MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Peasant death forces Paraguay to ban foreign land holders

The killing of a landless peasant in Paraguay during a police eviction process in a farm belonging to a Brazilian national, decided the government on Tuesday to suspend all sales of land to foreigners.

"The subscription of all administrative procedures for the purchase from beneficiaries of the agrarian facility by non holders of such condition is banned", read a resolution released in internet by the National Institute for Rural and Land Development, Indert. Physical foreign persons are no longer beneficiaries of the agrarian facility, added the release. The sale of rights and shares of plots by agrarian facility holders to non holders in no longer legally valid or binding in Paraguay. Bievenido Mereles, 45, a peasant leader was killed with a shot in the neck last Friday during an armed confrontation between the police in the process of evicting landless peasants from a farm belonging to Oscar Farver, a Brazilian national. The farm was located 500 kilometres to the northeast of the Paraguayan capital Asunción, next to the Brazilian border. The ban imposed by the administration of President Fernando Lugo could aggravate an ongoing conflict between the big soy bean farmers and organized peasant groups which have the tacit sympathy from government and during the electoral campaign in 2007 were promised plots of land. Paraguay is the world's fourth largest exporter of soybeans but peasant groups and the new administration of President Lugo claim big farmers are using agro toxic products which contaminate land and water. Paraguayan Finance minister Dionisio Borda said on Monday that before December the government would be announcing a system of duties of farm exports, similar to that prevalent in Argentina. Some economic experts warned that the government ban endangers the production of big farms, mostly in Brazilian hands whose property rights over the land in some cases "could be lacking complete legality" Claudia Ruser, president of Paraguay's Soy Farmers Association blamed the government and specifically President Lugo for the increasing violence in the countryside. Ms. Roser described the organized land invader gangs as "thugs and bandits" and warned that many farmers are armed and prepared to defend their properties and production.