BOLIVIA: PRESIDENT EVO MORALES PREPARES LAND-REFORM PROGRAM.

The Bolivian government began a sweeping land-reform program in June after negotiations with large-scale landholders broke down in late May. President Evo Morales seeks to conduct a large-scale "agrarian revolution" to distribute farmlands to poor campesinos and to break up latifundios (huge estates), many of which were amassed during past dictatorships. The land-reform program bears similarities to that Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez (see NotiSur, 2005-03-18, 2005-10-28), but also has roots in more than 50 years of different Bolivian administrations' mostly failed efforts to make land distribution more equitable.

On June 3, Morales launched the program by handing over roughly 26,000 sq km of state-owned property to indigenous communities. More land, including unused private property, is slated to be turned over as part of Morales' agrarian revolution.

"Some business owners are trying to subdue us, but I tell myself--they, their grandparents have subjugated our lands for more than 500 years and these lands have to return to the hand of the absolute owners of this noble land, who are Quechuas, Aymaras, Mojenos, Chipayas, Chiquitanos," said Morales at the June 3 handover ceremony in Santa Cruz.

The land-reform project followed Morales' May 1 announcement that Bolivia would be nationalizing the country's massive natural-gas reserves (see NotiSur, 2006-05-12). Foreign-owned energy companies have six months to negotiate new contracts or leave the country.

Thousands of Indians gathered in the eastern city of Santa Cruz to receive land titles, chanting "Evo!" and waving Bolivian and rainbow whipala flags, which represent 500 years of Indian struggle.

"We want to change Bolivia together," Morales told the crowd. "Getting back the land means we're getting back all the natural resources, we're nationalizing all the natural resources."

"The greatest need right now is the recovery of our territory," Wilson Chacaray, a Guarani Indian leader, told the crowd. "The landowners, the foreign companies, the political parties that have always dominated this country took our land from us and that's why we live in misery."

Talks with landholders suspended

The ceremony came after talks broke down between Morales and agribusiness leaders on the land reforms that will involve handing out about 200,000 sq km of government land--an area twice the size of Portugal--during the next five years.

The land currently targeted for redistribution was set aside for that...

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