MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Land reform single major issue for next Paraguayan leader

Land reform stands out as the single biggest issue for Paraguay, a landlocked country of just under 7 million people, where one percent of the population controls 77% of the arable fields.

It is also the biggest challenge facing elected president Fernando Lugo, a bearded, sandal-clad former Roman Catholic bishop who won election in April when Paraguay joined the continent's swing to the left and ended six decades of conservative single-party rule. With the August 15 inauguration of the man known as "the bishop of the poor," peasants feel they are their first real chance to address an age-old land dilemma. But the way Lugo deals with the land issue will go a long way toward determining whether he will govern as a self anointed revolutionary leftist, like Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, or more of a middle-of-the-road pragmatist, like Brazil's Lula da Silva. Across Latin America, land reform has been the battle cry of generations of populist leaders. But results have generally been modest, as in Mexico and Brazil. In Bolivia, President Evo Morales has provoked a constitutional crisis with his efforts to seize land from large agribusiness for the poor indigenous majority. In Paraguay, South America's second poorest nation after Bolivia, land ownership is the key to wealth, or even survival. The country has very little industry, and as much as 42% of its people live in poverty. By most accounts, the land gap dates back nearly 140 years to a war Paraguay lost to Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. Devastated and saddled with crushing war debt, Paraguay began selling off its government holdings that at the time amounted to 95% of the country. Over the years, the most fertile parcels went to political cronies, and many profited by reselling land to wealthy foreigners. Privatization accelerated under the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner from 1954 to 1989 and into the early 1990s. A 2004 government study found that some 7 million hectares ended up in the hands of just 1,877 people. The hope of land reform helped drive Lugo's election, and now the pressure is on him to deliver. In dozens of land invasions since the election, peasant groups have burned tractors, briefly taken hostages and helped themselves to tools and cell phones before retreating. An estimated 150,000 to 225,000 Paraguayans claim some affiliation with the various, scattered land groups, and some 50,000 are camped illegally on soy farms and ranches. So far president elect Lugo has managed to balance both sides. He has persuaded most peasant leaders to stop invading property by promising priority for land relief. He has also assured private landowners that he'll respect their holdings. And he has studiously avoided the kind of revolutionary rhetoric that elevated class tensions and spooked investors in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, taking pains to say that both landowners and the landless have legitimate claims. "The constitution guarantees private property," Lugo said shortly after the election, "but it also guarantees the right of all Paraguayans to have access to a piece of land". Lugo, who has spent many years ministering to poor farmers, has asked for patience. He says he plans to buy or expropriate abandoned or illegally acquired land and redistribute it to peasant farmers, along with property the government already holds. His supporters plan a national survey to determine who owns what land â€" a project would take at least two years, and require help from international lending organizations. Lugo will have to contend with government bureaucracies still dominated by political patronage hires, and avoid alienating the soy growers and cattle ranchers who keep Paraguay's economy sputtering along. Land redistribution has been the law in Paraguay for decades, but the agencies charged with carrying it out have been accused of inefficiency and corruption. Lugo has also given few specifics of how he plans to implement reform, other than promising loans, technical assistance, schools and public health programs, all of which already are government policy. The incoming president will also be conditioned by having only a tenuous majority coalition in Congress, which by law must approve all land expropriations. Besides landowners can appeal takeovers and the courts are dominated by judges appointed by the long-ruling Colorado Party.