sánchez de Lozada government, and provides clearer guidelines for its
implementation. The desire of the Morales government to enforce the
stipulations of pre-existing constitutional and legal norms for land reform
and to attack decades of corruption and land speculation could dramatically
improve the lives of Bolivia’s rural poor. Bolivia has one of the smallest
populations per square mile in Latin America, theoretically facilitating a
more equitable land distribution. In order to successfully carry out this
objective, MAS officials, opposition parties, and large-scale landowners
will have to put aside past resentments and avoid inflammatory and
accusatory posturing. Bolivia’s capacity to grow and develop as united
nation depends a great deal on the peaceful resolution of this potentially
violent issue.
* Spanish version of the Law is included as an attachment.
[1] Constitución Política del Estado. Bolivia. Articles 22, 165, 167.
2For background information on Agrarian Reform efforts in Bolivia see Doug
Hertzler. “Bolivia’s Agrarian Reform Initiative: An Effort to Keep
Historical Promises.” Andean Information Network. 28 June 2006.
http://www.ain-bolivia.org/Updates/2006/June28%20land%20reform.htm
Please Distribute Widely
For more information or to remove your name from this list please write to
kledebur@ain-bolivia.org.
_____
[1] Constitución Política del Estado. Bolivia. Articles 22, 165, 167.
[2] For background information on Agrarian Reform efforts in Bolivia see
Doug Hertzler. “Bolivia’s Agrarian Reform Initiative: An Effort to Keep
Historical Promises.” Andean Information Network. 28 June 2006.
http://www.ain-bolivia.org/Updates/2006/June28%20land%20reform.htm
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