MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bolivian peasants promised 30 million hectares of land

Bolivian president Evo Morales signed Thursday a decree which further advances his controversial “agrarian revolution” of expropriation of idle land to distribute among the aboriginal population and which is strongly resisted by business sectors.

During the ceremony President Morales also handed land ownership documents involving 70.000 hectares in central Bolivia and proclaimed August 2 as the "Agrarian Revolution Day". One of the more controversial aspects of the bill is that it enables the government to confiscate idle land and land which does not comply "with a social economic function", wording strongly rejected by the powerful farm lobbies of the eastern province of Santa Cruz. The new regulation establishes "social control" over agrarian affairs and sets clear bases for an effective combat against "fraud and deceit" thus avoiding land concentration and speculation, said the Deputy Lands minister. Morales said that in a year and a half his administration had granted property documents to 5.5 million hectares at a cost of "5 to 6 million US dollars" which compares most favorably with the previous liberal administrations that since 1996 documented 9 million hectares at a cost of 90 million US dollars, clearing indicating "funds were stolen and it was a rip-off". The Morales administration has also distributed half a million hectares of fiscal land among Indians, compared to the 36.000 in the previous ten years. The land bill and regulation are strongly resisted by the business organizations of Santa Cruz province, the most autonomous region of Bolivia that has repeatedly threatened with scission and warns that any project born "without consensus from the sides, leads nowhere" Gabriel Dabdoub, president of the Santa Cruz Chamber of Industry, Trade, Services and Tourism warned that farmers will not invest and production will fall, "not because they do not wish to invest, but because of lack of guarantees". The Morales administration estimates that between 20 and 30 million hectares will remain in the hands of the big farmers who will have the necessary legal framework, but a similar or greater area will be under control of Indians and peasants. Morales also declared August 2 the "Agrarian Revolution Day". In 1937 August 2 was born as "Indian Day" and since 1953, when a previous attempt to distribute land, as the "Agrarian Reform Day".